Separating My pythons..

The temperature should never fluctuate unless you are breeding them, which I am sure that you aren't. I never let the cool side get below 80 at any time, it us unhealthy for your animals and they will be more suseptable to illness. Put one hide where it is 80-83 and one where it is 90-93. They need to be identical. You do not want your snakes to have to compromise heat for security.

The red bulbs you see over most of the cages here are because the snake can't see red, but the light allows you to watch your nocturnal snake without disturbing him by turning on the lights :)

Thats what I do.. I run a red infrared light all day so you can really watch them and then I run a blue moonlight which is much darker at night. Both these bulbs are 75w and both my tanks are 20L. I have your standard sticky heating pad located underneath my tanks on the opposite side of my water dishes. I'm curious if 20L tank is sufficient enought room for a full grown ball python? Obviously right now they are not full grown but only roughly 165-200g's each. Babies! I do plain on breeding later on. The knowledge I have is that I have to wait till my female is about 2 years old?.. I'm going to go out and get the hide boxes today and I was curious if you start out with a certain size hide box and then they get larger as your snake does? I think about when the snake is full grown and I have 2 large hide boxes in a 20L and a large snake... that isn't much room? or is it?

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Originally Posted by JBallPython

You running those heat sources on a thermostat?

-Jason

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Also, I would recommend partially covering the tops to the tanks in order to keep humidity up in the tanks with those heat lamps.

-Jason

You want hide boxes that they have to literally squeeze into...you know a hide box is the right size when its not touching the ground anymore once they're in it ;) they love that! Don't spend a lot of $ on hides from the pet store if you don't have to...upside down opaque plastic containers with entrance holes cut into them work great, are easy to clean, and are inexpensive to replace.

and wherever you got this info from:

Quote:

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No special lighting required. Fluorescent bulbs are more cost effective and run cooler than incandescent bulbs, and you eliminate the possibility of thermal burns. Light should be on 10 - 12 hours daily.

cage temperature should stay at 77-90F during the day. You can turn off the basking light and drop the temperature to 68-75F at night. These animals are active at night, so no special lighting is required.

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...stop listening to them. Young ball pythons should not experience a drop in temps at night. Also, ambient temperatures in the 70s is really too cool for young balls, 82-84 is much better and helps support their raging metabolism at that age/size.

Other than getting hide boxes and making sure your temps are high enough, great job with the setups - they'll be much happier in their own space. Those are 20 longs, right? Those should be find for a while...males stay smaller most of the time and could probably live in a 20L for life. A female will need more floorspace eventually.

First, I'd like to acknowledge your open-ness to suggestions here as evidenced by taking immediate steps to separate them, good job!!!

Some things still need tweaking, but you're on the right track! Others have mentioned already - they both need two hides, one on the cool and one on the warm side. You can even pick up plastic bowls from Dollar Tree and make your own by soldering out an entrance, like in this picture:

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...aEnclosure.jpg

And this is what I housed my 150-200 grammers in - it's a 15 quart tub:

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...b/BabyRack.jpg

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...ub/BabyTub.jpg

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...b/PretzelA.jpg

I love tubs, because I don't have to use any lights, I just let them have natural daylight cyle. And they hold heat and humidity better.

Also - you asked about breeding your female - generally she can breed in her third winter (or ~2.5 years old). Good rule of thumb, she should be at least that age, and then about 500 grams for each foot of length that she is.

Wow, I cannot believe how cool everyone here is! To keep helping me is beyond appreciation!
rabernet, thanks for the kind words!! :) I will post pix when I get the hide boxes and I will take some better up close pix of my babies for all to see! :)
As far as closing the top up a bit should I just lay something across the top where laps aren't? also, is it a bad idea having the trees in their enclosure? They seem to love them, but I worry about them crawling to the top and burning themselves on the lamps? Any thoughts?

I wouldn't worry too much about them touching the lamps, since they're on the screen - it was my experience when I used tanks, that the screen didn't get all that hot.

You can use contac paper to cover the areas where the lamps aren't. I can help with humidity, but I found that even then, I had a hard time with keeping humidity up with the lamps.

No problem at all...its actually really nice when a user comes on here as a new member and doesn't immediately become defensive and offended that their setup is slightly off. You're off to a great start.

A lot of people use contact paper to cover screen lids, all except the area where you place your heat lamp. Doing that will allow the cage to hold on to some of the heat and humidity better than with just having an open lid.

Its funny because if I knew better before I came on this board.. I could have saved a lot of money giving my snakes tubs instead. I know this question sounds silly but what type of heating pads are used for a tub and how does the snake get good oxygen supply being in a tub?