Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have only had my new baby ball for a coulple of days and his eye has a dent in it! what should I do?

check the humidity in his tank...it is probably too low...
Eye dents are fairly common when humidity is too low. to bring up hum. try increasing surface size of water bowl and misting.
humidity should be between 60 and 65%.
good luck and congrats on your new companion
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1.0 ball python(normal)Maximus
0.1 golden retriever Amber
0.1 dalmation/lab mix nikita
0.2 bettas

What does anyone out there suggest if you live in an area where you're having an unsually cold winter and the air has been extremely dry, even more than usual for a winter? I have a very large water bowl in my tank and I close off almost the entire top and the humidity is still having problems going up. On the one side, I have a UTH that is on 24/7 and a lamp that is on about 12 hours a day. I know the lamps dry things out but I need them both on for part of the day to at least get the air temp. up when I'm not here and the room gets a little chilly. If I just use a UTH, the humidity stays up alot better but it doesn't heat the tank as well, just the very bottom. And of course, you can't turn an UTH up too high because then you could hurt your snake. Anyway, it doesn't get cold in here or anything but when it's about 5 degrees out it still is hard to keep the room warm unless you start blowing a lot of money turning your furnace way up, when you aren't home. And when I mist the tank a lot it helps but then I worry about it getting too wet in there and the snake having skin problems because of it. I don't mist it enough and the humidity doesn't go up too much. Any advice from anyone that lives in a similar climate would be appreciated! Thanks!

A $20, about one gallon, humidifier from your local drug store. Just put it in the room near the cage and raise the ambient humidity. Experiment with placement, starting from the farthest and working in until you find right about 60%.

So, do you think it is OK to leave a humidifier on when I'm not here during the day because that is what I'd have to do? Thanks

Yeah. Just make sure you've set it up for the proper humidity in the tank. It really shouldn't be a fire hazard, but do give it some time off every day. It might even work with just a 12 hour split. From this point, it's all experimentation. And, again, just make sure you know exactly what humidity levels are in the tank.