Welcome and best wishes Angel. Carpets are fun snakes to keep and I hope you really enjoy yours. As John stated a lot of your questions are pretty subjective and really come down to what works best for you and your snake. I'll share a few of my preferences.
If possible I'd skip the tub and get the pvc enclosure right away. I have all AP cages for my critters that aren't in QT with one exception. I love my AP cages. I'll be ordering 1-2 more pretty soon. I think RHPs are the most efficient heat source, especially for display cages, even though my young carpets currently have UTHs and IR heat bulbs for heat. They're in a split AP T8 and I went with bulbs instead on (2) 40W RHPs. I'll be upgrading to 80W RHPs in the next few months when they move into their larger enclosures. I've only used UTHs with tubs and they're ok for snakes in quarantine but you can't really boost the ambient temps with them which I need to do especially in the winter months.
I think a 4x2x2 or 4x2x3 are the ideal enclosure sizes for carpets but 15-18 inches of height are acceptable too.
Most of my water bowls aren't large enough for my carpets to soak in but even the snakes that have larger water bowls don't soak in them.
All of my snakes are fed inside their enclosures and only realize it's feeding time when they see or smell food. You can always use hook training for the nippy ones but none of my (4) carpets are biters.
I use aspen sani-chips for substrate in my permanent enclosures because it's very easy to clean and looks nice. I'd like to try eco-earth at some point. My snakes in quarantine are always on paper towel.
Keep us posted on your progress and please share pics of your snake and setup when you can.
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