Reader Questions: Ball Python Humidity

Posted by Sarah on September 29, 2008

Ariel emailed me last week with a question, and agreed that it was ok for me to share it with you.

If you have any advice please let us know! 

Thank you!

Here is Ariel’s Question:

Hello, I adopted a ball python in need of a home a couple of moths ago.  She’s about 1.5 years old and is kept in a 29 gallon tank. I have been having problems getting the humidity in the tank high enough and as a result, she doesn’t shed properly.

I heard that the humidity should be between 60% and 70%. To keep the tank more humid I put it in my bathroom. After I take a shower it gets to 60, but that’s the only time.  the rest of the time, its between
30 and 40.

I have a black light on the water dish 24/7 and a lamp in daylight hours. I also mist the tank with a spray bottle. What else can I do to raise the humidity? and preferably get her out of my bathroom (which was small to begin with).

And here’s my response.

Hi Ariel, thank you for reading the blog.

How big is your water bowl? A larger water bowl, or a second water bowl at the other end of the tank might help.

We had our ball pythons in a 75g for a while, and the only way that we could keep the humidity high enough was to have a 2 pretty large dog water bowls in there. 

We’ve moved the snakes into their own 30X30 square aquariums with a wood lid with 2 large holes cut out and covered for ventilation, and now the water bowl normally keeps the humidity around 60 without us having to worry about it.

We also use an infrared light and an under the tank heater for heat because they aren’t supposed to dry the air out as much - I’ve heard some people say that if you have a light it’s really hard to keep the humidity up in the tank.

What are you using the blacklight for?

I hope this helps and you can figure out how to get the humidity high enough for her soon.

Let me know if you have any other questions, and if this helps.

Ariel’s response:

The water dish I’ve been using is about 7 inches in diameter and is filled with .5-1 inch of water.  It is directly under the black light witch is the heat source day and night. 

At one point, I had 2 dishes of water under the lamp, but it didn’t seem to help much. 

How much would one of these under the tank heaters cost?  I’m in college right now so my finances are somewhat limited.

Thank you very much for your time, and I’ll see if I can make any more changes to increase the humidity.

And my response:

Ariel, the under tank heaters are less expensive online - we got ours in a couple of snake kits that were on clearance at Petco, and then we got a repti therm under tank heater from Drs. Foster & Smith. They are on sale for $11.99 for the 10-20 gallon size, and $21.59 for the 30-40 gallon size.

Unfortunately they don’t have one specifically for the 29 gallon tank.

I hope this helps!

If any of you have any advice that could help Ariel please leave a comment!

Thank you!