HELP!!! First Ball Python Issues

Hello everyone. I got my first ball python named Kayly just over a week ago. She's about 10 months old. I bought her from a local breeder. I live in western Colorado and it's the middle of winter, which means I'm having a really hard time keeping temps and humidity up. When it's warm enough it's too dry and when it's wet enough it's too cold. I have to use multiple full spray bottles of water a day just to keep it in the 40% range. Right now it's 88 degrees on the warm side and 58% humidity but that won't last long. It gets all the way down to 77 degrees sometimes if I'm not careful. I have a 40 gallon glass tank (which I know isn't the best for the humidity issues) and I have about 1/2-2/3 of the lid covered to keep heat/humidity in. I'm not 100% sure what my substrate is but I'll add that to the post when I find out. I have some wet paper towels tucked in one of the hides as I read that this can help when the overall humidity is hard to keep up. Even while I've typed it's gone down to 86 degrees and 54%. Also, I usually leave the space heater on in my room while I'm at work because the tank doesn't stay warm with it off but when I got home today, her warm side was at 99 and she was tucked into the coolest corner she could find. I felt so bad. Is there a way to help get a more specific control of that? Thank you! :(

First off, congrats on your new addition and welcome to the site!

What are you using (besides a space heater) to warm up the tank? Also, what are you using to measure those temps and humidity? There are definitely ways to get better control of your temperatures, but we need to know where to start in our recommendations.

I still use a 40 gallon tank for my BP. I have a rack and some pvc cages but I really like the tanks so I still use two of them.

Getting your humidity up is not hard and you just need to employ one trick I found and have used now for a good while.

You simply add moss to the hides. During a shed I keep the moss moist and do no allow it to dry out. During regular times I make the moss moist and then allow it to dry out before making it moist again. This moist moss will boost the humidity inside the hide so it will benefit your snake the most since the hide is where is spends the most time.

The humidity in the rest of the tank will remain low but that is not important. Using this method I get perfect sheds for my BP and never have to worry about humidity levels in her tank.

Just break off a clump, make it moist, and stick it in the hide. It is truly that easy. It also adds to security by making the hide seem smaller and therefore more secure. This can be very helpful when your snake is between hide sizes and you have to use a hide that is larger than recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/Zoo-Med-Terrar...ds=zoomed+moss

First, I'm using a fir and sphagnum peat moss substrate because I was told by my friend's mom and the owner of our local pet store from which I bought all my supplies that it would hold humidity much better than aspen shavings. I am currently using a large-ish dome with a 100 watt night black heat bulb, which I know should be combined with an under heating pad but I haven't gotten to that since I've only had her a week and have already spent over $200 on her things. The night temps USUALLY only get down to about 82-84 in the warm part which I've heard isn't terrible just because they're used to nights being colder than days. From what I can tell, her warm hide stays warm and humid enough because she spends most of her time in there and after I did that, her first shed with me was almost perfect. She shed in there and there was only one little piece I had to help her get off. The rest was solid and I had no eye cap issues.:confuzd::confuzd:

Also, I am using an Accu-Rite thermometer/hygrometer placed on the bottom of the tank and I usually keep it at the warm side but will move it to the cold side just to check on occasion.

You are not far from solving the problems of humidity. Get an undertank heater about 1/3 the size of the tank, and a thermostat, set the thermostat till it reads 88 under the warm hide, then put spagnum moss in the warm hide. This will solve the problem. If its still a problem zoomed makes a reptifogger that works really well. I use one cause it gets really dry here on long island in the winter. I put my fogger on a timer to go off every 6 hours, and have never had a bad shed yet, and my guy is over a yearold.

one way to make a tank have good humidity is to place something over the screen a plastic shopping bag or trash bag make sure you have a good area open for air flow though. get a thermometer gun (some pet shops have them also lowes and home depot have them) yes they cost more then your in tank thermometer but they give you specific temperatures of the surfaces not just the ambient air temp in the area of it. and the under tank heater will help more then the lamp will. your lamp is heating the top of the substrate, that heat then bleeds off into the air which will become lighter and that hot air will then leave your tank. the under tank heater will heat up the tank and then penetrate to the substrate and warm it from the bottom up giving it a better over all temp. when you get the temp gun make sure that you push some substrate back away from your hot spot and get both the bottom temp and the surface temp.

