As some of you know, I had reserved a young carpet Python from a breeder and had set up a tub for her. I was at the petstore yesterday to pick up some more climbing branches when the manager said "hey you! Snake girl!" She then proceeded to walk up to me and pull a tightly balled, absolutely freezing baby ball Python out of her jacket pocket and hand it to me. This was actually a little funny, as one of my snake phobic friends was with me and his reaction was priceless. Apparently someone brought it in and handed it to her 5 minutes before I walked in. She said that since I am a regular and they don't currently have a space for it, if I took it home with me she would pretend it never came through the door. There was a lot of back and forth, but long story short, I have it. I brought it home and put it in the tub i had set up for the carpet yearling.

I planned to purchase another tub so I grabbed a heat mat and was going to order a second thermostat on one day shipping so that I could set everything up and still be ready for the carpet hatchling on Thursday. When I got home I had a bit of an argument with my roommates. They are dead set on a one snake rule, which I find extremely arbitrary for multiple reasons, but whatever.

Now I feel like an idiot because I have given up a gorgeous snake who is already eating f/t rat pups and who has know gender, heritage, and health, for another snake of unknown feeding habits, gender, heritage, and health. It honestly never crossed my mind that this would be an "or" situation rather than an "and" situation, but she? needed me and I have her? now so the point is moot.

This tub is taller than what I have used in the past and i am having trouble keeping the ambient heat up. The hotspot above the heat mat is staying between 92 and 94 degrees but the ambient temperature is only staying between 72 and 74. How can I safely raise it? I thought about getting the second thermostat and mounting my second heat pad to the back center of the tub to try and raise the ambient temperature but would like opinions as I don't know how well that will work. Heat rises, it doesn't go straight across.

Help would be appreciated and a bit of ridicule isn't undeserved.