Just wanted to give a quick update. I brought my temp gun home and it looks like I have got the tank heat controlled now with the hot side to 88-93 (temp varies slightly depending where I gunned it) and the cool side/ambient around 78-80. What helped was putting my spare uth under the tank (not stuck to the glass yet just because I don't have a themostat until tonight) instead of using the side mounted one the previous owner was using (I removed that one now). Keeping a dry towel covering a good portion of the tank screen has been keeping the humidity at 62-65% (but I bet the fact that it's a little humid in my area right now helps that) I did put a night bulb on very low through a dimmer last night in case the ambient temp dropped a little. This morning the temps were still consistent. Tonight I will be mounting the themostat and uth to the underside and will be mounting the permanent thermometer/hygrometer inside the tank.

My Ball seemed to be more "happy" as I noticed he did do some more basking both inside and outside of his hide instead of constantly roaming around the tank last night.


And as for the feeding, it looks like I may be trying f/t sooner then later. The 2 pet stores near me didn't have any live feeders. I do have a specialized reptile pet store fairly close though but I haven't tried them. Figured it couldn't hurt to try so I picked up a frozen small rat and a 3 pack of hopper mice (they didn't have anything in between). Figured I'll compare the small rat to my Ball and worse case if it looks too big I'll feed the hoppers. Hopefully he takes them f/t as the previous owner was feeding live. If that's a success then I'll switch to online ordering for the discount