Heater too hot?

[heysharon]

Hello everyone! I am new to the forum and have owned my first snake, a kingsnake (technically my daughter's) for 3 weeks. I'm trying to get the under tank heater at the right temp for his basking spot. Where should the probe be placed to measure the temperature? On the glass bottom, or at the top of the substrate?

[lady_bug87]

The probe should be wherever the snake sits

[Amadeus]

Do you have a thermostat?

[Mikoh4792]

It can be used inside and outside. It depends on what kind of heater you are using. With Flexwatt and Ultra therm heat pads I usually place the probe outside directly on the heat source, and adjust it to make the desired hotspot inside the cage.

With heateres like zoomed heat pad, and other heat pads with a sticky side and a thick backing(so little heat goes through the back of the pad) I put the probes inside the enclosure, inside the warm hide. I'll secure it usually heavy logs, hides..etc. I only do this for smaller animals, when my animals are bigger I use the first method I mentioned above.

[heysharon]

I'm shopping for a thermostat. Right now I have the heater on a dimmer switch and I'm monitoring the temp closely. How hot is too hot? I moved the probe to near the top of the mulch where he lays under the hide, and he's there now. I've been gone for a few hours, now Temp reads 104 so I turned the dimmer down a notch. The mulch feels warm but not that hot... warmer than my skin temp. It's a 20 gallon tank, so he can move to the hide in the cool end if he wants. He just shed completely while I was gone.

[Concept9]

In my opinion.

The Best thing to do for Kingsnakes is run two thermostats.

Place the probe for one thermostat under the substrata and on top of the UTH. Set the thermostat for 85deg. This will keep the bottom of the tank warn and provide belly heat.

REMEMBER, Kingsnakes love to burrow, if you run your UTH to hot, you may or will burn your animal.

Set the other thermostat up to your main heat source. CHE, heat lamp or heat panel. set this for 90 deg. This will give you a 90deg basking area with no chance in burning the animal.

This should give you the following, depending on your enclosure.

88-92deg hot end.
75-78deg cool end.
83deg ambient tem.

Humidity should be kept at around 40-50%

Hope this helps.