Quote Originally Posted by Regius_049 View Post
There are both a black eyed lucy and a blue eyed lucy, it sounds like you have the black eyed morph.



I would leave the setup the way it is regarding the heat bulb, for two reasons: (1) Your ball python is acting normally and eating, always signs of acceptable husbandry for a snake. (2) Your ambient is high 70s to low 80s, just barely over 70, with a hotspot between 85 and 90. This is near an ideal setup per most recommendations - most quote 78-80 as ideal ambient, which you are essentially within. As long as you have a hot spot where the ball python can raise its internal temperature, you are pretty much good. The idea behind a heat gradient is that the snake has access to a range of temperatures and can heat or cool itself as needed, which your snake should have no problem doing in the shown setup.

The only modifications I might make are (1): move the heat lamp over a bit to one side as it appears that the most direct heat is over the water dish. It understand this may be neccesary to raise humidity, but moving it over to roughly 1/3 the distance on the left should give you a slightly warmer "warm hide", a larger gradient, and still keep heat over the water dish. (2) I would consider replacing those hides with something plastic and easily cleanable (for example, these). Those wooden hides cannot be very easily cleaned, are porous and hold bacteria more easily in humid environments, and also are made of an unknown wood type. Some woods are known to cause skin irritation.
Ok moving the heat lamp a bit to the left does sound like a good idea. I do have it in the center for humidity purpose but I'll see what happens. I just bought the wood hides and she seems to really like the warm side one. I have others and can try them but she seems very happy with the current setup.

I'm kinda shocked that xyz would send me the wrong eyed python considering the black eye leucistic is more expensive. Either way the snake is beautiful and I'm just happy she feels comfortable.