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Heat Lamp Safety

Twoboyz

Twoboyz

New member
Does anyone know how safe it is to leave a heat lamp on all day while I'm not home? Can I leave the lamp off and just use an UTH during the day? Is the natural daylight enough? I'm concerned about a fire starting. I'm also worried about the UTH because Aztec likes to burrow. Will the UTH damage my furniture? Does it get hot enough to start a fire? Sorry for all the weird questions, I'm really new to this.

Thanks!
 
As long as the UTH is properly controlled by a thermostat it will not get anywhere NEAR hot enough to damage furniture or start a fire. The heat lamp is completely unnecessary, and you can just toss it.
 
I am with ceduke.. you do not need a heat lamp, all you need is the UTH.

1. Corns need belly heat to properly digest and thermoregulate.
2. Warm side should be 83-85 and cool side can be between 68-75.
3. Uth's with out a thermostat or Rheostat will climb to temps as high as 120 degrees,
make sure you have it regulated.
4. Without it regulated, your corn can get burns, start to refuse to eat, start to
regurge or get to hot.
5. If you wish to use extra light to see in the tank occasionally just turn it on when you
are looking in the tank.
6. Overhead lamps (bulbs) dry out the tank/viv which can lead to problems with sheds.

Hope the extra information helps.
 
Thanks for the helpful I formation. I feel better now. I have an UTH on order. Now I just have to get the thermostat and figure out how to set it all up.

Thanks!
 
While you are waiting for your UTH if your house is generally around 70 or so, then you still do not need to use the lamps so long as you do not feed your snake. IF your UTH will arrive say with in the next week or two, I would not worry about it, so long as your room temps do not drop below 70 and you do not feed your snake.

If it is going to take longer than that to get the UTH, then you could use the lamps say just for the 5 days that you need for feeding time. Set it up and stablize the temp a day ahead of when you are going to feed, then feed the next day and keep the heat on for the next 3 days. Thus you have time to stabilize temps and to allow your snake to digest.

It is hard to stabilize temps using a heat lamp though, your only really way of adjusting is to raise up and lower down the lamp, thus giving more or less heat to the warm side.

Make sure that the type of thermometer that you are checking your temps with is a digital one. The sticky dial and strip ones are famous for being highly inaccurate, as much as 10-20 degrees either way. As well make sure that your digital thermometer probe is lying right on the bottom of the viv where the UTH will be and where the snake can burrow to, as they do like to burrow and when you get the UTH it will burrow to get to the heat.

If you temporarily use a heat lamp then place the probe inside the warm hide on the substrate as you will want to check the air temp in there as lamp only heat air.
 
Thanks. It seems the Zilla Deluxe Snake kit came with a bunch of stuff I don't need. I should have researched on these boards before I got my setup. I ordered the heater and thermostat to deliver Fed Ex so I should hopefully have it before the first feed. The digital thermometers seem to be expensive, but it's good to know.

Thanks!
 
Unfortunately, it does!! It is really frustrating how these "pet" companies sell so many things that are totally inappropriate for various types of pets. You can get a really great digital thermometer at Walmart in the sporting goods department (I believe) it has the probe, it shows two temps, so you place the probe on the warm side and place the thermometer on the cool side and it also tells you the humidity. Look about half way down the page on this thread. http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97510 It is only $10-$15.

Thermostats(used to regulate the UTH) can be expensive but you can use a Rheostat instead and they sell at Walmart for $10-$15 as well. You want to look for a Leviton or Lutron table top lamp dimmer. You just plug the dimmer into the wall and then the UTH into the dimmer. Then slide the controler on the dimmer to about 1/3 and check the temp in about 1 hr. If your temp on the glass above the UTH is not 83-85 then adjust accordingly. Here is a picture of one the table top lamp dimmers I use. http://www.smarter.com/light-switches/leviton-l32-tbi03-1lw-tabletop-slide/pd--ch-47--pi-26671914.html All of my tanks are on these instead of Thermostats as I have snakes all over my house. I strictly follow 3-6 mth quarantine rules so it would have been very expensive to buy thermostats for each tank in each different place (there are 10 snakes here now).
 
I was unaware walmart had reostats! I will check that out tomorrow. I could only find one at a petshop for like $80 made special for reptiles. 10-15 is a huge difference! It will also finish out my hatchling rack!
 
carnivorouszoo said:
I was unaware walmart had reostats! I will check that out tomorrow. I could only find one at a petshop for like $80 made special for reptiles. 10-15 is a huge difference! It will also finish out my hatchling rack!
Click to expand...

Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot all carry them for about $10.
 
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