Need Help New Ball Python Owner :)

The nice thing is once you've got an enclosure set up and stabilized it really tends to tick along with very little real work for the keeper other than general cleaning and keeping an eye on things. We have 15 snakes and they really take no time at all each day to manage (all in seperate enclosures of course).

As to why the pet store gave you incorrect information, there's a few reasons for that. If they sold you that enclosure, it's called making a buck off an unsuspecting customer. It can be about untrained pet store staff who don't know a ball python from the hole in their head they talk out of. It can be old fashioned information that they still cling to. Remember these are the same type of stores that still market and promote electric heat rocks years after they've been proven to be dangerous to almost any living thing. You can occasionally find a really wonderful pet store and great staff in it, but they are almost always private stores not chain stores or tend to stock exotics/reptiles only.

Thats why I am here looking to find out more I will invest more money into his cage as soon as my check comes in I def need something that can hold the temperature on both ends so that when I am at work I dont have to worry about having to adjust his temperature. If anyone knows of anything that can do that and hold 2 temperatures on each side that would be great. Example would be 92 to 92 degress on hot side and 86 to 88 on cool side so that it doesnt drop or raise any higher than those. I am not sure if they have anything like that on the market but I would love to have it. Till I get some spare cash I will try and cover up those lights so that he doesnt go near them. If anyone has anymore input on items I should get please let me know and also list a site or store where I can get it I would def. appreciate it. Thank you

You need 2 UTHs or wired pieces of flexwatt, both identical.
You also need one thermostat and one lamp dimmer

COnnect the thermostat to the warm side UTH and stabilize the temps there to your target temp. connect the lamp dimmer to the thermostat as well and the cool side UTH into the lamp dimmer. While the thermostat keeps the warm side where ytou wnt it, adjust the lamp dimmer so the cool side is at your cooler target temp.

Either im just too tired to understand this or im confused but I will give it a shot :) . THanks

That's assuming a UTH will work and it's a glass or plastic bottom that will conduct the heat.

the bottom of the tank is wood

Well I don't know what to tell you then. Frankly if it were me I would return that monstrosity to the moron that built it and get my money back, but that's me.

I can't think of one single animal that could be kept safely in a cage built like that.

Where could I get a better tank?? lol I will try and return it

I'm not sure, I don't use that type of cage. I currently use glass aquariums for my corn snakes and a sterilite tub for my ball python. I have a rack on order that will house all of my corn snakes.

If you kept the viv you have you could probably mount UTH's on the inside, as long as they are relatively watertight and controlled by thermostat(s). You'd want advice from someone familiar with that type of viv though, and probably not from the store that sold it to you and said those exposed bulbs inside are ok.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KingPython

Thanks for the input Kim I will defenately have to find another way for now till I can afford one of those Herpstat's I guess now I will just go get 2 heating pads one for hot side and one for kool side and adjust the temperatures so that he's happy. I will buy another temperature reader for the warm side and remove those 2 heat bubls so he doesnt get burned. Ill keep you all informed what happens next lol I never thought it would be this much work :)

---

You CAN use the bulbs. You just need to put screens around them like those in Dr. Del's pics. It's whatever is easiest, or makes most sense for you and your situation.

Freddie's tank has a hood like an aquarium, with the 3 diff. style bulbs, and the owner didn't have anything between Freddie and the lights. And doofy snake Loooooooooooved to curl up inside around them. Lucky for him I wasn't using them at the time (and they didn't break!). I've since gotten a lid w/screen that fits in between, so that I can leave the heat bulb on all the time for the temp and the snake can't get to it and get burned.