another new owner with questions and worry

hey guys, first i love this website.... anyway just wanted to ask some questions.

I just purchased my first two ball pythons three days ago, and while i was planning on getting just one i ended up with two from a snake with a lump and a bad return policy that id rather not get into. I have them in a melamine rack with 4" flexwatt belly heat. The male is smaller and a pinstripe, and appears to be doing great. the female is a pastel, like a foot and a half, and while she has more girth and length than her future partner, she does appear to be skinny. the back bone seems to be showing, skin looks normal but then looks like it hangs at times. My main concern is that she was wheezing/whistling and i know that means RI, but it was only once and she has not done it again. I will be feeding them for the first time tonight, the reptile store fed them last Wednesday.

HEAT/HUMIDITY:
my flexwatt is wired parallel with three of them on it. i have a herpstat set at 94.5 which makes the pastel's (the top rack) read perfectly iwth my temp gun (the 412 tempgun). the probe is on the pastels uth. the pinstripes uth reads at about 90-96, and the hotspot in the tub itself reads at like 80-90. i think it read at 80 this morning because i had too much paper towels in there, were the pastel has only 2 papertowels and has a hotspot of 90-92. i removed some paper towels in hopes of this being the issue.
alright, now my second biggest concern: the humidity. i planned to get an accurite, but due to the reptile stores ruturn policy i was forced to buy random stuff to compensate for the price of the original snake and this included a hygrometer/temp combo by exoterra. it has 3 settings - min, max, and one in the middle. the max is at 88% hummidity, the min is at 38% hummidity and the middle is at like 81%. the temperatures are all 75-80. this tsays the same no matter where the probe is. i had it near the water dish, i moved it behind near the hotspot/hide and its the same. how accurate are these exoterra hygrometers/therms? what kind should i get? if this is accurate, then which one is the correct reading, the min, the max, or the middle? if it really is 80%, should i make more holes in the tubs?

is just a water dish enough for humidity? they never soak in their dishes, but ive caught them hanging out near them and only once have i een the pinstripe curled up on top of but not in his. ive been lightly spraying under their hides with the smallest of sprays so i dont have them too humid, since my current hygrometer reads at 80%.

also im worried about ambients. if the exo terra is indeed rubish (sorry exoterra) then i have no clue what ambients are. the rack is in my room because that's the only place for them. garage is too cold at the moment. my houses temp is set at 75-80 degrees,, but if i shut my bedroom door and crack the blinds, my room easily stays at about 80 which in turn makes the 412 temp gun read the cool side to be about 76-80, same with exoterra hygrometer/therm. ive read about using the red lights for the ambients. what should i get exactly if i choose this route? ive also been using the third peice of flexwatt near the tubs so they can be increased by 1-2 degrees.



sorry for any confusion, i get very worried about my animals and my OCD gets the best of me sometimes. lol they are all ive been thinking about. also i have classes in 30 minutes so i may not be here when some of you guys are trying to help, sorry if thats the case but will be back in a bit.

Thank you for any help.

As far as humidity goes a bowl of standing water really isn't going to bring your RH up by much at all. Also when you use paper towels or news paper in your tubs it will be about the hardest to keep the humidity in the right range. I use aspen bedding in all but one of my tubs, this way when someone is getting ready to shed I'll go into the tub with a spray bottle a few times a day till they shed out. This method works perfectly for me, I always get one piece sheds.

As for ambient, I've found that the because my tub racks are fully enclosed the heat tape does keep the ambient temps a few degrees higher than room temperature. If your rack has open sides then your ambient temp will likely just be room temperature. If this is the case you may want to bring the temps up slightly as your low end temp is a little too low.

Lastly, you could move up their feeding schedule to something like every 5 days and they should bulk up pretty quick. It's pretty common for the stores to feed only the minimum to keep them small and to keep feeding costs down.

Overall it sounds like you're off to a good start and checking the right things, welcome aboard and welcome to the addiction.

thank you! i think im going to switch to aspen, but im worried i will have to crank the uth up so it will get hot enough. or will the nsake just go under the aspen so its closer to the uth? i just dont want to heat it up so it melts the tub. Im sorry if this makes me look as dumb as asking it makes me feel but as far as air holes go, how much is too much? i have six on both ends, and then several on one side of each tub.


the rack is fully closed except the front.
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Don't crank the UTH up if switching to aspen, at least not right away. Most of my snakes will just push the aspen around and lay right on the plastic so you want to make sure to check your surface temps on the inside of the tub where their belly will rest. They also seem to like moving their hides around too, busy little buggers. The aspen helps with the humidity and gives them a place to urinate and poop. Makes a quick spot clean easier as the urine or poop will stay somewhat contained as well.
For the air holes it may depend on the gap you have between the tub and the rack. If you have decent gap all the way around you may not need any air holes but may find the hole necessary to control humidity. I mentioned I have all my snakes on aspen except for one, my Pied loves to splash in his water bowl and the aspen was getting soaked so much the humidity was way too high despite holes all around.

Grabbed a shot of the fronts of my tubs and you can see what I mean by them rearranging the aspen. Also my female Mojave shed this morning so I grabbed a shot of the fresh shed. Looks like she's just about hit 3' in length as the skin is on top of my 75 gallon tank which is 4' long, the tip of the tail was hanging a little off the end and was still twisted up a bit.
http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/k...n/IMG_0720.jpghttp://i276.photobucket.com/albums/k...n/IMG_0721.jpg

nice shed! thank you for everything.

I decided i need to drill more holes, i dont think the gap is big enough but im going to double check when i get back home (ive been using the lids to the tubs so they dont get out as the pinstripe is still pretty small).

im probably going to get the aspen and use that but should i be spraying it? i feel like it would get too saturated easily and clump. i imagine that just a spray on the surface of the aspen would be sufficient.

as far as the wheezing that came from the pastel, do you think it is ok? i only heard this one time and it was at like 6 am two days ago. i really hope she is ok because i want to see her big and strong. she already pushed her hide across the tub so i guess that could be an ok sign.

For making air holes use a soldering pen, it's much easier, no mess, and no sharp edges. Keep an eye on the Pastel to make sure it's not an RI. For misting I only do that when they're in blue or I spot a pink belly. Outside of that I don't mist the aspen, though to answer your other question you don't saturate it just dampen the surface, and I usually spray over the heated section of the tub as well as the sides of the tub and even right on the hot side hide itself.

thank you so much! i got the aspen and they are doing great now, everything seems to be perfect. i also picked up two acurites and they are reading at 50% humidity and 90 degree hotspot. i took th elid off the bigger one and the humidity went down to 50%, i had to leave the lid of the males tub as he was halfway out through the crack. i need to burn some more holes in his lid/tub

Sounds perfect. Good luck with everything.

Hey they've been doing great, but right when I seem to get one thing down a new problem arises. My room gets cold from the outside for whatever reason and although I've been trying to keep my house at 80 degrees my mother insists on lowering it back down to 74. I've had the ambients at 78-80 but when the house temp is lowered they go down as well. I've read about using red bulbs. Could I use a red bulb pointed at the front of my racks? Hat kind would you recomend?


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