Hello, I am a new ball python owner, new to the whole herp world actually. I am wondering about substrate. I am currently using aspen shavings which seem to work pretty well except that I live in Colorado and have a hard time keeping the humidity between 50-60%. It is usually too low unless it's right after I mist the tank. When I first purchased the snake almost 2 weeks ago I used cypress bedding which I think seemed to keep the humidity up better, but the next day I spotted tiny white bugs on the glass so I returned everything including the tank and all the furnishings and started over.

So my main questions are if there are ways to treat the cypress bedding to kill the mites and eggs and if I do that, what do I do to replace the moisture that the substrate has right out of the bag?

Thanks for any help. Sorry for the rambling