Hey everyone, cool site you have goin' on here. My name is James and I'm from Chicago. I have a young ball python named Duane that I got a few weeks ago. It is not my first, I've had a few ball pythons and a corn snake here and there, but I have not had one for many years due to my family not wanting them around. Now that I am living on my own for college, I have decided to get another snake.

Here he is...


He has been really great so far, very well tempered and has given me no problems with feeding. I have had snakes in the past only want to eat live mice, but he has always taken a thawed mouse.

I am having a few issues though, mainly regarding setting up his tank. For starters, I have been having alot of trouble keeping the humidty right, especially now that he is shedding. I mist several times a day but that really only helps for an hour or so before I have to do it again. Also, I covered part of the top of the tank to try to keep some of the humidity in, but I don't want to restrict the air flow too much. What are some things I can do to help keep the humidity up? I noticed that when my heat lamp is turned off, the humitidy will stay higher for longer, but my apartment usually is rather cold, so I need to have the heat lamp on pretty much 24/7.

This leads me to my next issue. I have been (trying) to use a Red Heat lamp so that I can keep the tank at the proper temperature at all times of the day while still providing a good light cycle for him. However, they keep burning out after only a couple days, and I can't figure out why. I don't think it has anything to do with the fixture, because I have been using regular bulbs in it out of necessity and they have not had any problems. This has happened twice now, and I can't afford to keep going out and buying new bulbs. The bulbs are the 50 Watt "ESU Reptile" brand Red Basking Heat lamps. So far as I can tell the reason the bulbs aren't working is because they have gotten a hole in the base of them, as shown below. Both bulbs have gotten this hole in exactly the same spot. I doubt that I have gotten two defective bulbs in a row, and I want to figure out why this keeps happening before I go and drop more money on another bulb just to have it happen again. These things aren't cheap, and I'm not exactly rolling in the dough.

The problem with the bulb:


My last question isn't really an issue, just something I was wondering about. I have Tinnitus (a constant ringing in my ears) and need to have a fan on in my room to drown out the ringing for me to be able to fall asleep, and I generally prefer to just keep the fan on all the time. It isn't a loud fan, but I was wondering if this is something that might stress my snake out at all. This is probably a dumb question, but if it is something that might bother him, then I will at least turn the fan off when I am trying to sleep.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

-James