RCReptiles.com

[jrplkariya]

i bought my ball python from a reptile store about two weeks ago. i did a considerable amount of research about the conditions ball pythons need to have inside a terrarium. they need a cool side and a hot side and mild humidity etc. when i purchased the terrarium i bought a UTH, substrate, water dish, thermometer, and humidity gage. the owner of the store said that bp's do not need light and he said i didnt need a heat lamp. my ball has been fine and has eaten one meal in two weeks and i noticed he has cloudy eyes which i assume he is going to shed soon. i was just wondering whether i should buy a heat lamp or not. he seems fine and digested his food without any problems, would a heat lamp be necessary? by the way the thermometer reads around 80 degrees and humidity is around 60. thank you for any advice.

[junkopardner]

BP's can live without light, like you, but I doubt it's very healthy. A light (doesn't have to be a heat lamp) over the enclosure I think is good for simulation of the day cycle. You have it on during the day, and when it gets dark you switch it off and put in a red bulb (which they can't see, but you can see them).

In the wild, they have day/night cycles, and they should have the same cycle in their enclosures, in my opinion. There's been a lot of debate and different opinions about snakes needing UV light, do they get enough vitamin D etc from their prey....

But UV light isn't going to hurt; in fact, it could only help. A herpetologist who was speaking about Ball Python's said that they should be taken out into direct sunlight about a couple of hours a week, at least.

So I wouldn't recommend keeping them in the dark. They are nocturnal creatures, and as such it helps to know when daytime is, y'know?

If his eyes are cloudy blueish, then he's going into shed. Mine's eyes clear up and then a couple of days late starts shedding. Some people say their bellies get pinkish but I've never really noticed that with mine.

As for your heat lamp question, I don't know. What are the temperatures on both sides? Or is it 80 on both? Do you have at least 2 thermometers, and if so do they have probe/sensors?

You may or may not need a heat lamp based n those questions, and I'd love to see what your setup looks like.

Cheers-

J

[Temery]

do you have the point and shoot type of thermometer? if not then spend your $ on that, you need to be able to monitor both the hot and cool sides, a single cheap stick up kind will not allow you to properly monitor temps, I have 4 thermometers (all cheap stick up kind) in my tank, it's huge tho...

[jrplkariya]

i only have one thermometer on the side by UTH and it is the zoo med stick up one. thank you very much for the response, and i am definently going to get a light for him. do you reccomend a certain wattage light, or uv? and as for the red or blue light, is there different wattages for those? i will also buy another thermometer for the cool side because i have no idea what the temp. i will post pictures soon and thank you very much for the response!

[junkopardner]

First, you need 2 digital thermometers, preferably with probes. They're the ones with wires hanging off of them with a "sensor" attached at the end of the wire. Put one on both sides (hot and cool) so you know what the temps are at all times. You can get these at hardware stores, home improvement stores, Wal-Mart etc. and they're pretty cheap. BP's can sense a 3/1000ths of a degree shift in temperature, whereas a human being can usually only sense a shift in temperature of more than 2 whole degrees or so.

I said that to say that maintaining consistent temperatures on both sides are very important for the health of a BP. The cool side should run about 80-85 and the hot side 90-95 during the day and at night they can drop to 78 or so because obviously, in the wild, it's cooler at night.

I'll try to make this part quick:

I've had my BP for 2 months now and learned everything on the fly (I rescued him from a hellish pet store when I was in there to buy dog treats). What I have learned is that it's VERY difficult to maintain consistent temperatures without the aid of a thermostat. It's always too hot, or too cold....in short, it's all over the place.

Depending on what kind of enclosure you have (I assume it's a tank), the size of the enclosure, where you have it in your home, it can be a nightmare to regulate temps (it has been for me). The seasons changing, running the air instead of the heat; all these things factor in. So you most likely, unless you have great conditions in your home, will be constantly fiddling with it. My advice is to buy a decent thermostat (20-40 bucks), plug the UTH and Lamp into it and get the temps set right and then you're done. You're not constantly inconvenienced, and the snake is in a comfortable, stable environment.

As for your light question, it depends on the size of enclosure you have. If you have a big, long 30 gallon enclosure like I do, you might go with 150 watt basking bulb for day, and 100 watt red for night. (This has worked for me). But if you have a small enclosure, like say 10 gallon, you obviously don't want that much wattage so you might want to go with 100watt day 75watt night. It also depends on how cool, or hot, your home is and where his tank is in the home.

But this is where the thermostat comes in handy, because you don't have to worry about it.

Another piece of advice it to get two hides for the enclosure (one for each side), with one preferably being a "humid" hide. There are instructions on how to make them if you use the search feature on this forum. They're very cheap and easy to make and my BP loves his when it comes shedding time. He gets in it and never comes out.

