Hello everyone! I'm new here, and new to owning ball pythons in general, but I have been lurking here for the last week or so, learning a lot about my new pets.

I just bought two ball pythons, "Slithers" and "Slim" who came combined in a glass tank, with only one heater, a huge hide, and a whole lot of other stuff that you guys wouldn't approve of. I guess the snakes are brothers, and have been in the same twenty gallon tank since they were adopted by the previous owners.

After reading many, many hours worth of threads on this fourm, I know there are tons of things wrong with this setup. For one, the ambient air temperature is around 70 degrees, and the one hot spot in the tank is around 82 degrees. However, the snakes seem to feed just fine -- we fed them on Monday and they ate with no heistation at all.

That's just some background information. After reading this fourm, I figured out the two zoned heater requirement, and a bunch of other things. I have purchased two seperate Sterlite containers for the snakes, hides, some visually appealing toys, but I still haven't figured out the heater situation.

I really want to move them out of their current tank ASAP. I was thinking about buying two 8"x8" Exo-Therm heating pads, and regulating them by using a lamp dimmer switch, as has been suggested in many posts here. I can acquire the Exo-Therm heating pads at the local PetCo for $14.99 each, and I can get the dimmer switches at the local Home Depot. Is there a better way to heat the cage? What are other people with plastic tubs using to heat their tank?

Also, my house temperature does not have a very large range. At the hottest it gets 72, at the lowest it might be 67. I believe with this tight range I will not be needing a thermostat. Am I correct in this assumption?

Thanks for reading my post, and for the replies!

-Matthew