• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Heat Question

E

egermann04

New member
I'm trying to get back into snakes and when I owned one before I really only knew the basking light way of heating. I'm not really familiar with the uth heaters. I recently purchased an enclosure that has a set up for a light on the inside and the guy also gave me one of the smaller zoo med uth that i wanna make work with it. There's a pic of the enclosure in my welcome thread
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=97989
The guy I bought it from said that it would be fine to just put the uth under the substrate. The reason I wanna use the uth is because after the bulb and the protector over the bulb is seems that it might be a little bit crowded on that side. The guy seemed very knowledgeable of reptiles and had a very wide collection of them. I bought it with the assumption that I would be able to just use that and throw in the substrate hides waterbowl and thermometer and have it up and running. Any suggestions as to what I'd be able to do. I'm planning on having my tank set up and running for a couple of day before I actually put a snake in there to make sure the temp is right. I read somewhere about just putting a piece of linoleum over the uth inside the cage and sealing around it with linoleum. Again any help would be more than welcome I just wanna be able to keep a snake alive and happy rather than rush into like I want to with the excitement that's building up which I'm sure everyone goes through.
 
Are you able to attach the UTH under the enclosure somehow? They are meant to go under, not in, the enclosure, but it's hard to tell from your pic if that's possible. If not, I'm not familiar with the linoleum method. Hopefully someone else will pipe up. :)
 
No. The enclosure is made of 3/4" wood. Or I've seen some people tile the bottom over the uth. Or the dimmer switch that I've slightly heard about.
 
I have vivs like that and some have the UTH inside. I just lay it on the floor, place a (loose) layer of ceramic wall tiles over the surface and add extra shielding where the wire enters the mat (most likely to cause a problem if accidentally pooped on). I put the stat probe on top of the tile layer and then cover with substrate. Sometimes the snakes shuffle the tiles around, but not enough to cause a problem.

I wouldn't put the UTH under anything and then seal it down - makes cleaning and maintenance impossible. Plus if you seal something over the top, you risk it overheating and you won't be able to see the damage happening. A UTH needs some sort of air flow over the surface. Ceramic wall tiles are good as a covering layer, as they have textured back surfaces to allow tile adhesive to key onto them. This allows ventilation when used on top of a UTH. The ceramic also conducts the heat well and diffuses it, providing a great spot for Corns to absorb the belly heat that they do best with.
 
Alright cool thanks for the help I'm guessing I'll also add those cork kinda feet (or something similar) to the corners of the tile so it's not resting on the plastic piece where the cord comes out of the uth. And as for further precaution make one of these til i'm actually able to purchase a proper rheostat with a probe; http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19168
Anyone have any input on how well these will work? here in northern Ca it doesn't get too cold (especially during summer) so I don't think that I'd have to really worry about it getting too cold. Srry if it seems like I'm a bit paranoid about it I'm just very ocd when it comes to certain things especially living things that I can vouch that I can care for and keep alive.
 
I'm sure that rheostat works fine, but you can get one already made for you for about $12 or so. It's called a lamp dimmer and you just need to find the kind that allows you to plug a lamp directly in it (but you would plug the UTH into it). It's up to you, because it looks like the one you make yourself would cost a little less. You still need a thermometer, preferably with a probe, to check the temperature and dial the dimmer to the temperature you want. You can get a probe type thermometer for pretty cheap at Walmart too. Look for the ones that are meant as indoor/outdoor thermometers with a digital readout; the kind with the probe that you would normally put outside. You should be able to find one under $10.
 
I went to walmart last night looking for one with no luck of ANY thermometer but the walmart near my house is a bit old and kinda understocked. I actually found a digital thermometer with a probe for $10 at a reptile store I was told about yesterday in Auburn, Ca called Auburn Reptile Company. They seemed a bit bare due to them packing up for the San Mateo show but were very helpful.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top