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Tank Heating Issues

Z

zlehmann

New member
Hey all,

No worries, there isn't a snake in the tank yet. However my UTH doesn't seem to be heating my tank all that much. I have a thermometer on both far ends of the tank and they're both around 80F. The bottom of the UTH feels warm, but not too hot to touch or anything. It's only getting the hot end of the tank a few degrees above 80 and the cool side is a few degrees below 80. How do you cool down a tank?
 
A few degrees below 80 is probably your room temperature. You are not going to get it cooler than that and you really don’t need to. You really can’t tell much by feeling with your hand. Remember you are 98.6* so 85*isn’t going to feel warm to you.

You didn’t say what kind of thermometer you are using but it is hard to get a good temperature reading. The best way is to use a thermometer with a probe that you can bury in the substrate. That is the temperature that your snake will be feeling.

Stick on thermometers are worthless. Even thermometers standing in the corners are not going to measure the temperature of what matters.
 
i had 2 regular therms placed right below the substrate. i was more concerned with not having a good enough temp gradient in the tank, but you think 75-80/5 is ok?
 
zlehmann said:
i had 2 regular therms placed right below the substrate. i was more concerned with not having a good enough temp gradient in the tank, but you think 75-80/5 is ok?
Click to expand...

Well as Wade stated the stick on thermometers are worthless. And I think....
that your not getting good readings. You said that the bottom of the UTH is warm but not to hot??? What's the bottom??? And your shooting for mid 80's and with body temp around 98, the UTH shouldn't feel warm.
You might need to get therm's with probes.
 
hmmm I'll see if I can pick those up then. out of curiosity how do you guys keep readings with huge breeding racks? you have individual therms for all those tanks?!
 
I would be wary, because my substrate levels were reading about 80-84, but until I did some tweaking, down to the glass where the pad was, was reading up to 94. I had to place a tile on top of the heat pad, and elevate the tank more so some air could get under, and now it stays right around 84-86. Now if I could just get the cold side to be about 5 degrees warmer..... :[
 
well i'm a little concerned that my uth might not be very good. It is only raising the temp of the hot side of my tank about 5 degrees warmer than the room temp.
 
zlehmann said:
well i'm a little concerned that my uth might not be very good. It is only raising the temp of the hot side of my tank about 5 degrees warmer than the room temp.
Click to expand...

Well if your room temp is 78 degrees then your fine.

Can you tell a little about your set up. what are you using, where it is everything place in the set up etc and what's your room temp.
 
the room temp is somewhere between 75-80. I have the tank on a stand thats about 3 ft high and a uth for a 20 gal tank. the tank doesnt sit on a shelf, its supported just on its edges, so the heat pad isnt touching anything but the tank. its in the corner of my room next to the heaters and window.
 
I've been reading a lot about tiles to reduce heat? But I'm assuming that's only to buffer heat from the UTH.

To clarify when i said it wasn't hot to the touch, I was placing my hand under the tank (on my UTH). I also realize that my body temp is higher, but the last time I touched something around 90 F it was pretty damn hot.
 
Your hand is not a thermometer so forget that way to measure temps.
Good buy a thermometer witha probe. You can get this at a pet store or hardware store (an indoor/outdoor thermometer). Hot glue the probe in the viv above the UTH. this will give you the hottest temps that the snake can touch. Don't worry about the cool side unless you house temp goes below 60 degrees.
 
First off I would like to thank everyone for the responses, you probably just saved me from a serious problem (I'm glad I gave this tank a test run before I got the snake!).

Ok so I moved my therms down to under the substrate and my low is cooking at about 82-ish F, but my hot side shot up to almost 100!! Now I've read on here about people using tiles to lower the temp on the UTH. I'm assuming you put the UTH under the tile which is under the tank?

Thanks again for all the help, us newbies really appreciate it!
 
Well this sounds crazy and elaborate, but this is what I had to do, because nothing was lowering the temps enough. My first mistake was to stick the UTH straight to the tank. (I didnt know any better), so the hot side was way too hot. So everything I did is inside the tank. I put a piece of cardboard down, directly above the pad, then a piece of tile, then another piece of cardboard. Now I'm about to hot glue the cardboard down so the snake can't get under it. All that just to keep my temps at about 84. I guess point being you may just have to experiment with different things until you can find something that works. Oh, and a rheostat or thermostat would help tremendously as well...
 
Okay..I've been hearing about thermometers and uth's through all of this..yes thermometers with probes are a must..but what about something to control the UTH..nobody even brought that fact into play..are you using a thermostat or light dimmer to control your uth? Without it the pad will get extremely hot!! which is why your probably getting readings of over 100..because your uth is running wild..It has nothing to maintain it..I have my heating pads stuck to the bottoms of all my snake tanks..all 3 heating pads are controlled by a single thermostat that keeps the temp of the uth at 85 degrees constantly...the cool side I just let my room heat up and cool down...

Good choices for a thermostat are:

Repti-Therm500R (sold affordable at "Reptilesupply.com)
Helix thermostat (not sure where to get them but that is the one I use)
Or you can even get a light dimmer or rheostat (just don't get the zoomed rheostat as it almost never works out..there have been some successes but many people say they have problems..) Hope this has helped a bit..
 
Yeah I have the zoomed rheostat, and it doesn't control my pad enough. Even on the lowest setting, it gets up to high 90's, so I plan on upgrading to a thermostat asap. Hell, if you got a thermostat, you wouldn't have all these problems, just set it at the desired temp, and it does all the adjusting.
 
Yea I'm really excited. I'm forcing myself to wait for the local herp show on the 25th, it's killing me!! Some advice to anyone else looking to get started, set the tank up early and test everything out. This would have been a royal pain with a snake involved, dangerous too.
 
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