Hello! I am a relatively new owner of my first ball python, his name is Darwin and he is a fire/bee, almost 11 months old and I've had him since the Toronto Breeders Expo in September.

I need help because ive noticed that a third of his belly has been getting really red, at first i thought it was his substrate (reptibark) because all of his belly was slightly red during shed (darker than the normal pink) but after his last shed on october 29th only 1 /3 of him is red...but its getting darker. I then thought it might be his heating pad so i turned it down, but now im noticing that some of his scales are also crispy...I'm really scared and would like help identifying it and some advice on what to do next (can I use peroxide, ointment etc because I've seen conflicting yes' and no's all over this and other sites)

I have plenty of pictures but no idea how or where to upload them, advice is appreciated!

I suppose its worth noting that before owning him I worked with exotics including ball pythons but I have never seen this before