My corn snake is cold. What type of light do I need?

Question

I turned my old aquarium into a snake tank. My old california kings tank was too small. This tank is a 45 gallon tank. The snake came in a tank, but I had no where to put it and already had set up my tank for it.

It's used to a much warmer environment. It came with lighting fixtures but they wouldn't fit on my tank. The bulbs were not the right size to swap out from my fish tank bulbs either.

My fish tank has 2 bulbs in it. It says, Sun Glo, 18". They are fluorescent. I have a heating pad under part of the tank but it's only keeping half the bottom of the tank warm. He's freezing and I feel bad. My parents have the air on and said "he'll be fine" but it's time to warm the poor snake up.

What do I need to buy for the proper lighting? It's an albino corn snake; full grown.

Answer 1

Corns need belly heat to digest.  They are nocturnal, so no UVB or over head lighting is needed.  The UTH mat should be plugged into a thermostat or dimmerswitch so you can adjust temps.  Use a digital probe thermometer to measure temps on the surface under the substrate.  Too hot or too cold will cause illness.  You want about 85F surface temps at one end of the tank.  The other end of tank should be cool and have a hide as well.  I like to use Aspen as it is soft and fluffy and the snake can burrow to the desired depth to warm up.  They love to burrow.  See the forums for more info.  Pretty snake and nice tank but get rid of the rocks...they are not a good substrate for corns.  

http://cornsnakes.com/forums/

Answer 2

buy 3 UV bulbs.

Answer 3

just go to petco and get a basking lamp and a lamp for night time if you don't know how many watts i had 75watts for my snake tank or just ak an employee and if needed get 2 basking lights if its really cold in your house

Answer 4

I presume by 'albino' you mean amelanestic, a.k.a. 'red' corn. Amelanestic snakes, like most snakes, don't need supplemental lighting. In fact, like most albinos their eyes are rather sensitive to light.

But they do need to be warm. It could be that the heating pad is too warm, in which case I'd set it to the lowest setting or insert a sheet of corrugated cardboard (or even two) between the pad and the cage to help dissipate the heat.

If it's not warm enough, I'd put the heating pad more toward the center of the cage, or get a larger pad.

You also might want to consider getting a heat source that fits in a light fixture but gives off only warmth, not light, and aim it at the cool area to give it a bit more heat, though still cooler than the area warmed by the heating pad.