Viv setup - Heating Woes

[-Adam-]

Thank you so much @Herptology

Everything I've read from books to online gives both a hot and a cool heat area - although it sounds like the cool heat area is really not applicable at all - just make sure there's a warm spot that matches the warm requirements. This makes things significantly more simple as I was wondering how people balance the heat and cool areas so precisely!

I'll stop worrying about the ambient air temp and will focus solely on the tile/hotspot and see what I can come up with. Once again thanks for the clarification!

Overthinking it is something of a weakness for me.

Cheers

Adam
[doublepost=1569825875,1569824963][/doublepost]Oh no - he's back (and probably overthinking it again)...

Just checked the viv after putting some weight and letting it rest on the paper and I was right with my guess- the surface temperature has risen once there was some weight put on the paper.

The paper with no weight is 30° (probably risen a little since I've had a heater in the room compared to this morning)

However the paper is 35° where the weight was on it.

The tiles underneath have risen to 41° now.

So - do I go for a surface temperature with no weight on it and aim to raise the temp a little, or do I consider what the surface temperature would be if the snake was on it (which I emulated by putting something else there to create that weight on the paper).

Also - if the snake was to burrow under the paper is 41° too hot that it could burn the snake, or should it be OK (ie, the snake would eventually find it uncomfortable and be able to escape back to a cooler part of the enclosure).

 

[Herpetology]

Rule of thumb, if you can’t comfortably hold your hand on it without wanting to lift your hand, it’s ok

You should place the thermometer over the paper but the tricky part is having it In a way the snake can’t move it, I’ve just gone lazy and put probe under the paper and bumped it a few degrees higher (another trick you can do is go under the paper then poke the tip through)

 

[Wokka]

If you silicon heat cord and probe to the tile you wont damage the borrowed cage. I think 70 watts of heat is too much for that cage, if the thermostat sticks on, but maybe you have deleted the globe now. The cool end can be as cool as you like, just like it may be in the desert in the night where womas come from.

 

[Melmy]

No you wouldn’t need to change heat cord around. I don’t cover my heat tiles with anything substrate-wise to simplify things.
There are some differing views regarding cool end. The local breeder I got my children’s pythons from recommended keeping the cool end at 22-24 for their first year, but not everyone does it that way of course.

 

[Blighty]

No you wouldn’t need to change heat cord around. I don’t cover my heat tiles with anything substrate-wise to simplify things.
There are some differing views regarding cool end. The local breeder I got my children’s pythons from recommended keeping the cool end at 22-24 for their first year, but not everyone does it that way of course.

Yeah, I tend to leave the cool end at ambient room temperature. Perhaps I am wrong, but somewhere between the basking spot and whatever ambient is they will find a nice middle-ground temperature. Maybe if you had extreme cold or something you were dealing with it might be a different story.

 

[-Adam-]

Once again - thank you so much for your help guys. I'm so grateful for the amount of people willing to take time (and patience) to help me get this right.

I checked my viv this morning:

16° on the cool end,
26-28° at the hot end (on the paper)
31° on the paper in the hide, and
30 at the hot end (on the paper after weight added), and
37° directly on the tiles underneath the paper.

That's seems like a huge heat gradient from cold to hot. I'm guessing that the heat cord only heats directly and will have little impact on the rest of the viv.

I'm getting a Juvi, so I definitely would like to get the cool end up a little. (The recommendation for Woma's that I have read is 25° which confirms @Melmy 's breaders recommendation so I'm still a fair way off that at this stage).

I don't know if 16° is extreme cold @Blighty , but I do know that this is in a cold room facing the south and the overnight outside temp was only down to 1°. We can get to -6° which has me thinking in winter that the cold end could get quite cold overnight if I leave it how it is.

• Is using the IR Bulb the best solution to increasing heat at the cool end by ~10°? (I'm assuming leave the globe at the hot end, but allow it to heat the cool). Or are there other alternatives that I should be considering?

• If using the bulb, should I have a different thermostat for the globe so the ambient temp is controlled separately to the heat cord?

Just to answer your question @Wokka I had eliminated the globe out of the equation but think I may need to put it back in for ambient temp.

A bit of a pity as it draws a lot power compared to the heat cord but the heat cord is allowing the viv to get too cold for my liking elsewhere.


Again - thanks so much for all the help provided.
[doublepost=1569883009,1569882784][/doublepost]By populate demand I have purchased some silicon and the tape is now gone. (I am listening ) Thanks @Wokka for giving me the confidence to silicon my loaned heat cord. Job may not look pretty - but it's holding it in place.








(The large round container is temporary and has some weights in it and is being used to emulate how much the heat on paper will change between having nothing sitting on it vs a snake curled up on it)
[doublepost=1570494194][/doublepost]________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


OK - I'm revisiting this again and I think I've got my head around it. After checking out some international care sheets I see that they don't specify a upper and lower temperature. Instead they specify a Hotspot / basking temperature and ambient air temperature. In these cases the hotspot is the upper temp, and the ambient the lower temperature, which tends to make a lot more sense to me.

As such - I'm guessing that the Aussie Woma caresheet is meaning:

The basking surface should be kept betwen 32°c-35°c and the ambient air temperature at the opposite end of the Vivarium should be around 25°c.
For Hatchlings the temperature gradient should be less with the basking surface at 32° and the ambient air at 25°.

... Letting everything else fall where it does if these two are correct.

Is this a better interpretation of the instructions?


If so - it seems that the best approach is to have two thermostats. One for the hotspot controlling the heat cord, and one for the ambient air temp controlling a bulb.

Yes - I'm aware that some may think that this is an overkill and aren't worried about how cold it gets however in my case this is for a hatchling and given that temperatures got down to 16° in the cage I think I need to control the ambient to assist in healthy development.