you have 3 ranges of temp to monitor the cold side surface, which should be low 80's the hot side (both under and on top) which should be 88-90, and the ambient which you want to have in between. the only reason to keep the lamp would be if your room is cold and you need to heat the ambient while having the hot side a little lower then you would keep it at with out the lamp.

please any one with more information point out anything i am saying that is wrong as i don't want to give bad information but this is what has been explained to me.

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Originally Posted by RiA MaU

Also, I am using an Accu-Rite thermometer/hygrometer placed on the bottom of the tank and I usually keep it at the warm side but will move it to the cold side just to check on occasion.

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Sounds good! Once you get your UTH (Under Tank Heater) and thermostat to control it safely, you'll have a much easier time controlling things. Until then, you've been given some excellent advice on how to maintain humidity.

When I had a tank, I found ceramic heating elements to not kill the humidity as bad as a regular heat bulb. I'd get a 100 watt CHE and maybe a smaller dome so you can cover more of the screen top. I also used a thick towel folded over to cover the top and would soak it with water regularly. This helped a lot for humidity. That and an UTH should really help. For individual setups, I like the Ultratherm heat pads from reptile basics. They can be used with a simple on/off thermostat to maintain a good hotspot.

Thanks everyone. Will she be okay for a few weeks until I can afford an under-tank heater? She didn't have a shed issue and she ate fine when I fed her. I just really don't want to mess things up now that I finally have my own snake. She means a lot to me and I got home from work and found her temp at 77 in the warm side again. I'm scared about the constant fluctuations. :please:

I am also using a 40g breeder, no UTH just a 100W CHE on a thermostat (set to 90) and 100W Night Blue on a dimmer (cool side ~81-83).

After a bit of fine tuning the humidity has become very easy to control and the temps only require a little fine tuning using the bulbs dimmer depending on the outside ambient temp.

Humidity control was done by covering the metal mesh lid with cardboard wrapped in foil, the only exposure to air being the lamp hood placements (With about 1in to spare around the edges of the hoods), easily up the humidity for about 12-24h by placing warm damp strips of towel or rags beneath the foil cover on top of the mesh lid. Oh and don't use ceiling fans in that room, it'll drop it to your rooms ambient almost immediately.

Doing that should prevent your substrate from getting too soaked (misting) which will help prevent scale rot, and won't force him to use moist hides (wet moss in all his hides) as the ambient humidity should be peachy.

Basically hot damp towel + low air exchange = Happy snake tank. - if you only have one lamp, you may have to experiment with the lids vent wholes, ours has one for each lamp each ~9in diameter.

** Also, strangely, and this may be superstition, but we've started placing a thin pillow against the wall of the aquarium wedged between it and the wall. I swear the thing gets warm and has boosted our temp about 1.5 degrees vs the same power without

Really it's pretty low maintenance, we're probably going to get a piece of plexiglass cut for the lid at some point to replace the cardboard+foil but it's working great on a budget.

Help! My space heater broke and now even with an under heating pad, her warm side isn't going over 75. I've been trying so hard to take care of her and I'm failing so hard.

You may want to get a high powered basking bulb. It'll get your Temps up but kill your humidity. What I did with my ball before I ditched lamp heating was get some eco earth and completely soak it put in your tank then put a dry layer of reptibark on top and it'll retain the water for weeks. Keeping your humidity high.
I keep my ball in a 36×18×18 tank and I read about 55% humidity.

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Originally Posted by About10Owls

** Also, strangely, and this may be superstition, but we've started placing a thin pillow against the wall of the aquarium wedged between it and the wall. I swear the thing gets warm and has boosted our temp about 1.5 degrees vs the same power without

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It's not superstition, it's insulation and it is a step in the right direction.



