My new BP - Would like some help

[Kyle6203]

Hey all, after my first unsuccessful attempt at owning a snake ( I was much too young, and after my snake contracting blister disease and biting me (was my fault as I was being careless feeding it) although it didn't really hurt, it basically just scared the living :cens0r::cens0r::cens0r::cens0r: out of me) I decided this wasnt the right time to own a snake. So here I am 5 years later with another ball python.

This time I decided to do as much reading about the care and behavior of bp's as I could to make sure what happened the first time didn't happen again. Before buying the snake I decided I would set up its home and make sure it was in a suitable environment.

Habitat details:

-20 gallon tank
-Small UTH and 100w Infared heat lamp on the hot side (this seems to keep my temperatures at 90.5-92 degrees on the hot side, and 80-82 degrees on the cool side at all times).
-Recycled pet bedding substrate
-Medium sized exo terra rock water dish
-1 cave hide on hot side, 1 hollowed peice of drift wood that acts as a perfect hide on cool side.
-Digital thermometer with probe monitoring hot side cave, regular thermometer with humidity guage on cool side. Humidity remains at 55-60% throughout the day.

Ok now I only seem to have 1 problem but im pretty sure I tok care of it (I hope ). Today I went to pick up my bp and when I did I noticed what I think was a mite on his head, I removed and killed the bastard and checked the rest of the snake for more mites, I didn't find any. I checked the tank for more infestations and I noticed a small chunk of snake poop hid within the fir bark I was using at the time. There were mites (at least I think their mites) crawling all over it! I panicced and went immediatly to the pet store to buy new subrate, quarantined the snake, cleaned out the entire tank with bleached water, put in fresh recycled paper pet bedding so that I could more easily see the poop without it camoflouging in with the fir bark, re-checked the snake for more mites but didn't find any, and put him back in his cage.
Should this be sufficient in taking care of the mites? I keep checking him about every 2 hours and have yet to see anymore.

Oh one more question, i'm a smoker so unfortunately for the snake hes getting some second hand smoke, exactly how bad is this for him?

I named him Smoke and he is a docile sweetheart. Hes not even the slightest bit headshy when im holding him. Heres a pic:



edit: Forgot to mention that i've had it for 2 weeks now, its eating live fuzzies regularly, has yet to shed, and seems to be thermoregulating very well. He also has some patches of discolored dull somewhat rough scales on his body (not his belly) but i've been told this is normal and happens sometimes after a shed, this is correct right?