Heating confusion

[Green Tea Boa]

I may be getting myself a ball python soon, and I've read the threads here in the forum and I may be missing something because I'm still confused. I understand they need a UTH but is a basking area necessary during the day? I have an heat lamp made for reptiles. And if a basking area is good for the snake, do you keep it on the hot side?

I own a corn snake, so if there are any other tidbits of advice in differences of their husbandry, it would be much appreciated.

[wax32]

Balls don't bask. Corns either for that matter.

Under belly heat is all you need.

[Green Tea Boa]

Hmm for some reason I read/heard somewhere that they were baskers. Oh well, thank you!

[wax32]

No problem. Remember, ball pythons are nocturnal. When exactly would they bask?

[Green Tea Boa]

Hahah point made.

[Boanerges]

Agreed. No basking area needed. Plus the lamp will dry out your tank making it hard to keep your humidity up

[Kaorte]

If you are using belly heat, you also need to use a reptile thermostat to regulate the temperature of the heat mat. Even the ones that say they are okay to run without a thermostat get too hot and can cause burns. The reptitemp 500r is the most basic unit and can be found online for about $25.

If you find that your enclosure is too cold with only one UTH, you have a couple options.
1. Get another UTH and a piggy back light dimmer, plug the dimmer into the thermostat and the uth into the dimmer and dim the temperature down to your cool side temp.
2. Get a lamp or Ceramic Heat Emitter for the cool side. The down side to this option is that it will suck the humidity from the air making it very hard to keep at acceptable levels. It is possible to keep it up when using a lamp, just hard.
3. Get a space heater for the room to raise the ambient air temperature.