First time owner!!

Hello all!! I've recently got my first scorpion a few days ago and have been doing an extensive amount of research both off and on the forums. I've found quite a bit of information so far but there are still a few things I may need advice on.

My little guy(or girl) is about an inch or so long. I have him in a 10 gallon with a mix of Eco Earth on the bottom and a thin layer of Reptile Bark (From Fir trees) on top. With these two i have had no problems with humidity, The bark actually releases humidity when heated. The only issue i have is that I can't keep the tank above 70 degrees (ferenheit). I do have a UTH and it seems to work well enough, but again not well enough. I live in Norther Utah and we're just ending our winter but its still kinda cold. I have the heat turned up in my room but the tank still stays at around 70.

What I was wondering is if I could thow another UTH on the tank, so I would then have one on the bottom and maybe on the side. Or could I use a low wattage Ceramic Heat emitter, maybe attach it to a Repti-Therm thermostat so it doesn't get too hot.

Thanks in advanced!

I used a 75w red heat lamp but a ceramic heat emitter at 75w would work just the same on one side of the enclosure and should bring the temp up to the range of 85-90f. the uth doesn't come recommended as sometimes it produces too much heat and kills the animal(s) above - the only time this issue is nixed is when a controller is attached or it's not under the tank but rather under something under the tank (example being that I've got a heat pad that would normally have a cover over it that people use to keep warm in their beds but tends to burn people that's taped up with foil and duct tape to the underside of a metal shelf that my scorps are housed on top of and it doesn't even push past 85f. I put the shelf together recently as a temporary thing until I move back into the denver area and build a new rack and switch to heat tape and thermostats for my animals.).

I'd suggest getting rid of the bark -- it can impede burrowing, and a lot of softwoods (pine, fir, etc.) contain resins harmful to invertebrates.

Other than that, welcome to an exciting addiction!

Sweet, I was leaning more towards the heat emitter, The pad i have is currently on the side, I check it several time a day and it never feel TOO hot, just warm, I can keep my hand on it and never get burned.

Heat pads don't seem to work very well and are unreliable. A heat lamp should suffice, but you definitely need to get his temps up to 80 or so. I would also go with a false bottom setup. I used bark for a while(Not a good idea). Then I switched to cocofiber (Nice but dried out too fast). Now I am using a false bottom and it seems to be working excellent.

Athlon2k2 wrote:

Heat pads don't seem to work very well and are unreliable. A heat lamp should suffice, but you definitely need to get his temps up to 80 or so. I would also go with a false bottom setup. I used bark for a while(Not a good idea). Then I switched to cocofiber (Nice but dried out too fast). Now I am using a false bottom and it seems to be working excellent.

I run a coco fiber red sand mix that resembles a lot of the dirt around my mom's place in okc and it retains moisture quite well. it depends on how deep you make it (I also do a soak down and cook method to sterilize and hydrate the coco fiber before doing any mixing) but I've been toying with the idea of making a couple false bottoms and giving them a trial run because so many people stand by them. I'll sit down with the graphing paper and draft up some designs eventually - I don't particularly like the idea of having a tube running through the enclosure.

I don't use a tube. I have a bed of rocks that runs down to the bottom. Then I covered that with a water dish. Just remove the dish and pore water. Pretty easy. Here is a pic. I'll try to post a better one of the false bottom.