OP -This is why aquariums are not ideal unless you live in a nice sunny humid city year round. A lot of your heat is dissipating through the glass, it sounds like you spent a lot on this set up so an easy possibly free way to help with this is to cover the sides with some Styrofoam, even if it is only 3 of the sides. It's temporary and not pretty but it will work, if you want a pretty cage buy a front opening cage(PVC, melamine etc..). As you are finding out, it takes a lot of work to keep the temp and humidity in a aquarium and unless you have a colubrid, I would not recommend a aquarium for any beginner hobbyist for that reason.

You can get creative and use some Great Stuff on the outside and make it look like an inside out dart frog setup. For humidity there was some ideas thrown around in earlier posts, humid hide if humidity is low works great. An open top plastic container filled with Sphagnum moss and placed on the hot side works and you just have to dampen it every few days, again not pretty but it works.

- You can get a decent size bag of sphagnum moss from home depot in the orchid section cheaper then these reptile supply companies, it's the same stuff, same goes for the orchid/fir bark.

For anyone using a glass enclosure, I would recommend them getting a "versa top" to cover their enclosure to help maintain humidity and ambient temperatures. Also , with the "versa top" it is aesthetically pleasing to the eye while serving a two fold issue. Actually three fold bc it will help prevent escapes being a glass product that is heavy and covers the whole top of the enclosure. You will have to make holes into the plastic attachment that gets placed (slides) onto the folding glass for ventilation. You need to get the versa top that corresponds to your tank based on the gallon size. You will really be able to kiss your humidity problems goodby! Versa tops are sold at Petland, Petco, and Petsmart. They can be a bit pricey but pay off by so much in the long run. Lol. :gj: When I used glass enclosures I had a versa top on every enclosure. Now I use a rack system so no problem with humidity. Good luck.

Well as I said, I already have 2/3 of the top covered with plastic. I'm more worried about temp than anything right now. My pet store doesn't sell anything but the glass housings and I read that it really isn't too hard to keep warm if you have what I do. I'm just scared and confused as to why my luck is like this. She's going to freeze over and I'm going to be so sad...

check the temp directly under the lamp,i'm sure it is higher then 77 with a 100watt bulb. Again you likely read this setup works from someone who lives in a warmer climate or has a warmer room temp then you do, glass tanks do not retain heat very well even with the top covered.

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Grrr. It's warmer right under the lamp but she doesn't go up there most of the time because she's trying to sleep. I read about a million different people's experiences before I even got her and figured at least ONE of them was in a climate similar to mine. I mean her breeder obviously kept her okay.

I understand your frustrated, what you need to do is move her hide under the heat lamp until you get the temp and humidity squared away. Insulate the tank and once the heat is steady, you can work on the humidity. What is the temp under the lamp?

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Thanks but there's already a hide under the lamp. Under the lamp is where it's getting down to 75. I got an under tank heater the other day and the air temps are still around 75 but the hide is much warmer. The heat is hardly coming up through just the inch of substrate though. I don't want to move some because she could burn herself on the glass. I also got a new space heater with a thermostat last night and that seems to have helped. When I woke up (with the space heater at 70°) the ambient air on the warm side was at 90°. I'm guessing that meant her hide was too warm because she was sleeping under a vine on the cool side. I'd rather her have closer to good temps with the option to move and cool down than an entire room too cold and no way to warm up though. My boyfriend is buying me a ceramic heat bulb which I've heard works better than what I've had and also a foam insulator background.

I bought some 5mm foam sheets at hobby lobby to insulate 2 sides of my tank. With the insulation and a CHE bulb I'm able to keep my ambient air at 80-83 consistantly. Then I got a container and drilled some holes in the top of it and placed some wet sphagnum moss in it. The moss container helps me keep my humidity at 55% pretty effectively. I have a space heater set at 72 in that room and my uth with a thermostat reading 88-90 on the substrate. All of which makes for a happy girl. That set up works for me if that helps you at all.