Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For the past 3-4 days my ball has just been laying outside of his hide box in the hottest part of his tank. He has never done this before and he is starting to worry me. He hasn't shed in about 1.5 months and usually he sheds every 3 weeks. This didn't worry me because he has been going off and on food for 3 months. He hasn't eaten in 2 weeks and the temps he's laying in is can get up to 100 degrees in the day. Where he usually lays (before this) is about 84 degrees. There is only one spot in the tank that hot and he has found it and layed in it, and he keeps going back. Also, his humidity is only about 40 (I'm trying to get it up) average and after I spray it (twice a day) it goes up to 60 for about 30-60 minutes. Any info on what he's doing and what I'm doing wrong would be very helpful.
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1.0 ball python (vakker)
0.1 border collie/german shepard (maya)
2.1 cockatiels (sydney, ozzie and petrie)
1.1 chinchillas (ziggy and elmo)
0.1 mice (callia)
0.0.1 Emperor Scorpion (not named yet)
1.0 betta (grim)
25 fish (too many names to put here)

That is perfectly normal behaviour. The BP is one of the only snake species that, in the wild, will bask for hours during the hottest part of the day - which is often well over 100 degrees F.
Ideally, you need to have the hotspot set at a maximum of 95 degrees F, and an ambient, day time temp of 85 degrees F.
If you need to raise the humidity, provide a larger water bowl, large enough for your BP to get into.

First, I don't think I will ever stop worrying about any of my pets. Second, I do have a water bowl in the cage that will be big enough for him when he's an adult, but the humidity still is low. He's in an aquarium with a 'reptile proof' (ya right) lid made of wire. I was thinking about making a quarter or half of the substrate a mulch that will be safe. Thanks a lot for the help. I think I can relax for a little while now.
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1.0 ball python (vakker)
0.1 border collie/german shepard (maya)
2.1 cockatiels (sydney, ozzie and petrie)
1.0 chinchillas (ziggy)
1.4 mice (charles, callia, miette, disa and unnamed)
0.2 rats (miakoda and adoni)
0.0.1 Emperor Scorpion (brom)
1.0 betta (grim)
25 random fish
0.1 tarantula (hariett)

One more thing to add for the humidity problem. If you have a screen top tank try putting a wet towel up there. This has worked wonders for my tank! I left my house about 8 this morning and the humidity was about 74%. It's now about 3:30 and it's still 67% from the same towel that I wet and put there this morning! Give it a try, it works really well! Just make sure you don't keep using the same towel over and over since that can get nasty after a while. Everything else you described sounds fairly normal for a BP that's thermoregulating. Lately mine likes to spend the day on the cool side and the night on the warm side in his hide.