Tonight we found our corn snake dead. This is going to be long because I'd really like to know if I did anything wrong. About a month ago we went to a Petco to get dog food. While we were there my kid's were really admiring the baby corn snakes. We talked in length to the young man in the reptile department who answered our questions about their basic care and what we would need. We discussed it as a family for a week then went back and purchased one. This was a month ago today. I want to describe our exact set up and care. My children are absolutely heart broken and before I go buy another one I'd like to know if this was a result of our care. First of all the snake as of today was 15 inches long. He was eating one to two frozen pinkies a week. We dethawed them in warm water first and he always took them right when placed in front of him. We always made sure he wasn't handled at least 48 hours after eating. The entire month we've had him I've never seen him come out. Every time we go to look for him he was always hiding. I'm not sure if that's normal or not. He was always curled up sleeping. We bought the tank that the people at Petco recommended. It is a 20 gallon long with an under tank heating pad under half of the tank. The temperature during the day is 82 degrees in the tank and 78 at night. I had read that a baby corn snake didn't need a tank that large however the person at Petco said that it wouldn't hurt him any to be in it. The tank has two hides, a large water dish, and a branch for him to climb on. We found him curled up dead on the warm side of the tank. At about the halfway point there is a large black spot (he's a snow colored snake so there is no black on him) The spot wasn't there last night or this morning. The bedding in the tank is the Repto-Bark (think that's what you call it.) Again we're all heart broken. The kids want another snake right away but I want to make sure if we did anything at all to cause our snake to die we fix it so this doesn't happen again. I just feel terrible. If we've done anything wrong or should be doing anything different please let me know. Thank you for any help.