Reddit reviews Fluker's Ceramic Heat Emitter for Reptiles

> Regarding the heat mat, this is something that we have underneath the bottom glass of his viv, with a layer of felt on top of the glass so he doesn’t have direct contact with any of the heat elements.

Well, looks like I've got egg on my face then! Okay, way less concerning but!

>We live in the north of England, do you think it would be fine to take away the heat mat during the night and him have no heat source, or could you suggest an alternative?

Heat matters, and you are on the right course with paying attention for nighttime heating matters! If your house drops under 19C at any time, then supplemental heat is a requirement! 19C isn't some magical "they will die" number, but it gives them a nice healthy minimum safe range, below which we can have problems!

The issue then, comes with how we give them this heat. Bearded Dragons are hard wired little lovable scalebabies. They do things because they are programmed to. For instance, light == warmth to them. If they are cold, they will go to sources of light (thus why heat lamps are great! And making sure your UV tube runs along next to it gets you double the benefit!). Likewise, if they are hot, they will avoid light, and go down. They will seek out the lowest point they can, to beat the heat.

See how that might be a problem? If the primary source of heat at night is under his tank, his brain doesn't understand how to cope and he will drive himself to the least comfortable place he can. Woops!!

What you really want to offer to keep him over 19C at night is something like this. Ceramic Heat Emitters screw into a normal light socket, so you can treat it just like your already existing heat lamp. The plus here, is that they produce zero visible light. This means that it's fine to use at night, as it wont disrupt their sleep!

It's not a replacement for your basking lamp (once again, that light helps drive good behavior and lets him become comfortable!). But it's an awesome addition to a vivarium when your house cannot provide safe temperatures on it's own!

Buy one, get yourself a fixture to mount it around the middle of his tank to keep everything safe at night, and slap that puppy on a timer! If you are worried about getting things just right, you can over buy the wattage on the bulb, and then use something like this to tune it just perfect for your baby!

Again, Y wish you all the best luck in figuring out what's wrong here. I hope it's some environmental thing that you can identify and correct with this dude! It sucks when we mess up, but it's so nice when we get to fix it!!!

I've never checked the temps, but maybe a medical heating pad? We use this as our beardie doesn't like heat on his belly.

I would suggest changing out the eco terra thermostat to something like Inkbird - the eco terra ones have a bad reputation and off fail and you end up with a cooked snake. Inkbirds are cheaper and ship quick from amazon, but if you do have the spare change, the best thermostat in my opinion is a Herpstat

FOr the glass thank, they are not the best for ball pythons as they don't hold heat or humidity. It sounds like you are not in the position to really make a ton of changes right now, but in the future you might want to look into a tub instead, it's very DIY and can be done cheaply. It doesn't look as nice as glass, so if you want something good for ball pythons that is also aesthetically pleasing, check out some PVC enclosures like boaphile or animal plastics - you gave units in Celcius so I'm not sure where you are from and the ones I linked are USA companies but you can find makers of these enclosures all over the world, we can probably give you recommendations if you let us know the country.

But, since you are stuck with glass now (it sounds like) go to lowes and get a piece of acrylic and have it cut to the size of the screen top minus a small bit for air and a small bit for your heat lamp. use it to cover the screen. You want to minimize airflow as much as possible, as airflow is what lets humidity escape.

Second, I would switch to a ceramic heat emitter - these give off heat but no light. Ball pythons need total or near darkness at night, having lights on at night stresses them out. They can see red light, so red night lights aren't appropriate for them. Using a CHE, you can have your ambient temperatures at appropriate levels at night, too. Just don't forget to get a seperate thermostat for it so it doesn't overheat, too.

Third, get some foam board and affix it to the back and sides of the tank on the outside. This serves two purposes: it will help trap heat in (glass is a poor insultator) and it will give your ball python more security. Right now it probably feels like it is out in the open and a predator could sneak up on all directions, blocking off some of the sides help it feel less threatened.

What kind of hides are you using? It sounds like the set up you got probably included a half log hide, and those are not appropriate for ball pythons, or any snake really, as main hides. If you haven't already I would recommend looking into something that looks like these ones with only one small entrance that is off set. There are some from eco terra and zilla that looks like this and are caves. I use the ones linked above as they are dishwasher safe and easy to clean. The smalls should be appropriate for a baby, my hatchling is currently using smalls and my yearling is in the mediums. The mediums are quite a size jump, so I made some of my own by using take out boxes. I cut an offset hole, sanded it down, used a solder iron to melt it a little bit, and then sanded it down again so there were no sharp edges. My rainbow boa is currently using the home made ones until he's big enough for the mediums.

Last, I am glad you are down to only feeding once a week, that's a great start. I would start looking into getting her onto rats soon, though. Adult mice won't be a full meal for a ball python for very long, and getting a ball python to eat multiple prey items in one meal is tough. Changing prey type also gets harder as they get older.

I know this is a lot, and I know you probably feel as if you did a ton of research before getting your BP and hearing that that research is wrong is TOUGH. I made a lot of the same mistakes when I got my first snake. I tried really hard to make a glass tank work, I modified it and threw out a ton of aspen bedding and really struggled to get it to be a good home for my BP but I eventually gave up and got a PVC enclosure from Animal Plastics and I am 100% less stressed about her now, and I have two more snakes living pretty happily, now! Having read bad info and followed it doesn't make you a bad snake parent so long as you learn from your mistakes and correct them going forward. Please PLEASE don't hesitate to ask more questions or post pics of your set up and ask for help! We really want you and your BP to be happy.

yea thats probably a bit too cold. do you just keep your room that cold? how big is your tank? i only ask because most people keep their houses closer to 70-75 which works fine for the cool side. its ok to use the light to help boost the temps if you need too. theres also things called a CHE that put off heat but no light. personally i dont like them that much because they get extremely hot to the touch and since heat rises hardly any reaches the floor. I just use a small 45w halogen floodlight on a dimmer. even on its lowest setting it warms the floor up enough without being very bright. the uth will only heat the area directly above it, it wont really radiate much outward, you want to pick a uth thats big enough to cover about 1/3 of the tank. place the heat mat under the tank, and the probe from the thermostat on the inside of the tank. One of those little $12 temp guns is an awesome tool to grab too, you can see exactly what temp your floor is and adjust the thermostat accordingly. If you need a cheap temporary hide you can make them out of tupperware containers. I made one out of a big salsa bowl and he loves it.