New snake owner with heat/humidity issues

[vetteaholic25]

Hey guys, I just got a regular ball python and I'm having some trouble keeping my heat and humidity up. My current set up is a 20 gallon long tank with aspen bedding and an under the tank heater. I currently live in a basement and moved him down here with me, but recently he's been upstairs. When he's upstairs his heat seams to be alright (82-84), but his humidity keeps dropping. I decided to move him down to the basement with me to see if it would help the humidity out and bought him a 50 watt heating bulb to keep the heat up. The problem is even worse down here, the temp is right around 74 and the bulb is drying the tank out fast. Just checked the humidity and it was at 38. I'd really like to keep him down here with me so I can see him more, but I'd move him back upstairs if need be. Any suggestions? Thanks!

[Neal]

Hey guys, I just got a regular ball python and I'm having some trouble keeping my heat and humidity up. My current set up is a 20 gallon long tank with aspen bedding and an under the tank heater. I currently live in a basement and moved him down here with me, but recently he's been upstairs. When he's upstairs his heat seams to be alright (82-84), but his humidity keeps dropping. I decided to move him down to the basement with me to see if it would help the humidity out and bought him a 50 watt heating bulb to keep the heat up. The problem is even worse down here, the temp is right around 74 and the bulb is drying the tank out fast. Just checked the humidity and it was at 38. I'd really like to keep him down here with me so I can see him more, but I'd move him back upstairs if need be. Any suggestions? Thanks!

The ting with the bulb is it's going to take more away from humidity than before. What I would do is move him back upstairs and take ceran wrap and cover about 60% of the tank(I'd do the middle and leave the sides open). This will allow less to escape and should boost the humidity to where you'd like.

As far as temps go, you want 88-92 on the hot side, and around 82 for the cool side.

What you can try to do is put an UTH on both sides, and put the one on the cool side on a dimmer switch, but you need a thermostat for the hot side one and a thermometer to monitor both as well as check cage temps. I'd recommend other stuff but not to a new hobbyist. You just have to figure out how to raise your ambient room temperature. One thing you can try is getting a space heater.

[vetteaholic25]

Alright I'll move him back upstairs thanks. My roommate has some cage moss and he said that it really helps raise humidity up, is that cool for ball pythons? I also put a layer of wood chips over 1/3 of it because they hold moisture better. As far as monitoring temps go, do you suggest getting a thermometer with one of those probes that I can put in the bedding? Are the temps for the sides ambient temps, or at ground level? right now i have my thermometer/humidity gauge at the top middle of my tank. I'll go pick up another thermometer tomorrow to monitor both sides.

[Neal]

Alright I'll move him back upstairs thanks. My roommate has some cage moss and he said that it really helps raise humidity up, is that cool for ball pythons? I also put a layer of wood chips over 1/3 of it because they hold moisture better. As far as monitoring temps go, do you suggest getting a thermometer with one of those probes that I can put in the bedding? Are the temps for the sides ambient temps, or at ground level? right now i have my thermometer/humidity gauge at the top middle of my tank. I'll go pick up another thermometer tomorrow to monitor both sides.

Cage moss doesn't stay moist for long and it can harbor bacteria so I personally wouldn't use it unless the snakes going into shed. I tried to use some for one of my beaked snakes but he had nothing to do with it. A thermostat will control the heat which you need because some uth's can get hot enough to cause burns to your snake. A thermometer will just measure the temp and a probe one is best because you can test multiple spots instead of ambient temp. You want to pay more attention to ground temps as bp's spend a lot if not most of their time on the ground though I've seen some balls that like to climb, so ambient is important as well.

If you have the dial gauges, then they're a waste. Wal-Mart should, or at least they used to sell an acurite thermometer that had a probe and measures temp/humidity and I'd go with that over an analog gauge though some analog humidity gauges can be calibrated for accuracy.

[vetteaholic25]

Cage moss doesn't stay moist for long and it can harbor bacteria so I personally wouldn't use it unless the snakes going into shed. I tried to use some for one of my beaked snakes but he had nothing to do with it. A thermostat will control the heat which you need because some uth's can get hot enough to cause burns to your snake. A thermometer will just measure the temp and a probe one is best because you can test multiple spots instead of ambient temp. You want to pay more attention to ground temps as bp's spend a lot if not most of their time on the ground though I've seen some balls that like to climb, so ambient is important as well.

If you have the dial gauges, then they're a waste. Wal-Mart should, or at least they used to sell an acurite thermometer that had a probe and measures temp/humidity and I'd go with that over an analog gauge though some analog humidity gauges can be calibrated for accuracy.

Thanks for all the help, I'll go out tomorrow and buy a thermostat and some good thermometers. For right now I put him back upstairs and covered part of his cage in saran wrap. Hopefully he will be good until I get off of work tomorrow and can pick up the supplies. Hopefully I can get my hot side to 88 with just my heating pad, but I'll face that problem when it comes.

[Neal]

Thanks for all the help, I'll go out tomorrow and buy a thermostat and some good thermometers. For right now I put him back upstairs and covered part of his cage in saran wrap. Hopefully he will be good until I get off of work tomorrow and can pick up the supplies. Hopefully I can get my hot side to 88 with just my heating pad, but I'll face that problem when it comes.

When you put he thermostat on it needs to be touching the heating pad. The hottest I would let it get is 92, which will probably be less in the aquarium, but you never know. Only way to tell is when everything is all said and done.

[Cissin]

Also Cypress is much better at holding in humidity then Aspen so you might want to try that bedding instead of Aspen if you still have issues.

[vetteaholic25]

Alright I got a thermostat and a better thermometer. the better thermometer is now reading 88 on the hot side and 81 on the cool. My thermostat unfortunately doesn't have a display of how high the temp is, but i can use the other probe to check it every once in awhile to make sure it's staying 88. I set the thermostat to turn the pad off if it gets to 91-92. I think the major problem I had was a horrible thermometer, I put some different bedding in there last night and now this new thermometer says the humidity is 80% which is way too high. I'm going to try switching back to the aspen and see if it will hold everything steady. I'll take some pics of him soon so you guys can see him! Thanks everyone.

[Neal]

Alright I got a thermostat and a better thermometer. the better thermometer is now reading 88 on the hot side and 81 on the cool. My thermostat unfortunately doesn't have a display of how high the temp is, but i can use the other probe to check it every once in awhile to make sure it's staying 88. I set the thermostat to turn the pad off if it gets to 91-92. I think the major problem I had was a horrible thermometer, I put some different bedding in there last night and now this new thermometer says the humidity is 80% which is way too high. I'm going to try switching back to the aspen and see if it will hold everything steady. I'll take some pics of him soon so you guys can see him! Thanks everyone.

Well depending on what type of substrate you switched to it's probably damp and just needs to be dried out a bit. This is the case with cypress.

[vetteaholic25]

Well depending on what type of substrate you switched to it's probably damp and just needs to be dried out a bit. This is the case with cypress.

I switched to half aspen and half mulch. I took most of the mulch out and just left a fine layer in there and the humidity is great now. It's cooling down here in Illinois and his cool side was at 76 degrees this morning, I went out and bought a second UTH to put under the small side to keep it warmer when it cools down more