Humidity/Heat Help Please!

[mattjordan19]

Me and my girlfriend recently bought a ball python. We are planning on getting a new enclosure for her. Probably around 36 inches long, with a mesh screen top. It has two homemade hides for her, a water bowl to drink/soak, and a flat rock to lay on or rub on to shed. I had a couple questions regarding the heating and humidity. I am interested in getting an UTH, and having that heat the whole enclosure, and i have read that a lot of people do this on other threads. But, I also read that they require a basking spot from an above heating source. The room she is in is usually about 70-75 degrees. (she is in a small glass aquarium now with ambient temps from about 82 on one side to about 90 under the 100W red light) What size UTH would be reccommended?, do I still need an above light?, and some tips on how to keep the humidity between 50-60 percent. Over half of the mesh top is always a wet towel with saran wrap over it and some moist frog moss along the edges of the tank. I still have to keep misting/rewetting the towel/frog moss to keep the desired humidity. The new tank will be quite bigger, so I'm worried about the humidity. Thanks!

[steveboos]

Well keep in mind 90% of the time bigger enclosures create more problems rather than solving them. Smaller enclosures are easier to heat, keep humidity, help the bp feel secure, and clean. Also if your going to use a UTH to heat the tank you MUST MUST MUST have a thermostat or dimmer switch/rheostat to control it or you will end up burning your snake up.

Keeping humidity up is best done with a good moist substrate, cypress works the best and daily misting will help bring it up if it still drops low due to your house being dry.

Pictures of the enclosure would help, but i would avoid anything with mesh lid as that's just going to look moisture too easily, pick something preferably PVC/ABS/ or HDPE for an enclosure.

[mattjordan19]

She is in a 20 gallon tank right now, but I still cant keep it humid enough. It is definitely the light and the screen top. As for the tops you mentioned, I have no idea what those are lol. If I bought a UTH, would there still be a need for the above light?

[steveboos]

Well what you can do, this might not be the prettiest thing. But go ahead and get yourself some black foam board or even reflective duct sheeting from Home Depot and put it on the sides and back of the tank to keep in heat.

Go ahead and spend some money on a good thermostat or just get a nice heat pad ( I always recommend UltraTherm, go to reptilebasics.com) and go to Lowes and get a dimmer switch for a lamp. The thermostat is going to be your best friend, but in a money crunch mess around with a dimmer switch for a couple days to get it dialed in and make sure you have plenty of good thermometers to measure it with.

If you can get the cold side to no lower than 75, and get the hot spot somewhere 89-94, then you'll be fine. Even if the hot spot is 86 or 85, chances are the ground is going to be warmer and probably perfect temps, just double check everything, make sure the heat pad isn't going crazy and you'll be fine.

[iCandiBallPythons]

I would tub it with a UTH ( this will take care of your humidity issue)unless your just wanting a display tank.