Question on buying a "hood" for my BP's terrarium.(Advice please)

[Superpop]

First of all...Hello!

I have gathered much useful information from this website in the past 4 months.(much more than the people at the various pet stores seem to know! )

My boyfriend and I got our BP about 4 months ago and she(we both call her a "she" but it very well might be a "he"....we refuse to get our BP "sexed")lives in a 40 gallon terrarium and right after we got her I found out that they don't like the "openness" of that and so we cut up brown grocery bags and attached them to the back and sides of her terrarium(on the outside of course) so now she can only see out of the front. We have also went to various pet stores (sometimes multiple times in a day) until we were satisfied her environment was good. And the thing it is....it IS good.

I have read up and researched and I am confident she has a good setup....she even gets brita filtered pitcher water that has been warmed to room temperature everyday when her water is changed.

I think we are doing a good job with her.

She eats every week(frozen fuzzies) and I worried about her eating habbits when my boyfriend decided to get a ball python but she is a champ and only refused food her first week(and she was starting her first shed when we bought her) she has eaten every week since then.

She seems like a perfectly well adjusted BP from the hours and hours I have spent online researching every little thing. I am confident we have her set up well at this point.

THE PROBLEM NOW IS: We both hate the setup because it is not convenient at all!

She has a regular screen lid and 3 dome lights on the warm side:

Heat bulb
UVB 2.0 bulb(I know alot of people don't think this is necessary but we choose to have one)
infrared bulb at night to keep the temp up a few degrees warmer but also so we can see her.

all are on timers.

We also have to keep wet towels on the top of the cool side of her tank to keep at the optimum humidity levels and then we change those towels every day and a half so they don't stink(because i know if we can smell it it would be even worse for her) She goes through 5 towels a week and makes an extra load of laundry each week.

We take her out every night(except the night after she feeds) and after we take the clips off of the cage and lift the lid up the dome lights clink together and get jostled around and I think it makes them burn out faster.

We are already on our 3rd heat bulb and our 2nd. infrared bulb.

It's not just a pain in the butt to keep up with the towels and the dome lights on top of her terrarium but I feel we are going through the bulbs faster than they should normally last!


Sorry for rambling but now onto my questions...

would this work for a ball python:



I think this would be much more convenient but there is also things that worry me about it and I don't want to waste my money buying it if it doesn't work out.(because it is only available to buy online)

Anyone have this type of hood for a ball python?

I worry she will burn herself on the bulbs because there is no "screen" separating herself from the light bulbs.

I worry it is too restrictive of air flow.

I worry it won't keep the humidity at optimum levels like the towels we use now.(and obviously there is nowhere to put a wet towel on this lid.)


She is our only pet and we love her(or him) but I just feel her tank setup shouldn't be as complicated as it is!

Anyone have anything to say about the slide top hood???

[dr del]

Hi,

I can't speak to the product as I have never used it.

But it would indeed need a screen to prevent the snake getting to the bulbs.

What kind of lid do you have at the moment ( I know you said regular screen but is it sliding etc ) - it would probably be easier to give that the tinfoil screen lid treatment.

Every one of those lamps actually makes your humidity problem worse so I would recommend getting rid of the UV and one of the others and replacing them with a red (or ceramic ) bulb that can be left running 24/7. On a thermostat or dimmer of course to control it.

Nice improvising with the grocery bags too - I used aquarium backing for mine.

What you can try is insulating the sides, back and bottom of the tank to help keep the heat in.

You can use foamboard, cork sheeting or the foil coated insulation (reflectix? ).

That should cut down the need for heating letting you run the bulb at a lower level that won't impact humidity as much.

When you say F/T fuzzy are you talking about fuzzy rats? I ask because BP's generally can handle half grown mice straight out of the egg (size wise - don't feed snakes just out of the egg ).


dr del

[Jeo123]

I had a day and a night bulb on top of my tank. In addition to the red lighting, the night bulb was also a lower strength bulb so it let the temperature drop a little over night.

I've now got 2 UTH(one is small) that I use hooked up to a thermostat(temperature is based off the larger one. Because the smaller one doesn't produce as much heat, it keeps that side cooler, but they both work to maintain a normal temperature.

It's pretty much eliminated the need for bulbs on top of the tank. Once that's done, you would only need lights to allow you to see your snake better, so you would just need general area lighting that wouldn't have to be on top.

[cinderbird]

for the hundred+ that you would spend on that, I, personally, would go to rich at reptilebasics.com and get a proper snake enclosure. http://www.reptilebasics.com/2x2-cages/ . I had glass tanks and still have some for my geckos, they are a pain and most people move on from them as they aren't really suitable for most snakes. You can cover the top with tinfoil and duct tape (depending on the type of screen) but even that won't do a whole lot that I noticed.

Also, bump her up to small mice. Hatchling balls can take hopper mice (larger than fuzzies). Her meal should leave a small but noticeable lump in her belly.

Good luck.

[JLC]

Kudos for working so hard to provide an optimal environment for your snake!

I have to concur with what others have said and not recommend the hood advertised. She will indeed burn herself on those exposed bulbs eventually.

I can relate to the pain of having to remove all those lamps...I took care of a burm for awhile that was in a very large enclosure and it took three big lamps just to keep a bare minimum of temps in the winter. Huge pain in the patootie to remove those each time I had to get into her enclosure. And I do think all the jostling back and forth will shorten the life of your bulbs.

