Temperature help?

[Traceur]

Ball pythons are hardy, adaptable animals and there are many ways to provide them with their basic necessities. I think it's better not to use a red heat lamp at night because in the wild it is dark at night. And it is important to provide them with enough change in light that they can tell day from night, but if the room has windows that's probably enough. But either way, the red light isn't that big of a deal. Your snake will be fine.

For heat, a couple of degrees is really not a big deal, especially at the cool end, and especially if there's also a warm end. Again, in the wild they have access to a range of temperatures and they choose where they need to go.

For what it's worth, I'm in New England too. My living room gets below 60° in the winter sometimes, and it gets above 90 in the summer because I don't have A/C. So I've had to give a lot of thought to things like insulation and heat retention, but once it's set up it basically takes care of itself.

Just keep in mind that you are going to need to change things when the weather changes and your house gets colder. I'm assuming you aren't using a thermostat with your red lamp now, since it's incandescent. If you get a ceramic heat emitter, you can put it on a thermostat and it will keep the temperature stable where you need it. If in doubt, go for a higher wattage one, since the thermostat will keep it from getting hotter than necessary. Same story if you go for a radiant heat panel. The main practical differences between those options are how you mount them, so it's worth thinking about what your snake's grownup home will be to make it easier to keep using the same heating equipment.

I managed to keep the temps in my room relatively decent, so hopefully it doesn't affect his temps that much. But if it does, I'm sure it won't be that much of a hassle. As for windows, my only window has the thickest curtain I can manage. So I make artificial light for him. His day time light is through a strand of Christmas lights which give a pretty good glow, and then his night time lights are 4 small fake candles that make the room a very dim blue. He does seem to know when night time is, because when I have the day off, I won't really even see him come out. But when the candles are on, he begins exploring n such. But he had a weird reaction to his water.
He slowly put his head in there and fell out almost backwards. Is that bad? I haven't even seen him drink or bask in his water dish. And I honesty have not seen any snake turds around. But maybe he went before they shipped him so he wouldn't be traveling in his own feces (which is good). But for the water thing is that something I should worry about?