And yes, there are different wattages for the night bulbs.

Hope this helps.

J

[a_green]

Here are my recommendations. I agree definitely you need digital thermometers with probes, at least two, preferably several. Definitely thermostat as well. If you have any analog meters, whether thermo or hygro, replace them with digital (you can get them quite cheaply and and they're WAY more reliable).

If you're going to make a humid hide (sorry to contradict you here, junko) it should be in addition to two regular hides. Your snake should have a comfy hide in each temperature zone and might not always want the humidity of the humid hide. Mine uses both of her regular hides frequently, but never uses her humid hide unless she's in shed.

As for lamps, I don't use any kind of lights because my bp's tank is near a window and she gets natural daylight. I used to have a red bulb for heat and night viewing but I found that the red light really bugged me, and it wasn't the most efficient for heating (also it sucked up a LOT of humidity). I just didn't find that I was watching her enough during the night for it to be worth all that, so I switched to ceramic heat emitters.

If your enclosure is small it's certainly possible that under tank heating is enough to keep up the ambient temp. But if it's only at the belly level that your temps are correct you might want a heat lamp to keep the ambient heat up (with a 50 gallon tank, I use 2), because depending on how much your bp likes to climb, they may be spending plenty of time above the floor!

With ceramic heat emitters I don't have to worry about any lighting, and they're extremely efficient at radiating heat. I keep mine on a thermostat, as well as my UTH, and I have never had a single problem with temperature.

Good luck!

[junkopardner]

No contradiction, Mr. Green.

I have 3 hides, only one of them humid. I got the little cave/house, the humid hide, and that damned hollow stump that he loves and I'm hating more each day.

He spends most of his time in a hollow of that stump. It's interesting, because the stump is in the middle of the heat sources (right between the basking lamp and UTH). So I don't know if he loves it in there because when he gets his body crammed all the way down in there he feels more secure, or he likes the temps better in the middle of the tank, or both.

I tried asking him, but he's a man of few words. Knowing that they're "burrowing" snakes, I assume he loves it because of his nature. And I have to believe the temps are suitable because he has two other hides on the hot and cool side so he has options of security AND heat.

I'm curious (as I've never tried this) to see if he would still spend endless hours in the stump if I moved it, to say, the side with the UTH or the other side under the basking lamp. It would be interesting to know if it was the stump itself, the heat, both or what....

But as for my advice to the poster, I was recommending a 2 hide minimum. Five hides would be great if you had the room.

The thing I love about the stump is the same thing I hate about the stump; it has MULTIPLE hides within it because all the roots etc. have hollow nooks and crannies. The idea when I found this for him was that he could pick whichever he wanted, and the temperature of each hollow if different. I placed the sensor wire into each "hollow" for awhile and they all slightly differed. So he does get into different hollows at different times (he doesn't have a "favorite"), and it would be a reasonable observation that it's because A) He's a burrowing creature by nature, and B) he prefers different temps at different times.

I have found through trial and error over the last couple of months that the most important thing to give your BP is OPTIONS. Temperature options, humidity options, hide options etc

Give them as many options as you can and watch them like Darwin in the Galapagos Islands with your notebook and study their behavior and record it in your notebook or spreadsheet or whatever (I know it's a bit obsessive, but I never half azz anything).

With all those options, they'll tell you day and night what they prefer and don't prefer at any given time, or at all. But one thing they do like (as far as I can tell), is lots and lots of options.

Just my observations, but like I said, he's a man of few words.

On a final note, I will say that basking lamps do suck up A LOT of humidity, so be prepared to do battle with humidity if you get one. Mr. Green is spot on here, as my hand is tingling and numb from constantly pulling the trigger on the spray bottle. If you ignore your humidity, It can get down to 30% or lower with a basking lamp if you don't watch it. I'm switching to Cypress Mulch to help with the humidity because Aspen ain't cutting it.

I personally love the red bulb, but it kinda annoys my girlfriend because the tanks in the room and it casts red patterns on the ceiling. This is just a personal preference. I like it because BP's are nocturnal, and at night (when it gets dark we take out the white bulb and put in the red) he comes out and climbs around on his fake greenery and is pretty active. If he's real active I'll feed him. But I like the red bulb because it's stone dark to him but I can watch him and he looks so f-ing cool, like a big bad azz stalking around. They're such beautiful and amazing creatures......

I also, for the record, have no idea who "Ron" is personally, but I would like to thank him for this forum. I know that he's a breeder and site admin and occasionally posts on these boards from time to time, so Ron, if you're reading, Thank you! The forum has been a lifesaver and keep up the good work.

J

[RonCrawford]