Hello everyone.

I am new in the BP hobby and new on this forum. I have been reading so much about this beautiful animal and i have spent many hours on this forum, which is freaking helpful!. I have 2 ball pythons, one generic stripe "Gilbert" and one pastel "Pineapple" they are both males. Gilbert i believe is 2.5 years old and Pineapple is 5 months old. They are both very healthy guys.

I got Gilbert about 2 months ago and Pineapple 1 week ago.

2 days ago I clean Gilbert's cage, changed bedding (I used coconut fiber), disinfected the entire cage (Including hide, water bowl and plants), and I even gave him a bath in luke water. he actually enjoyed it a lot. When I put him back in his cage and after exploring the clean environment he went inside his hide, I was happy to see that. But next morning I see him outside of his hide. I checked the temperature in hide and it was a bit to high in the 99F. I have a heat tape attached to the bottom of his hide spot (on the outside of the cage of course) his cage is made of PVC. So I decided to lift the cage about 1 inch to allow air to flow under it. which reduced the temperature to about 88F.
The same night when I got home from work I saw him inside the hide, which made me so happy! BUT this morning he was outside of his hide AGAIN.... Temp is in the 85F and humidity in the 70's.

I am not sure if I am doing something wrong... my theory is he is just cooling down a bit since his bedding is fairly new and it is still a bit wet meaning its very humid in his hide.

Wanted to see if any of you guys have a better theory??

Now on the other side I recently bought a new (smaller hide) for him.... which I put in last night and this morning I see him on top of a fake plant I have attached to his cage wall. He is a very small guy only 170g. I can see he went in his cage but for some reason he decided to chill on top of the plant and stay there. I simply laugh in the morning when I saw him. Again temp and humidity in his cage are in the 88F and 60's.... I have the exact same setup for both tanks. Heat tape under the hide spot with 1 inch of space in between the bottom of the cage and the table the cage is sitting on.

Hopefully I can have some good feedback from you guys.

Here are some pictures of my 2 guys: