Dumeril Boa Heat

[rebelluver]

I got a Dumeril yesterday. I have had a ball python and Central American Boa in the past. I always used newspaper as a substrate before, but I noticed she had trouble with her last shed because there is still some skin there.I wanted to make sure the humidity was up and that doesn't work with newspaper in Las Vegas.

I went to the reptile specialty shop here and the guy recommended the cypress mulch. It works great... for humidity. It stays at 60% just being in there. The problem is the heat. With my reptitherm UTH the temperature does not move at all. It is 78 in my apartment, it reads 78 in the tank. There is a warm spot in the substrate, but the heat does not transfer up at all. I keep hearing people talk about turning theirs down so I bought a thermostat, and instead I am not making near enough heat. It is a 40 gallon tank, and it has the corresponding 40 gallon heater on it. It all works great, if you put your hand on the glass, it is hot. It works.

Is this just the substrate eating up all that heat? Should I add another uth? I don't want to go the route of heat lamp. Is there a special place I should take the temp from? My thermometer is about halfway up the glass on the hot side.

Because it a screen top I placed a sheet over it to hold heat in. That just raises the humidity too high and it barely moved the temp anyway. I am really baffled here because nobody else seems to have this problem.

The snake seems ok because she goes back and forth from hot to cold burying herself on either side.

I have about 1.5 to 2 inches of substrate in there.

[dannybgoode]

Ditch the uth and get a ceramic heater or radiant heat panel. But then my dislike odd uth's is well documented :D

[TeaNinja]

i have a ceramic heat bulb for both my dumerils.

[Andy_G]

With dumerils, 78-80 is a fine ambient, just make sure the hot spot is around 86...90 tops but they like it a bit cooler... and measure that particular spot with a temp gun on and under the substrate. If the glass is hot to the touch then it's probably much too hot. You will be surprised at what the ACTUAL reading is and that's the only correct way to check. Measure exactly where the snake is, not the air temp above, when using undertank heating methods.

I have to admit...sometimes using others means of heat is excellent advice and totally correct and warranted...but under these particular circumstances it seems to have nothing to do with the correct husbandry of the species..if the OP wasn't hitting the right ambients I would get it, but not the case here...just sayin...logically all the puzzle pieces are already there, just gotta out them together...so why tell him to get a new puzzle? Bad Danny.

[rebelluver]

After visiting the same the same reptile shop, he had some similar things to say. The 78 was fine for a dumeril boa, but once the temperature inside drops to about 72 in the winter, I will need a CHE so I bought the 100 watt.

I am waiting for the thermostat to come in the mail for the UTH. I placed a thermometer directly on the hotspot in her hide and it was about 89-91 depending which time i checked. (I always check and recheck) It is too hot directly on the glass so I added extra substrate over the warm spot to bring the temp down until it gets here. I am always home so I just watch her like a hawk to make sure she doesn't bury herself and on the hot side and get burned. She has only been burying herself on the cold side. She doesn't use the hide on that side for whatever reason.

I also went ahead and got a fogger so i don't have to worry about humidity. It has to run almost non stop to keep it at 60%.

Funny thing is, my wife was so hesitant about me getting her, but now she watches her temperatures and worries about her more than I do.

[toddnbecka]

Keep the cypress damp and the fogger isn't necessary. Our Dumeril's lives in a 33 long tank with a good UTH on the warm end. She eats, sheds cleanly, and grows just fine.

[rebelluver]

At first the cypress was amazing at keeping the humidity. After it dried out I had to start spraying. After I would spray a bit it would go up to 70% or so and I would leave it. An hour later it is back at 40% or below. Would that really be adequate? I try and spray a lot when awake and leave it on when I sleep. The humidity dries up so fast here.

[dannybgoode]

Bad Danny

I know I know. I just have an intense and probably misguided hatred of uth's.

[toddnbecka]

How thick is the later of mulch? Misting doesn't help long-term, you need to keep the mulch bed fairly damp, and should be deep enough that even when the surface seems dry it's still damp if you stir it around a bit.

[rebelluver]

It was about 3 inches or maybe more. I emptied an entire 24qt bag into the tank at the advice of the guy that sold it to me. That was too much as it rendered the UTH completely useless. The heat didn't penetrate the cypress mulch. I took it down to about 1.5 to 2 in deep after that.

As it sits right now, if I just use the UTH and keep a towel over the screen, the ambient is 81 and the humidity hovers around 60 or just over. If I turn on the CHE the humidity starts falling almost immediately and will get below 40.

For right now everything is perfect, but when the temp drops and I have to crank the CHE on, I will have to deal with the humidity. I have the fogger already if I need it. I am currently working on getting a piece of acrylic to partially cover the screen top as a stop gap until I can do it right. I am also reading that just adding saran wrap can work wonders.

I am starting to get a feel for how the temps are going to work out and what it is going to take.

[rebelluver]

It seems the biggest problem I had at first was using an analog thermometer. Once I got the digital one yesterday the temps all seem great. They just aren't sensitive enough.

[dannybgoode]

Don't forget humidity is relative to temperature. The fact that the humidity drops when you turn the che on simply shows that the ambient air temperature has increased. This is why I say che'so don't dry the air, they warm it and that impacts the relative humidity.

Keep the substrate well damped (but not wet) and you'll soon get it nailed with the che on and even with higher ambient temps you'll get the humidity you desire.

As t&b mentioned don't mist the air-this doesn't active achieve anything. Spray the substrate...

[rebelluver]

I think I solved all of my problems and this will probably end up helping a lot of people that are dumb like me and buy screen tops. Instead of using seran wrap, I used packing tape. $2 a roll. Place a layer up from the bottom, and down from the top. I left about a 8x8 square open for the heat lamp and a smaller one for the fogger on the other side. I took off the towel and replaced it with tape before I went to bed. When I woke up the humidity had risen from 60% to 80%.

So I just took the fogger back and used the money to get a temp controller for the CME and an infrared thermometer. UTH temp controller comes tomorrow and I think I am done after that. Just a matter of dialing everything in.

My advice to people doing this like me, get a digital thermometer and seal the screen. Those two things alone will make a huge difference in getting stable temps.

[toddnbecka]

I use pegboard lids cut to fit inside the tank rims for a number of my setups. Straps with velcro attached to the front and back of the tanks secure them in place. Then cut foam board (from the Dollar Store!)to cover most ot the top of the tank to maintain temps and humidity more stable. Good quality heat mats, CHE's and RHP's to keep them cozy, regulated by Herpstat 4's and Helix DBS 1000 thermostats.