Hi everybody.

Firstly, I'm a newbie with snakes so please bear with me. I've done loads of research on the web and am reasonably confident I know (roughly!) what I'm talking about, but I only got my 1st snake a couple of weeks ago and wanted to hear some advice straight from the experts (you guys) rather then having to sift through the poor advice (and there seems to be a lot out it there!) to find the facts on the Internet. I'll try and get as much detail in as I can without writing an essay

Got 'Mackey' a couple of weeks ago off a couple at work. They had a space issue at their new flat, so he came with the whole shebang - viv, lights, heating, timers, thermostat, logs, mice, etc, etc. He's a 3 and a half foot male Royal Python and I'm told he's 3 and a half years old. He's very friendly, handles really well and appears very healthy and happy.

I've done some research though, and based on that, I was rather surprised at the way the previous owners had chosen to set up the viv.

On the plus side, it looks like it's been made from a wooden cabinet of some sort with sliding glass doors on the front and is 3' long, 1.5' wide and 2.5' high which seems the right size and the material is good.

However, they've chosen to put a heatmat at one end (inside the tank with about an inch of substrate over the top); a 'strobe' (I think he called it - like a long white flourecent tube) on the back wall; and a red heat lamp at the opposite end to the heatmat.

The lights are on timers - they're set for 9.5 hrs white (day) and 15 hrs red (night).

He has a 'hide', of sorts, which is a log on top of a big branch. This is placed over the heatmat (opposite end to the red light) and this is where he spends all day sleeping (white light). The red light's set to come on about 5.30pm and he starts to become active at around 8.30pm and loves to climb!


Based on this setup, I have a few concerns.

1) AMBIENT TEMPERATURE: During the night (from 5.30pm til 7.30am) the red light is on. This is connected to a thermostat with a probe poking through the top of the back wall of the viv and the stat is set to 28c. Therefore, the ambient temperature at that time is 28c which I think is about right (The heatmat is still running constantly at the other end at around 30c).

However, when the red light goes off in the morning and the white one comes on, the ambient temperature can drop as low as 18c during the day. I dont know if this matters as he spends all day asleep on his heatmat at the other end anyway but nevertheless, I'm concerned it's a bit low. Should i set the red light to come on in the day as well, or will this dry out the tank too much?



2) BURNS: The red light is inside the viv on the ceiling and gets very hot, but there is no guard on it. He loves to climb and gets worrying close to it sometimes, though there are no signs of burns on him. He doesn't wrap himself around it or anything and doesn't appear to touch it. I've read theyre more likely to burn their bellys - is this true or do I need to get a bulb guard or will that just encourage him to climb on it?

He also crawls along the white light which doesn't get hot and isn't on at night when he's active anyway, but I'm concerned about it shattering.



3) HUMIDITY: I seem to be having problems getting the hunmidity up (hovers at around 55%) and I think this is causing him to patch-shed. He's having trouble getting the last bit's off. I'm misting the viv with water twice a day. Is the red light drying things out too much?


Bearing in mind he's 3.5 yrs old and apparently used to this setup, I'm reluctant to change anything too much for fear of upsetting him.

He's currently feeding well on a medium F/T mouse every 5-7 days.

Any advice most gratefully received. As a beginner, I am hooked already and love him to bits, so just want to make sure everythings spot-on for him!

Many thanks in advance.