I think I'm done.

[phenyx]

Originally Posted by Andy_G

It may be worthwhile considering who you're listening to, what relevant experience they actually have, and consulting people you consider to be worth listening to via PM instead of asking open questions if you don't want a variety of opinions on. Also, I of course advocate going outside of our forum as well and visiting both facebook pages as well as going to reptile expos to speak with people who can help you. And also to add...the MAIN reason you are overthinking everyone is because you are uncertain of yourself and you don't know who to listen to or what to make of things, which is part of being new, but let's be clear that is NOT fault of anyone else or yours for that matter. Everyone goes through it and you should really be thankful that there are so many people offering their thoughts and differing opinions because it used to be really hard to figure things out when everything was being imported and everyone wanted to keep their methods a little closer to their chest...lots more learning the hard way.

How can a newbie who's just joined the site, or even one like me who's been here a couple of months, have any idea who has experience and who's regurgitating information? I know that BigSnakeGirl keeps BCCs and seems far more knowledgeable about their feeding and care than anyone else but everyone else is just as much a mystery to me as the first day I joined. Short of asking for responders to post their CVs along with their responses, there's no way to tell if the person telling me to only use 1/4" of substrate over the heat pad is experienced and knowledgeable or if he's just regurgitating information off the internet.

Originally Posted by Andy_G

- Probe is fine taped on bottom of heat pad but foil tape can sometimes trap and radiate heat so try taping just below the sensor rather than on it.

Why does it matter if the tape radiates heat? Whatever heat it radiates would be the same temperature as the pad. In any case, that won't work with the brand new thermostats I just spent $70 on. The probe I have goes directly from stainless steel sensor rod to flexible wire with nothing in between. If I only tape the wire then the wire bends and the probe dangles down and has zero contact with the pad. Do NOT tell me I need to buy new thermostats again. I am very hesitant to peel back the pad and sandwich the probe between the pad and the glass because it would create an air bubble and result in heat loss. I can't get the substrate to heat properly now, much less with a giant air bubble in the middle of the pad.

Currently, my thermostat temp is set to 95 degrees. It's been there for at least 8 hours. Prior to that it was set to 90 degrees for 12 hours. In 24 hours, my hot spot temperature has yet to rise above 80 degrees. It has been at 80 degrees since midnight last night. Do I set the thermostat to 100 degrees?

I bought the ZooMed ReptiTherm UTH sized for a 10-20 gallon tank. My tank is 10 gallons. Is there some experienced keeper club secret that I should have bought an oversized pad? Or do I have to sacrifice a goat to get this damned hot spot to the correct temperature?

At the moment my BRB is trying to recover from a regurg in a tank without an appreciable hotspot because *nothing* I've done is working.

Originally Posted by Andy_G

-I don't have a strict feeding regimen...sometimes my snakes get only 2% of their weight, sometimes its 20...sometimes its every 4 days and sometimes its every 2 or 3 weeks depending on the individual and species, the biggest thing is feeding accordingly which unfortunately only comes with practice.

So according to this I could feed my 230 gram BP anything from a 2 gram pinky to a 40 gram small rat every 4 days to 3 weeks. Because that totally makes sense. I'll just stick with starving/powerfeeding/whatever the hell I'm doing that's probably wrong. I know! I'll give her 40 gram small rats every 7 days. It doesn't matter because there are no right answers. Everyone does it differently and everyone is right. I could even give her a rabbit and she'd be just fine. I can just make this **** up as I go along now because I can't make heads or tails of the information overload and it doesn't matter because there's no right answers anyway!