Hello! An Introduction & Requesting Some Advice

[Ian C]

Hello all, very happy to have found this forum.

My name is Ian. I've loved reptiles my entire life, and owned several many years ago (curlytails, iguanas, even a caiman when it was legal to do so). Never managed to have a snake though, as first my mother and later my wife absolutely refused to allow it. That finally changed when my daughter, who has been asking for one for 5 years and is adamant she will become a herpetologist when she gets older, was finally given one for her 13th birthday 2 weeks ago.

We got a 5 month old female ball python my daughter has named Hydra. I did tons of reading before we bought her, as I want to make sure we provide the best possible life for our new family member. We got her from a reptile specialty store (The Reptile Store in Hamilton, ON, Canada) rather than a chain pet store, as I had questions about how their care would be in the bigger stores. Yes, the 40 gallon terrarium at 36" x 18" x 18" is too large for her at this point, but I am hoping we have given her enough hides and foliage to make up for it. There's a large rock cave on the hot side, a skull she can crawl into on the cold side, and a little coconut hut in the middle, plus lots of plastic foliage without going overboard. We're using ReptiBark as the substrate. We started off with just a 15" x 10.5" heating mat under the hot side and a 50W bulb to heat it, but the substrate only feels mildly warm and the air temperature never went above 28C (82F), with the cold side being around 24C (75F). With that setup, the humidity was at around 53%, not bad, but could be slightly higher. At night we turned off the light and I didn't like the temperature dropping to around 23C (73F). We have since added a 100W ceramic heat emitter for the hot side and moved the 50W bulb to the cold side, which is much better. The hot side now sits between 32-34C (89-93F) and the cold stays around 26C (79F), with a small drop of a couple of degrees at night when we shut off the light.

The problem is the increased temperature has dropped the humidity to around 44%. We mist it with a spray bottle, saturating the substrate, but while it will rise to 80% or more, it drops right back down after 15 minutes or so. I don't want to continue this way for fear of mold, scale rot, respiratory infections, etc.

I could try to place plexiglass over the front half of the screen cover but don't want to mess up air circulation and not sure if would have much of an effect as we cover 3/4 of the tank at night with a cloth and the humidity only goes up to about 47%. I'm considering something like the Zoo Med Waterfall, but not sure if they will do much either. I'm reading everything from they fix humidity issues to they have no effect. I'm also concerned that a waterfall can either be a risk of her climbing inside and getting stuck, or the rock/wood design can be too rough on her scales. I want to get this resolved before her first shedding. Any advice?

For reference, she seems really well adjusted to her new home. She did curl into a ball when we first brought her home, and after briefly exploring her new enclosure she stayed hidden for the first week or so, but we left her to adjust undisturbed for 10 days. After the first 7 days she started exploring more, so we decided to try and feed her on Day 10 (last Friday). As per the store, she is used to frozen rat pups, so that's what we gave her. We thawed it and warmed it in hot water, then used tongs to hold it in front of her. She started tracking it immediately, and within 20 seconds lunged at it. She ate it within 10 minutes, and we left her for 48 hours to digest it. Starting yesterday (Day 12), I took her out to give her some handling time. No stress reaction at all, she curled around my wrist after exploring my arm for a few minutes, and transferred to my daughter with no issues at all. She is slightly head shy and pulls away if you move too quickly near her head, but otherwise I don't get the impression she is scared or stressed at all.

If there's one unexpected behavior I see, she seems to prefer the cold side. She will go into the cave on the hot side when we first place her in her home, but soon leaves the cave and heat pad and curls up under the more exposed skull on the cold side. Any ideas on why she'd choose that side?

I've added some pics of our setup and the digital temperature/humidity readouts (plus a pic of our girl herself ). Anyone have any suggestions to improve the setup?

Thanks for reading and having me here.

Ian