Hey guys,

I'm new to the forum, but i'm hoping ya'll can help me out. I'm building a snake cage/tank for my cousin (and his snake - Ball Python, adult size) as a birthday gift to him. He's been wanting/needing a new one for a while and i now have the money to do it for him. I've done hours and hours of research on Ball Pythons and enclosures for them because i have no experience when it comes to snakes, period. So, here it goes...

I'm building a 4 foot wide, 3 foot tall, and 2 foot deep enclosure. I'm using a 2 foot section of flexwatt as the belly heater and it is going to be sandwiched between to pieces of ceramic tile attached to a proportional thermostat (and i know all of you are going to freak out and say it's not safe, but i work with flexwatt for a living. it does not need to breath. being sandwiched is just fine as long as its below 95 degrees, which for a BP is more than enough heat.)

Now my question is, since the tank is 3 feet tall, i'm going to put a large piece of driftwood inside above where the flexwatt will be about a 1.5 feet up or higher. I want to make the driftwood a 90 degree basking area with a top mounted RHP (radient heat panel). the belly warmer is going to run cooler than 90 degrees. What size heat panel should i get? Also, would that be too much heat for that side of the cage? They are both going to be regulated by thermostats. but like i said, i'm new the the snake scene so i dont exactly know how much heat a RHP puts out or how far it traves/radiates.

Please let me know what you guys think on how i should set it up... or if you have any other ideas please feel free to voice them. i'll give a list of the items i have (not that i will need all of them, but some were given to me by a friend)

two hides, one for the cool side, one for the warm side,
a big water basin thing
two driftwood perches (one on each side about 1.5-2 ft each)
two decent sized air vents on each side of the tank
Two proportional thermostats (one Helix, one Herpstat)
A Ranco 111000 thermostat
one digital thermometer
1 humidistat
a rock to coil around (what hes using right now)
Substrate (what hes using right now)
A ZooMed UTH (what hes using right now)
A Flukers Ceramic Heat Lamp (what he's using right now)

any other suggestions as to what i might need would be much appreciated.