Thanks to everyone who gave advice and feedback. My ball has gone from



to


(there's also a piece of wood that will go in there, but at the moment it's in the 10gal. i'm also thinking about adding another small plant to the left/warm side to provide a little natural shade from the "sun")

I went out and got a zilla t-stat until I can order a Ranco, which is keeping the warm hide's surface temp at 90-92F. The cool side has a UTH as well, with a rheostat keeping it at 82F surface temp. Ambient temps are around 78F, the day/night bulbs are only 40 watt so they dont really add much to room temps, and with 55% humidity (thank you Miami and 49% humidity inside the house to begin with). Picked up a really sweet wireless Acurite thermo/hygrometer to monitor all of that, too.

Question, though... should the temperature probe on the t-stat be touching the bottom glass, or in between two layers of substrate? I found that when I had it touching glass, it would shut off far sooner, and my infrared temp gun would register about 83F or so on the top of the substrate.

He just ate today for the first time since coming home with me. He wasted no time, either... must've been hungry! I picked up a frozen hopper to try in another 5-7 days, but so far he's only ever been fed live prey from birth. We'll see how he takes to it. I'm going to give him a good 48 hours before transplanting into the new habitat.

I appreciate all the info and useful links. Thank you.