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Hi, I'm the new guy!

A

Archangel

New member
I just bought my first snake on Friday! He is a cute Amel albino(?) corn snakey that I named Pyro. He seems to be a juvenile and is super friendly with me. The problem is the cage I want is in the process of being freight delivered to the store. I didn't want to take him home and have to move him twice so they will care for him until then. The wait is agonizing.

There is a silver lining to this as I am able to collect more information. I just ordered a Zoomed thermostat and a IR thermometer gun. However, I am really lost in what size UTH to get. The cage I am getting is a Exo Terra 24x18x18. I know most people say to get a 20 gal long but, this works out to be about 34 gallons. He loves to climb so I wanted to give him that height. Would anyone know a size UTH for this tank? Thanks!
 
Welcome! I'm pretty new as a posting member too. I also have an albino who is almost 6 years old and I have had her since she was 3 months old.

I also use an IR thermometer which I love because I can check the temperature of every square inch. But I also have a digital probe thermometer I keep on the warm side as backup.

As for your UTH - I believe that the Zoomed ones are sized based on volume in gallons (for example you would buy the one for 30 to 40 gallon tanks which I believe is the medium size). The usual recommendation is to make 1/3 of the viv warm.

And I totally get the loving to climb. My snake will climb absolutely anything, so I just found this cool tree thing for her to climb in her viv.

Congrats on your snake!
 
Nice to meet you and thanks for the info! Your snake looks great too. The 30-40 gallon zoo med is 8x12 which sounds good. The Exo Terra medium is 10x11...descions lol. Do you put the thermostat probe in the cage above UTH or on the UTH? I feel the sticky stuff would make it hard with probe in the future.
 
Welcome to the forum.

Your floor area is 324 sq in. A 20 gallon long is 360 sq in floor area. I have a 6x8 UTH which is 48 sq in my my 20 gal long. I would go by floor area rather than tank volume. What you are providing is a heated area of the floor, not heating the entire tank.

I would go with a small which is working fine for me, but it's your final decision as to go small or medium.

Most people put the thermostat probe on the inside of the tank directly on the glass and if needed, hot glue it in place right next to thermometer probe-- all of this under the substrate in the center of the warm hide. Be sure to not to use anything tape or sticky in the viv. Alternatively, you can place the probe between the UTH and the glass on the outside. I have mine that way because I have no good way to run wires through my screen lid.

It is better to stick the UTH to foil and then duck tape it, foil side to glass, to the outside of the bottom of the viv. Then you can safely remove and reuse the UTH.
 
I do the same thing as Dolly's mom only I don't foil mine because my heat pad is not actually sticky so it just sits between the tank and a piece of insulation. I'd love to see a picture of another albino once you get him home!
 
DollysMom said:
Welcome to the forum.

Your floor area is 324 sq in. A 20 gallon long is 360 sq in floor area. I have a 6x8 UTH which is 48 sq in my my 20 gal long. I would go by floor area rather than tank volume. What you are providing is a heated area of the floor, not heating the entire tank.

I would go with a small which is working fine for me, but it's your final decision as to go small or medium.

Most people put the thermostat probe on the inside of the tank directly on the glass and if needed, hot glue it in place right next to thermometer probe-- all of this under the substrate in the center of the warm hide. Be sure to not to use anything tape or sticky in the viv. Alternatively, you can place the probe between the UTH and the glass on the outside. I have mine that way because I have no good way to run wires through my screen lid.

It is better to stick the UTH to foil and then duck tape it, foil side to glass, to the outside of the bottom of the viv. Then you can safely remove and reuse the UTH.
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Hi, and thank you for your response. I actually bought the Zoomed 6x8 10-20 gallon UTH first lol, but I thought that perhaps with the cage being the size it was that it needed to be bigger. I did not take into account the sq in. so thank you for that. Aluminum foil seems like a great idea too, I'll try with the probe inside the cage under the substrate first and if it doesn't work out I'll just do what you did. Thanks once again for your wisdom!
 
jagodzinski said:
I do the same thing as Dolly's mom only I don't foil mine because my heat pad is not actually sticky so it just sits between the tank and a piece of insulation. I'd love to see a picture of another albino once you get him home!
Click to expand...

Hopefully, these look okay lol. He likes to go around my neck :3 . I haven't measured him yet but they say he is a 1-2 years old.
 

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Archangel said:
Thanks! He looks a little fat in the picture with his whole body cause he just ate minutes ago from when it was taken.
Click to expand...

It's a good rule of thumb to allow your corn at least 48 hours to digest a meal before handling, just to avoid any instances of regurgitation. :3
 
Gina Hyena said:
It's a good rule of thumb to allow your corn at least 48 hours to digest a meal before handling, just to avoid any instances of regurgitation. :3
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The pics of him on me were weeks before the pic of him eating, but thank you for your concern :) Any other tips you might have will be grand though, as I want him to be very comfortable when he comes home. I'm really scared of messing up lol.
 
Archangel said:
Hi, and thank you for your response. I actually bought the Zoomed 6x8 10-20 gallon UTH first lol, but I thought that perhaps with the cage being the size it was that it needed to be bigger. I did not take into account the sq in. so thank you for that. Aluminum foil seems like a great idea too, I'll try with the probe inside the cage under the substrate first and if it doesn't work out I'll just do what you did. Thanks once again for your wisdom!
Click to expand...

You are welcome-- Acquired knowledge maybe, wisdom not so much. The foil idea is not mine, but was given to me by another member (wish I could remember which one), but it is a really good idea and I know more than a few here have done it.
 
P.S. I answered before I saw the pics of your snake. He looks like a total sweetheart. So cute! Congrats.
 
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