Question on heating a tall enclosure

[kudzu]

Have just ordered a new enclosure for my growing Russian rat snake. It's a 48"x24"x48" AP cage. It will have a RHP and the basking shelf but now I'm wondering if I should ask to have the belly heat tape added to the order. My guy spends a lot of time climbing and hanging out, literally, on his perches but he also sleeps on the floor of his cage. The only heat source in his current cage is an RHP but the cage is only 24" high.



Do you think a 48" tall cage for a temperate species needs more than just an RHP?

[Roman]

That’s a good sized enclosure for your Russian rat snake. I don’t have any personal experience with this species, but have talked about keeping them with several very experienced keepers some time ago. Elaphe schrenckii is a snake which prefers cooler temperatures, so I wouldn’t install any heating except for a metal halide light on top of a basking spot if your room temperatures doesn’t drop below 20° C / 68° F during the day and 18° C / 64° F during the night in the summer. During winter your room temperatures doesn’t matter because you should brumate this snake for at least 3 months, better for 4 or even 5 months. It is recommended to keep them between 20° C and 23° C (68° F and 73° F) during daytime with a local hot spot of something like 28° C (82° F) and cooler temperatures during night time (without heating).

I keep several arboreal snakes and I always use a UVB emitting metal halide light on top of one branch, so the snakes can choose this spot for basking, getting their preferred temperature (and some UVB) and can move to cooler spots from there. I place my lights on top of a mesh screen, so they are outside the enclosure, ensuring that the snakes can’t coil around the lamp and burn themselves. This way the lamp creates a local hot spot directly below the light of something like 28° C to 35° C (82° F to 95° F, depending on the wattage of the lamp) and a vertical as well as horizontal thermal gradient to cooler temperatures down to room temperature in the rest of the enclosure, the brightest spot in the enclosure is also the warmest spot with the most available UVB and the snakes can choose their preferred temperature.

That way you don’t need a thermostat (metal halide lights can’t be dimmed, they are either on or off), because it will warm up the surface of your hot spot, but not to dangerous temperatures which might harm your snake. Your snake could only hurt itself if it could reach the glass of the emitting light bulb, a few cm from this surface the temperatures are still warm but not hot enough to hurt.

Because of the size of your enclosure and the need for cooler temperatures I would use something like an 80 W Arcadia D3 Basking lamp, place it about 30 to 40 cm (12 to 16 in) above the branch and you should get the desired surface temperature on the top of the branch.

I wrote several posts about light and heat, the last one is here --> http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/morelia-spilota/117572-lighting.html and it has links to other threads as well.

[kudzu]

Thank you, Roman. I appreciate the information you have added to the lighting discussions.

We are in Southeastern USA. My concern with a halide light is generating too much heat in Summer. My upstairs office gets warm then. Even though the cage I've ordered is twice the height of the current cage, I would need to have a halide light on a thermostat to prevent it from overheating the cage in the warmest hours of the day. It would also be adding heat to my office in addition to the cage requiring running the A/C even more to compensate. It seems to make more sense to use a light that can be on continuously during the day without needing .

Halide would work in Winter, but for practical reasons I chose a system that could work year round, that being fluorescent for light and RHP for heat. It may not be optimum, but hopefully will be good enough. Am open to other ideas if what I've chosen really isn't appropriate for this species.

Edited: Might have helped if I had included the fact that in his current cage I'm using an Arcadia Forest T8 fluorescent, a 15 watt, 6% UVB bulb, and the plan is to use something similar to this in the new cage.

[Roman]

OK, so if you use the Arcadia Forest light you have a good source for natural daylight and UVB. Believe me if I tell you that I know what you are talking about, I live in an attic flat (without A/C) and it can get really hot here. What I don’t understand is why you want to use a RHP. It raises the ambient temperature of the whole enclosure, but you want a low temperature setup for your Elaphe schrenkii.

In my opinion a halogen or metal halide light would be your best option for providing a basking spot. A RHP will raise the ambient temperature, but doesn’t provide the basking spot. CHE and red lights are not suitable as well, a heat mat would only heat the substrate, but not an elevated basking spot your snake will most likely prefer.

For this snake you don’t need anything to raise the ambient temperature of your enclosure, at least if your room temperature isn’t below 20° C / 68° F for any extended period during daytime. They are perfectly OK with temperatures in the lower 20° C / 70° F if they have a local hotspot. Since you provide a UVB source you can choose a small halogen light to provide a local basking spot, here in Germany we have small halogen lights with 25 W, this should be enough to provide enough heat for your snake without adding anything to your room temperature. If your room temperature raise to more than 25° C / 77° F I would just turn this halogen light off. Currently almost all of my heat emitting lights are off since about two weeks because the ambient room temperatures are too high and the lights would add too much additional heat in the enclosures.

If your room temperatures are higher, shut the heat lamp off and turn it only on after feeding for two or three hours a day, so the snake can choose to bask for better digestion.

[kudzu]

The RHP is for Winter. The temps in the room vary from low 60's in Winter to low 80's in Summer, so approximately 16-27 C. In Summer and at times in late Spring and early Fall a heat light would never come on. Though I realize many do not believe lights are needed but I want to give him a regular light schedule. Besides, I enjoy seeing my snakes moving around in their cages. The room is dim enough the lights in the cage help that.

For my situation, it just seemed like separate lighting and heat units would be easier to balance.