I just took home my new ball baby and love it a lot.

I am having some difficulties with the air temps.
I have a 24 inche X 10 inch enclosure, with mesh on top and no openings on the side (it was the only one of this size left, I went to over 10 shops). I have a piece of cardboard that I put on top of the open top on the "hot" side to make heat not leave as fast, and the other side is left open with wire mesh.

I have an 8" X 8" Exo-Terra "Desert" heat pad stuck underneath 1/3 of the enclosure (left side), and a thermometer on each hot side and cool side of the enclosure. The bottom is glass, and I have a particulate substrate that is meant for snakes that are quite popular here made from grass, straw etc. that is supposed to be no impaction risk and compressed into alfalfa pellet type bits like those you feed rabbits etc. with.

There doesn't seem to be any temperature gradient! The thermometers show the same temp of 81 Farenheit on both hot and cold side. This may not be so different from our current room temp, just a few degrees higher I guess.

HOWEVER, when I touch the substrate, it does feel a bit hotter on one side than the other. When I push my finger below the substrate, it feels significantly warmer on the hot side floor.

I do have the thermometers mounted about 4 inches above the floor, so maybe its not picking up the temp differences near the floor, but I always thought that the air was supposed to be different too.

I was told that perhaps the particulate substrate is trapping the air, slowing the dispersion of the heat away, which is actually good. But that if I really want to, I should put a slab or tile on the heat pad side and no substrate and it would better reflect the temps on the thermometers in the air. Or should I not be concerned with this and just try to move the thermometers closer to the ground? The snake does seem to climb around and up onto the rails of the sliding doors on top constantly.

Is it ok that the floor seems to have a temp difference but the air doesn't seem to have this marked gradient? Please help with any advice. Thanks!

OH YEAH one more thing, from my understanding, the temps should be as follows:
80 - 85 Farenheit hot side, 75-80 cold side, 90 basking spot. Night time 75-80.
Well, right now, the temp overall detected seem to be in the middle at around 80 - 81 so I at least have the average right, and the night temps right, but when it gets hotter, I don't know what to do. The exo terra heat pad (the first time I have used heat pads, because I keep reading balls do well with them) can not be adjusted high or low temp. Do you know if I can use a light dimmer switch with this?
Also, it says that it is regulated by a thermostat and will shut off before overheating and switch on again when cooler, but doesn't allow the temps to be adjusted. I was thinking that the pad wouldn't affect air temps that much, and it probably wouldn't be enough, so I would add heat in the form of a Ceramic Heat Emitter or whatever but right now it seems that as whether gets hotter I may need to REDUCE heat. I can turn off the darn thing, yes, but it won't give any temp gradient (not that it is doing that now, well, not in the air anyway).

Ok this is weird. The temps (according to the thermometers anyway) seem to have FALLEN to 71 on the HOT side, but the COLD side is still at 80! And the snake has hidden in the hide on the COLD side. Weird.

I dunno if I should add a small heat lamp or what. Did I do the wrong thing to go with the under tank heater? I was actually planning on a Ceramic Heat Emitter but got talked into head pad, told that balls do very well with heat from under the tank, and since the only right sized enclosure had a plastic mesh top and I was afraid that the thing would melt it. The top is removable and I can custom make a wire one and dump the heat pad if that's a good idea???

Either way, all the hardware stores are closed around here for easter until next tuesday. The critter should be alright, right?

your on the right track,,,we use both Under Tank Heater and lamps, the lamp will help keep the heat up during the day. We have ours on the same sides as the Under Tank Heater and turn them off at night. what type of thermometers are you using ?

