Hello and welcome!
Not to be mean but I have for you a "laundry list" of what you should do IMO.
1.Hot side: 86-90F (depends on your snake but 88 is a happy medium)
2.Cold side: 78-80F
3. 2 Hides, one on the cold side and one on the hot side
4. You must measure your temperature and humidity. A popular and affordable thermometer used by many people is the Accurite from Walmart.http://www.amazon.com/Chaney-Instrum...accurite+probe
That's an amazon link but they have a similar one in Walmart. This one is really nice because it measures the humidity and it's pretty affordable. As a broke college student, I can afford this.
5. Humidity should be at 65%. Ball pythons live in burrows and termite mounds in subtropical savannas. Humidity is pretty high underground.
6. Do not smoke in the same room as the snake. I'm not saying don't smoke at all, it's your lifestyle. But snakes only have one lung and it's a pretty crappy lung. Their lung isn't that efficient compared to a mammal's so it might make breathing difficult. Also other animals (especially small animals) tend to be much more sensitive to smoke than us!
7. I wouldn't worry about sounds too much since they do not have an external ear. They can't hear.
8. I would not move him to a different enclosure for feeding unless you do that to clean his cage or something. Snakes do not have a large frontal lobe and they do not think cognitively like we do. If they smell a food source, anything warm (90-110 F) will be considered "prey". So your hand would fall into that category.
9. The hide is awfully large. Like stated before they live in rodent burrows and like a snug fit. These are the hides I use and so do many other snake keepers. http://www.reptilebasics.com/hide-boxes
Toodles!
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