If I were you there are 2 things I would do. I would put the Ball in a clear Rubbermaid container about the size of whatever tank you are using. They are great for keeping in temps and are very inexpensive. Next I would get a thermostat, if you dont have one. It seems since people were saying something about putting in thicker substrate they were trying to get temps right. They sell cheap ones at bigappleherp.com and lllreptiles.com. I use the Alife one and it seems to work pretty good. This also lowers the risk of house fires too.

Just my 2 cents....Good luck

Alex

So what temps are you suggesting?
The ideal ambient temperature of the tank should be maintained at 80-83 degrees. There should be a basking spot of 90 degrees and a cool spot with a temperature of 80.

Night time temperatures around 75-80 are acceptable.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Right now, if I put the thermometer ON THE FLOOR, the basking temps are right, even though the coolest temperature is 75 on the cool side day and night.

Merlin, or anyone else. I need to know when I get the digital thermometers, WHERE do I put the various probes etc. and whatnot. Do I try to monitor the temperature near the substrate? Higher up in the air? Away from the glass? On the glass? Where?

Should I get two digitals that I can put one one cool end and one on hot end, and the probe dragged down from the unit to the substrate, so I have 4 temps, hot air, hot substrate, cool air, cool substrate?

How do I get the unit away from the glass, since you say that air temp near the glass is again different?

Don't worry about tangling I will make sure the wires are fixed properly.

And no one has answered me yet, can the Exo-Terra heating pads (Desert, 8 X8) be adjusted using a dimmer switch? I don't want to add a thermostat to it because it has one already (that is unadjustable) so as to not have any overlapping logic.

In our last post we addressed the issue of feeling the glass temperature right above the heater. Personally we do not use the under tank hraters they get way too warm, we use 3 temperature heating pads. We stick it only under half the tank.. Ball pythons like it humid so we add a bubble dish. It is hard to give specifics in such a forum with more information needed

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For our BP we have a glass terrarium. For daytime lighting, we have halogen spots on the warm side. We use a 100Watt Ceramic Heat Emitter surrounded by a protective cage for heating. This is hooked up to a thermostat to control maximum and minimum temps plus the reduced night temperatures. The probe for the thermostat is near the side glass wall in the middle of the warm side.
We use a digital thermometer with the probe placed under the warm hide box. The thermometer is on a hook on the back wall and has two readings: the probe temp and the air temp.
On the cool side we use a normal bulb thermometer.
We had a Under Tank Heater but stopped using it as the ground temps got too hot but the air temps were not warming up.
We use terrarium soil bricks (humus) dissolved in water as our substrate. It works well.
(I feed in a separate plastic box to avoid impaction risks.)

I hope that helps a bit.

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Andrea

Anthony I prefer to just use 2 separate thermometers. I put just the probe in the tank with the readout outside where it is easily accessible.
You want the probe down close to the ground where the snake actually lives. It doesn't have to be down on the ground but close to it. I would not worry about the temps up in the top of the viv its going to read higher there since its closer to the heating device. I run the wire down the back corners and have the end of the probe hanging about an inch over the bottom. As long as the probe is not pushed right up against the glass you will be fine. the curves in the wire usually provide enough space to keep it off the glass.
I am not familiar with that particular heating device. When you say it has a thermostat that is unadjustable do you mean it has just an on off switch or is it an internal thermostat that just shuts down when the unit gets too hot? From what I can find on these units in their adds it says that they are designed with a desert environment in mind to simulate the basking temp on sunbaked sand and rock. This would be much hotter than a BP would deal with. Even with the control on the heating pad you could still run a thermostat that was adjustable to shut it on and off as needed to control temps.

Noreen the need for high humidity in Ball python cages is over stated. These animals do not live in a humid environment but rather in the grasslands and savannahs of Togo and Ghana. This is actually an arid environment. they do have access to higher humidity situations such as burrows and caves when they need it for shedding and such but it isn't a constant. Constant high humidity will lead to respiratory problems and a constantly damp substrate will lead to skin infections.If you need more information all you need to do is ask.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Thanks people may I ask if those Under Tank Heater from Exo-terra work with light dimmers?? I have 8 X 8 inch Exo-terra desert pad. Right now the floor temps (within like 1.5 inches) are just right. Air temps not affected much. Since the snake is still really small it should be fine through the summer.
I would try it first but I don't want to if it can cause a fire or anything so I want to ask first.
I'll measure the snake later but its sleeping now so later in the night.