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!

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by phenyx

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!

This is what is causing you all your problems right here. You took what he said and tried to calculate it down to exact numbers, and there are too many variables, and now you're frustrated. His whole point seemed to be (and correct me if I'm wrong) that it does not need to be all about exact weights (both of the rats and of the snakes) or the exact amount of days. You can come up with your own regimen that works for you and your snakes.

You know, I've never weighed my snakes or the food I've offered them. At the nature center I used to work at, we never weighed any of the snakes or the rats we gave them. At home I feed my snakes once a week or so, sometimes once every two weeks. Sometimes one will wait three weeks and the others are still eating weekly. They're healthy and are doing fine. I eyeball the rats and see what might make a slight lump, or maybe no lump at all. I just got given 60 frozen hoppers for free. All my snakes eat rats bigger than that, but I'll just use them and feed them 2-3 at a time until they seem full.

Again, it doesn't need to be an equation (unless for some reason, you need it to be). In my opinion, if I had to weigh all my snakes and their food, and feed them to the day every single feeding period, that would make it a lot less fun for me.

[phenyx]

Originally Posted by Bandit

This is what is causing you all your problems right here. You took what he said and tried to calculate it down to exact numbers, and there are too many variables, and now you're frustrated. His whole point seemed to be (and correct me if I'm wrong) that it does not need to be all about exact weights (both of the rats and of the snakes) or the exact amount of days. You can come up with your own regimen that works for you and your snakes.

I was using hyperbole to make a point about the useless absurdity of telling a newbie "do what works for your snake" in all situations.

For example: A newbie reads all this conflicting information, gets confused by it and decides to feed their 200 gram BP an 8 gram hopper mouse every two weeks for 3 or 4 months. The snake isn't dead, it's roaming around at night, and they've just read this post about how there's no hard and fast rules for feeding so they think, "hey, my snake isn't dead so this must be 'working for my snake'." Because they're a newbie, they don't know what an underweight snake looks like, and they probably don't own a scale, so that poor critter could lose a significant portion of its body weight before the newbie has any clue that there's a problem.

My point is that newbies do not have the experience to recognize what "working for your snake" actually looks like.

I thought the temps in my BRBs viv were "working for my snake" until he regurged last week because I did not have the experience to know they weren't. Then I got blasted from all sides with "you have to fix your temperatures now!" Now, I'm frantically trying to correct the temperature issues and I'm not having any luck at all because all I'm getting now is "do what works for your snake".

I don't know what works for my snake because what I thought was working for my snake was WRONG.

I know what won't work for my snake - a hot spot that I will not heat beyond 80 degrees (via IR temp gun) no matter how high I turn the thermostat. I'm sure he's cold and stressed because he can't get warm. He's recovering from a regurg and I'm sure my fumbling around isn't "working for my snake".

I don't know how high I can turn the thermostat/heat mat before it burns out the heat mat, damages my paint or catches fire. (I've already turned up the thermostat once and it had zero effect on the hot spot temperature.)

So I guess I'll just let him remain stressed out and cold with a sub par hotspot. Or take out all the substrate out of the tank and let him live directly on the glass. Or hang a blow dryer over his cage and blow hot air in. (For those who missed it again, I'm making a point using hyperbole.) Is he fine at the lower temperature? How should I know? Everything I do is just a random shot in the dark at this point because I do not have the experience to know what "working for my snake" looks like.

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by phenyx

I was using hyperbole to make a point about the useless absurdity of telling a newbie "do what works for your snake" in all situations.

For example: A newbie reads all this conflicting information, gets confused by it and decides to feed their 200 gram BP an 8 gram hopper mouse every two weeks for 3 or 4 months. The snake isn't dead, it's roaming around at night, and they've just read this post about how there's no hard and fast rules for feeding so they think, "hey, my snake isn't dead so this must be 'working for my snake'." Because they're a newbie, they don't know what an underweight snake looks like, and they probably don't own a scale, so that poor critter could lose a significant portion of its body weight before the newbie has any clue that there's a problem.

My point is that newbies do not have the experience to recognize what "working for your snake" actually looks like.

I thought the temps in my BRBs viv were "working for my snake" until he regurged last week because I did not have the experience to know they weren't. Then I got blasted from all sides with "you have to fix your temperatures now!" Now, I'm frantically trying to correct the temperature issues and I'm not having any luck at all because all I'm getting now is "do what works for your snake".

I don't know what works for my snake because what I thought was working for my snake was WRONG.

I know what won't work for my snake - a hot spot that I will not heat beyond 80 degrees (via IR temp gun) no matter how high I turn the thermostat. I'm sure he's cold and stressed because he can't get warm. He's recovering from a regurg and I'm sure my fumbling around isn't "working for my snake".

I don't know how high I can turn the thermostat/heat mat before it burns out the heat mat, damages my paint or catches fire. (I've already turned up the thermostat once and it had zero effect on the hot spot temperature.)

So I guess I'll just let him remain stressed out and cold with a sub par hotspot. Or take out all the substrate out of the tank and let him live directly on the glass. Or hang a blow dryer over his cage and blow hot air in. (For those who missed it again, I'm making a point using hyperbole.) Is he fine at the lower temperature? How should I know? Everything I do is just a random shot in the dark at this point because I do not have the experience to know what "working for my snake" looks like.

I understand what you were doing. That's besides the point, because regardless of whether you were saying it to make a point or not, that's how you've been acting about the whole situation. Like I said...we've all been there and figured it out in the same way you have. You have to realize though, what you just said is part of the process. You figured out SOME of what works for your snake. You may still have more to figure out, but you're getting there. And remember, your snake is still alive, so you're doing something right.

Again, I KNOW that newbies don't always know what "works for their snake" but the fact is that if everyone called it quits because of that, then no one would own snakes. No one is born with the natural ability to successfully care for snakes. It's all about taking in all kinds of information, making some sense of it, and applying it. No, you're snake isn't going stress and die if your temps don't stay to the degree 24/7. Just like your snake won't die if you don't feed XX% of it's body weight every 10-14 days. I think once you come to realize that you don't need to be so stringent about everything, you will realize that it's not that difficult, and you are making a fine snake owner. Until then, I think you'll just making it less enjoyable for yourself.

[Andy_G]

Originally Posted by phenyx

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.



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.



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!

As far as who you should or shouldn't listen to...are there people giving out advice while asking a lot of basic questions...have they had their practices questioned by a lot of other people..?maybe consider a members tenure as well as whether or not they actually have experience breeding, which is usually apparent in posts. People who ramble on tend to not have actual experience...that's all I can say without either elevating or throwing mud at forum members which I don't want to do.

Well, metal tape...since it is metal ...can trap heat and stop it from dissipating so it'll build up...if you're using metal tape to attach a probe right on the sensor then there could be an issue with the accuracy.

As far as the feeding thing goes...You should watch your animals and you feed appropriate size accordingly....but being that you're so new and you seem to need a regimen to live and die by, listen to whoever you think you should... I get that you're frustrated...but acting this way isn't going to make people want to help, so on that note you'll hear no more from me. Surely there is someone here you'll be comfortable enough to listen to, and if not, move on. I second the advice of reading some books.