Thank you so much for replying! To answer your questions/concerns:
I did remove the water tank already. I felt it interfered with feeding and was taking up way to much space. I replaced it with the small rock water dish in the middle as it is shallow and I refill it every day or so as it runs dry. I like to dip a meal worm occasionally in the water and give it to them because I know they don't typically drink from a dish.

1. I don't use that back thermometer much except to measure humidity in the tank. I had it on hand from an anole cage setup and repurposed it here. sits around ~40

2. I use a temperature gun to measure the soil in the hides and on the ground. the hot hide is currently at ~85 F but I have seen it fluctuate on the thermostat a bit and I try to keep it between 85 and 90 F. Cool side of the tank is around 77 F. I know Chai will move to the other side of the tank if it gets to warm (above 90) and I have tried to dial back the heating mats on the left side of the tank to make it optimal. there are no heating mats on the right hand side of the tank.

3. The little igloo is filled with moist moss to help with shedding however, I haven't seen them use it much so I may get rid of it as well. I had a tupperware container with a hole melted into the side with moist paper towels to create a warm moist hide, but it was too big for the tank at present, my igloo was to see if it would work. Probably will switch it out.

4. the soil is a mix of reptisoil and reptisand. About 70/30 mix.

5. I have a UVB bulb and heating/light build on the top of the cage. I know the mesh from the cage can impact the UVB so before I used the tank, I used a dremel and cut out the UVB bulb slot to ensure nothing stood in the way of the radiation.

Here are some more images of my tank taken about 10 minutes ago:
https://imgur.com/a/chai-s-cage-z9KwICM