Hi I'm new here and worried about my ball :(

[Reesy]

taking the tank upstairs into a more controlled environment would always be better. You place the temp probe between the UTH and the bottom of the tank. And yes you can use paper towels or news paper as long as you want. Remember aspen bedding can cause the same problems as eco earth. I wouldn't use any particulate or loose substrate. When you open a photobucket account it will have an upload option so you can browse your phone like a PC and select which photos you want put in your account. Then you follow the instructions in the stickies in the photos section of this website to copy and paste them in your posts.