New Member- Just Got a Garter

[Lori P]

Welcome Rachel! Your snake is beautiful, and your set up is great. :-) Hope you enjoy it here!!

[jitami]

Welcome Rachel! We had a tarantula for a few years... pretty cool critters. I have a feeling you'll enjoy your new snake too. I'm in northern Ca and yeah, you really don't need an additional heat source. In fact, with a 10 gallon tank and warm ambient temps it may do more harm than good. I almost cooked our little guy when we first got him... poor fella had crinkly scales and was constantly climbing the glass trying to escape the heat. I have a 20g long now and do use a basking lamp on one corner, but I use the lowest watt bulb I could find and have it raised about three inches above the screen lid. It keeps the basking spot in the high 80's low 90's and the far end tops out at about 82. Not really enough gradient, but it's the best I can do with this set up and the snake tolerates it well. He's usually up on the basking spot. However right now he's hiding under paper towel substrate. I was gone all weekend and hubby turned the air conditioning down to 68 degrees F. I didn't figure this out until late this morning when I couldn't figure out why I was freezing! Trying to warm the snake tank up, but snake still burrowed... poor guy! It should be feeding day, but I'm going to wait until he decides to come out of his hide and warm up... sigh...

[lestat]

Hello and wellcome to this wonderfull site. Any questions you need answering about garters, this is deffinately the place for the answers. Your snake and set up are very nice.

[racheletc]

I'lll likely go with the basking light jitami as soemone else recommended that as well. It's still very hot in SoCal, but I'm very close to the ocean so the temps should fall into the normal 70's F soon.

Thanks everyone for your help! This site is really friendly

[beaniesmommy]

Welcome! I am a new snake owner too and you are right this is some of the kindest, most intellegent people in one place you will ever come across!