A few weeks ago I bought a 2 month old ball python. She's been doing great in general, never misses a meal or anything. It took me awhile but I finally got the temps right (I was using an analog thermometer which was 10 degrees off, so she was cold for a bit until I started using a digital one. Don't even get me started on that damn analog thermometer) but otherwise everything's been fine, except I absolutely cannot get her humidity up.
I'm using a ceramic heat lamp, 100 watts, which is keeping the temps perfect. However, it's sucking the moisture out of the air like crazy. I know the humidity in my room is fairly high (about 50% usually) since I live in the south, but her humidity is almost always below 40%. I've switched to EcoEarth substrate, scattered sphagnum moss everywhere, misted a thousand times a day, put a wet towel over the top of the tank, but no matter what I do within an hour the humidity drops down to 37% again. She's going into shed right now so I've made her a humid hide in the meantime, but I'm really afraid of her getting sick from the low humidity in general.
I think I've found a possible solution though and I really wanted some opinions, since all of you seem to know a lot more than I do. She's in a 20 gallon tank and I know UTHs aren't great for keeping up ambient temps, but what if on the warm side I had one under the tank and one or two more on the sides. Would this be enough to keep the ambient temps right? And if so, does anyone have any suggestions on what brand of UTH is best, and where I can find a thermometer for them? If this isn't a good idea, I'd really love some other suggestions. Thank you in advance. I'm getting pretty desperate at this point.