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Ken
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem." -- Ronald Reagan

I use a heat lamp and Under Tank Heater for my snakes too

When my BP's were little I used heat pads 24/7 and lights during the day I now use Ceramic Heat Emitter all the time.
Are you still using the regular glass tube thermometers ore are you using the tape strips that stick on the side? if it is the strips they are reading the temp of the glass not the air. If you are using the glass tube type your thermometers up on the sides are reading the air temperature (ambient) there will not be a gradient in the air temperature itself because air is not a solid object. The heat in the air will always be about the same in either end of the tank due to the air movement in the tank due to the heat rising. Its like you standing in the shade or standing in the sun. The air itself will be the same temperature both places but in the sun it will be a lot warmer than in the shade.
The temperature gradient will be for solid surfaces inside the tank. Take your thermometers and measure the surface temperatures in the bottom of the tank.
If your thermometers are showing it cooler under the lamp than it is on the other end I suspect your thermometer is malfunctioning! Try switching the thermometers around and see if it still shows cooler on the end under the light.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Merlin, there was no lamp as of my last post. There was only a heating pad, and the temps were the same for a while, then the hot side got colder for some reason for about an hour then went back to both sides the same.

I am using the glass tube thermometers but I have them stuck out and not touching the glass (about 3 cm away from the glass) and it is not on the SIDE wall it is on either side of the BACK wall. Does this make a difference?

I know what you mean that the air temps should be pretty similar but the surface temps will be affected by the heat pad. That's ok. I will measure the surface temps. But is there a need for an AIR TEMP gradient too? I know I have one for my ig cage, but thats about 100 billion times bigger of course.

Please tell me what I should get if possible, and a link to a product page if at all possible. If I get one of those digitals which kind? Do I get the ones where they have a main unit, that shows the temps? Then a probe? If so, do I place the main unit on one end and the probe on the other? Is there a probe on the main unit? I see these units in zoos that only have ONE probe on a wire, but the main unit shows "In" and "Out" temps. Is there some sensor in the main unit and one more on the probe?

Also, where would I put the probe? On the ground level? Slightly above?

Anyone with a similar sized ball tank, please let me in on your design. Want to get everything right.

So far its only been either moving constantly, or hanging out in the hide on the COOL side. If that helps.

Oh yes, and this morning, I put in a lamp as well, a spare one that I had lying around. Because as some of you said above, you use a Under Tank Heater and a lamp. But I do know that in the winter, the night temps will be too low with the Under Tank Heater only. So I would need both a lamp and a Ceramic Heat Emitter probably, switching lamp on in the day and Ceramic Heat Emitter on in the night, heat pad all the time. It's still many months till winter, but I really don't know how I would be able to fit both the Ceramic Heat Emitter and the Lamp on the hot end, becaue the tank is only 12 inches deep. The lamp shade I have is 8 inches wide, and the Ceramic Heat Emitter sockets with the wire mesh are similar in size too. How would I arrange this? Can I point the Ceramic Heat Emitter at an angle so that it faces the hot side, even though its on the cold side's top?

I know I can use only the Ceramic Heat Emitter on one end, day and night, but I still wouldnt be able to set it to automatically change temps from night to day as its only one thing on one thermostat. Also, I really like the way the snake looks under the light!

If the Under Tank Heater is under a hide,,,the temp of the hide should be fine at night,,,,even in winter. the cage may seem cooler, but the ambient temp inside the hide should be fine. I thought I would have the same problem, so I bought a digital thermometer with a probe and the temp inside the hide never went below 85 at night,,,we actually had to adjust the Under Tank Heater temp !!! it was too high

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Ken
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem." -- Ronald Reagan

When I referred to "sidewall" I meant any of the verticle glass walls.

The heat pad may have went off and cooled down and then restarted. I don't know what type you have available in HK but mine never cycle down that way.

The digital thermometer with the probe and the in/out reading also have a sensor in the main part of the unit. Personally I only use the probe in the tank to monitor the ambient temps and monitor the different places with a temp gun. I don't want my readout in the tank where the snake could get tangled in the wire or deficate on the gauge. The beauty of these is you can move the probe around to monitor things in different parts of the tank so you know what is going on in both parts.

In that small tank you will never acheive any sort of gradient in the air itself.

With the Ceramic Heat Emitter you will not need the lamp. And before too long, as it settles in, you won't see the snake in the daytime anyway. They are nocturnal and most of their rambling will be after the lights go off

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

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