After someone who wanted to give me a free ball python flaked out on me for around a month or so, I decided to give my tax return a run for it's money and bought Ruth.

She seems to be doing alright - I brought her home on Tuesday to a tank that was all set up and was keeping in the humidity, staying constant in temperature, etc. She ate on Friday, as the breeder suggested she would. She pounded two small mice with no hesitation as soon as I removed the hide, and looked like she was interested in more.

I know that has nothing to do with my heating problem, I was just very excited to see her so ready to eat so soon after being introduced to a new tank!

Anyways, onto the actual problem. I had a 5 gallon UTH producing the heat for the carpet, and the temperatures were at 85 warm side and 74 or 75 cool side. That seemed to be a little too low, so I bought a 10 gallon UTH and stuck it to the glass.

Now, when I run it through a rheostat, I can't get the cool side above 75 without having the warm side temperatures near or above 100! If I dial it down to 93-95, she comes out of the cool hide and crawls on top of it to bask at the top of the tank under the light, and she's never gone into the warm hide (assuming it's way too warm).

I still have the 5 gallon UTH, would it be overkill to attach that to the cool side to keep it around 85 and dial the warm down to 93, or should she be okay if she's eating, pooping and starting to explore me when I take her out?