Question on buying a "hood" for my BP's terrarium.(Advice please)

[Superpop]

First of all...Hello!

I have gathered much useful information from this website in the past 4 months.(much more than the people at the various pet stores seem to know! )

My boyfriend and I got our BP about 4 months ago and she(we both call her a "she" but it very well might be a "he"....we refuse to get our BP "sexed")lives in a 40 gallon terrarium and right after we got her I found out that they don't like the "openness" of that and so we cut up brown grocery bags and attached them to the back and sides of her terrarium(on the outside of course) so now she can only see out of the front. We have also went to various pet stores (sometimes multiple times in a day) until we were satisfied her environment was good. And the thing it is....it IS good.

I have read up and researched and I am confident she has a good setup....she even gets brita filtered pitcher water that has been warmed to room temperature everyday when her water is changed.

I think we are doing a good job with her.

She eats every week(frozen fuzzies) and I worried about her eating habbits when my boyfriend decided to get a ball python but she is a champ and only refused food her first week(and she was starting her first shed when we bought her) she has eaten every week since then.

She seems like a perfectly well adjusted BP from the hours and hours I have spent online researching every little thing. I am confident we have her set up well at this point.

THE PROBLEM NOW IS: We both hate the setup because it is not convenient at all!

She has a regular screen lid and 3 dome lights on the warm side:

Heat bulb
UVB 2.0 bulb(I know alot of people don't think this is necessary but we choose to have one)
infrared bulb at night to keep the temp up a few degrees warmer but also so we can see her.

all are on timers.

We also have to keep wet towels on the top of the cool side of her tank to keep at the optimum humidity levels and then we change those towels every day and a half so they don't stink(because i know if we can smell it it would be even worse for her) She goes through 5 towels a week and makes an extra load of laundry each week.

We take her out every night(except the night after she feeds) and after we take the clips off of the cage and lift the lid up the dome lights clink together and get jostled around and I think it makes them burn out faster.

We are already on our 3rd heat bulb and our 2nd. infrared bulb.

It's not just a pain in the butt to keep up with the towels and the dome lights on top of her terrarium but I feel we are going through the bulbs faster than they should normally last!


Sorry for rambling but now onto my questions...

would this work for a ball python:



I think this would be much more convenient but there is also things that worry me about it and I don't want to waste my money buying it if it doesn't work out.(because it is only available to buy online)

Anyone have this type of hood for a ball python?

I worry she will burn herself on the bulbs because there is no "screen" separating herself from the light bulbs.

I worry it is too restrictive of air flow.

I worry it won't keep the humidity at optimum levels like the towels we use now.(and obviously there is nowhere to put a wet towel on this lid.)


She is our only pet and we love her(or him) but I just feel her tank setup shouldn't be as complicated as it is!

Anyone have anything to say about the slide top hood???