I am about to move my two royal pythons from 70L RUBS into 4'x2'x2' vivs. I plan to switch from heatmats to ceramic bulbs (with guard and evo stat)
Do I put a hide directly under the ceramic bulb? My female royal is almost 3kg and her hot hide at the moment is an exoterra tortoise cave. As I've always used heatmats in the past I wasn't sure how well the heat would penetrate into the hide from a ceramic or whether it would be best with no hide under it and just leave a basking area?
Excuse me if I'm stating the obvious :S but I would suggest that to achieve a thermal gradient your ceramic heaters should go at one end of each viv (a.k.a. the warm end). This will allow the temperature to gradually reduce down to the other end (a.k.a. the cool end), so your rp's can choose their preferred ambient temperature / location. You'll need at least two hides per viv - one at the warm end and one at the cool end so your rp's can settle at either end as they prefer. As secretive in nature, I doubt if your rp's would use an open basking area and would prefer to hide whenever possible, so I'd place one hide by/near/under the ceramic heater and the other right down the other end. I use the new Exo-Terra fibre glass hides too and have a 200w ceramic bulb (in a guard etc) over the warm end hide with no heating problems. You might perhaps find the following viv setup post from Lotabob useful... http://www.theroyalpython.co.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8279&SearchTerms=sticky
Edited by - PythonLeeJackson on 21/09/2015 20:24:27
I have my hides just to one side of directly under the bulb leaving a clear basking area for warming up. Seems to work well. I found that measuring temperatures are easier with the hide out of the way so I know without doubt the hottest place is the floor under the bulb and nowhere with the exception of the bulb itself is going to be hotter. My snakes do bask and move from hide to hide which is nice to see them out and about.
I got the new vivs setup last night. I added 3 hides to each. Cold end/waterbowl, middle and one just to the side of the basking spot next to the probe. Temps are a steady 33oC under ceramic in both vivs, verified by EVO stat and temp gun, 28oC in middle and 23oC at cold end so I seem to have a good temp gradient.
Setup is pretty basic at the moment with just the hides but I'll add some wood etc when I have more time. They royals seem quite relaxed by the move which is a bonus!
Hide position under ceramic bulb?
Posted - 21/09/2015 : 15:21:55
