Look at my pic on post #61 of this thread. You need a big water bowl. The corner style in the pic holds half a gallon. Volume of water only matters if you are gone for long periods of time. You want a water bowl that makes the water have a large surface area for evaporation. You do need to get the infrared heat bulb. They tend to dry out a glass style enclosure but having the large water bowl off sets that. Also the python does need a day/ night cycle so if you leave a regular light on 24/7, it will stress you snake. Since you have a small tank right now, you may need to have the heat lamp on a lamp stand and not directly on the top becuase unless you can find lowe watt bulbs, the pet store will only likely have 50 watt as the smallest. 50 watts may be too much. That will have to be something you experiment with. So go to lowes as well and get their heat ir temp gun so you can check your temps. Also go to walmart and get the acurite thermometer/hydrometer dor around $12. Put the probe under you substrate over the uth and the unit on the cold side.