The good news is that you don't need the UVB bulb at all...ball pythons are nocturnal creatures and do not rely on the sunlight to produce the vitamins and minerals they need. They're able to get all of it from their prey. You also don't need different sources for light and heat...one infrared bulb should be able to produce enough heat...although depending on the ambient temps in the room the cage is in, you may need a second, smaller lamp on the other side to keep overall ambient temps at the right level. But the "daylight" you want is provided by the ambient light in the room already...and the heat lamp can also provide the nighttime illumination you want. Then there is no need for all the timers and not so many lamps to shift around.

Lastly....I absolutely must concur with Cinderbird...if you have the money to spend on a hood like that, you might seriously consider looking into specific reptile caging from Reptile Basics or another business like that. The cages are attractive and easily displayed, and can come with light and heat already installed SAFELY for your snake...and are built to maintain proper humidity levels with very little effort on your part. Then all you have to do is open the doors in the front to access your snake.

[Superpop]

Thanks for all the replies. We are still unsure of what we are going to do at this point.

As for this:

Also, bump her up to small mice. Hatchling balls can take hopper mice (larger than fuzzies). Her meal should leave a small but noticeable lump in her belly.

We started off feeding her individually pre-packaged fuzzies from petco when we first got her($2 per fuzzy) but then we found a petland store closer to us and they had much larger fuzzy mice for sale $1.09 a piece(or .99 cents a piece if you buy 3 at once) They were almost twice the size of the fuzzies at petco so we decided to hold off on the hoppers but now she is a bit bigger and she has 1 fuzzy left in the freezer so we will feed that to her this friday and then next week try a hopper. Usually when she eats we can see the "lump" as it moves down her body but then when it gets to her mid-section it isn't noticeable anymore so it is time to switch. I don't want to waste the fuzzy we already have though so she won't get to try a hopper until next week.

----------

And as for her tank...and the cage both cinderbird and JLC recommended....

We considered that but neither of us feel comfortable with it because there is no option to use a UVB bulb with it. From what I gather UVB bulbs for ball pythons seems to be a highly debated topic that there is no definitive answer to.

I feel more comfortable knowing our snake has a UVB bulb "just in case" and even if it may be useless to have one I don't see how having one could be detrimental to her considering the bulb is only on during the daylight hours. I just feel more comfortable having one.

What kind of lid do you have at the moment ( I know you said regular screen but is it sliding etc )

It doesn't slide. It's just a regular screen lid similar to this:



my boyfriend ALMOST found a perfect solution tonight for our problems:





This would keep all the dome lights stationary when we take her out every night and it would be much easier than lifting the entire lid off and setting it on the ground and would be much more cost effective than buying her an entire new setup.(and then having the tank, and light fixtures we already purchased go to waste)

the problem is that the pivot lid that he found does not come in the size we need. At least not on the website he found it on:
http://www.bigappleherp.com/E-Z-Entr...c=2&category=4

We have a 40 Gallon tank. A lid like that would probably be the ideal solution for us if we could find such a lid that fits a 40 gallon tank. Sure I would still have to deal with her humidity towels but that really isn't a big issue. The issue is the lights getting jostled around and having to lift the entire lid off whenever we access her tank.


Does ANYONE know where we can buy a lid like this for a 40 gallon tank?



We would be eternally greatful!

[iCandiBallPythons]

Save yourself alot of headache in the long run, get a tub and a uth or as mentioned above or a proper snake enclosure.

[coldbloodaddict]

Why do you refuse to have your ball sexed?

Ditch the UV lights, Balls don't need them...They just suck out your humidity and offer no extra benefit for your ball...

[Superpop]

Save yourself alot of headache in the long run, get a tub and a uth or as mentioned above or a proper snake enclosure.

I am starting to take a bit of offense to this as my boyfriend and I both feel we have given her a "proper" enclosure.(it's just not ideal for us)

If we put her in a rubbermaid bin or get her a "proper" enclosure.(at least it's proper in your eyes) we can't use a UVB bulb.

Why do you refuse to have your ball sexed?

Because I have read they could get injured by it and really it doesn't even matter to us if our snake is a boy or a girl or a hermaphrodite like Cartman's Mom. Even if our snake comes out of the closet as a homosexual ball python we will love our snake regardless!


In all seriousness though...our snake's gender doesn't matter to us.

Ditch the UV lights, Balls don't need them...They just suck out your humidity and offer no extra benefit for your ball...

We would need proof of this before ditching UVB! As I have already stated there seems to be general "debate" about this issue.

I am not trying to "fight" with people over this UV bulb issue. It's just that there is no concrete proof that I have found that UV bulbs are unnecessary.

From what I have read and heard I feel pulled in 2 opposite directions over the issue. I can't say what is right or wrong because I am not a "snake biologist". I think "better safe than sorry" though.(and that is why we want our snake to have a UVB 2.0 bulb)

[Camarokidz28]

Why are you asking for advice and then getting upset when people respond? Many people here have much more experience than you I'm sure, and looking at the stats for the users who responded, they most likely know what they're talking about.

With proper UTH setups, the lights are not needed. Also, I have a tank and a tub. Tanks are for looks, tubs are for functionality in my opinion. As long as your ambients and warm spot temps are adequate, you do not need a light. The only plus, would be that it looks kind of cool being able to see inside the tank. Other than that, they spend most of their time in a hide anyways.

Don't take offense to peoples comments, they're simply trying to help you.