Hi, I'm Bryan, and I just got my first snake, a female ball python. I named it Lilith.

My friend reccomeded me to this site, as there's a lot of useful info here. As any first-time snake owner, I'm researching a lot and finding out new things.

As of right now, I'm kind of worried about her. I NEED to keep the humidity up in her tank (which is starting to get too small), and it's hard to take care of her every other week, because I commute to my mom's house. The week I'm gone, my father, who doesn't know anything about snakes, is expected to take care of them. Usually when I come back, there's a lot of cleaning up the BS that he created. We're having problems keeping the humidity up, and most of the time the stuff we buy for the snakes is up to his budget... And he just so happened to buy them BEFORE he had the money for most of the tank accessories... There's a lot of problems I hope you guys can help me out with.
I'm currently using reptibark, which I changed out from the substrate the tanks came with, a very "sharp" kind of bark that would really hurt your feet if you walked on it.

My father bought ONE lamp for TWO tanks, and then the snakes started to get to cold, so he bought another lamp. Mind you, a DIFFERENT kind of lamp. So, we can't put one lamp over each tank, but rather, he has both positioned between the two tanks. Common sense tells me this isn't right because all the heat is directed into the sides of the tanks. Also, the lamp he bought had a picture of an iguana on the front of the box. It's supposed to be a basking lamp. I asked him to buy a HEATING lamp. I figured if it was supposed to be a heating lamp, it would say HEATING lamp on the box. One lamp is red, the other is kind of a bright yellow-white light.

We don't have a humidity meter in each tank. For some reason, he's not getting one! He assumes if we spray both tanks the same, the humidity will be fine.

The snakes appear to be a little hungry, but aren't eating, and I don't really blame them.

I'm worried about their skin. I think it's starting to do what you would expect it to do if the humidity is too low. Their eyes are also starting to film a little.

If you noticed I've been saying "snakes" plural, it's because my dad bought two. One for me, and one for my other brother, who didn't ask for or want one. Needless to say, he doesn't take care of it. So I do all the taking care of, except for the week where I'm not here, where I stress about them because I know they probably aren't getting the care they need.

Someone PLEASE help me out. I'm really worried about these snakes. ANY help is appreciated. I need any help possibly to regulate humidy, and heat, help them to eat, and stop my dad from killing them.