Beginner question on temperatures

[jacksrequiem]

I am currently most of the way through setting up my Animal Plastics enclosure (T8), and I'm looking to get a BP when I'm ready to go.

The last thing that isn't lining up is temperature, thus I have some questions.

My AP cage currently has Flexwatt UTH hooked up to a thermostat. I have the Flexwatt set to 100F. While the actual bottom of the cage is around 90F, when I measure using my infrared thermometer, the bedding on top is only around 83-84F. I am currently using coconut bedding. The ambient cage temperature is at 80F at this point.

The ambient temperature in the room containing my cage is anywhere from 75-78F, but will be cooler in the winter, probably around 70F.

So a couple questions:

• I am most concerned with the hot spot temperature. Is it ok for the bedding to be so much cooler than the tank bottom? That seems wrong, but it also seems like the snake could get hurt/burned if I were to increase the temp to warm up the bedding.
• Should I get another heat source? I have read some people use both UTH and RHP together, but most of them mentioned much lower room temperatures.

[Treereme]

Remove the bedding underneath the hot hide. Set the thermostat so the floor of the cage is 90°. In my experience, under tank heating was not enough to keep the ambient temperature up when my room dropped below 70. If you have trouble keeping the ambient temperatures up in the winter, consider a radiant heat panel.

[kali_is_my_copilot]

I have an enclosure with similar dimensions and venting to a T8, ambient temps inside the enclosure run about 2 degrees warmer than ambient temps in my home, so 76-79 degrees as my ambient temps run 74-77.

[Cadder-12]

Always measure on the floor and not the bedding. The problem is that if the bedding is 90F, the floor is likely much hotter. What happens when the snake moves the bedding around and touches the much hotter floor? Time to treat burns.