Good snake for living viv?

[OsirisRa32]

Just wondering what a good species would be for a living viv...maybe one thats a good mix of arboreal and terrestrial?

My individual species knowledge is fairly limited to boas and pythons and all the venomous ones I was obsessed with as a child.

[Badgemash]

I don't have one (yet, still deciding) but green tree python immediately comes to mind.

[NH93]

I would think something small, maybe a hognose, or if depending on the species of plants, corns. I would think lizards and frogs would be a better choice for a living vive though.

[cecilbturtle]

Depends on a lot of factors. Size of viv, type of habitat, what other animals you plan to keep etc...

I think there are a lot of species you can keep. I am a big fan of ATBs and GTPs so a nicely scaped vivarium with one of these would be pretty awesome!

[thinkbig317]

I would think most snakes would do good in a living viv....as long as their requirements are meet. And if you are looking for a snake that is a good mix of arboreal and terrestrial.....carpets are the first species that come to mind.

[MrLang]

My opinion is that the above mentioned snakes won't do very well with plants if you really want it planted as a vivarium should be. A GTP and Carpet at some point will crush your plants. I would recommend an asian green vine snake. It looks from your signature like you have enough snake keeping experience for them. They are rear fang venomous like hognose and they are FAST so you'll need a hook. I think they can eat crickets, not sure, but I know typically they are fed anoles. They're FANTASTIC display snakes - so cool with their movements and the way they perch in the branches. They are primarily (maybe exclusively) arboreal but they are very small and shouldn't break the plants - perfect for a planted viv. I haven't had one before so I won't try to give too much guidance, but that's what came to mind for me.

[KMG]

My gtp would dig his plants up every night. I finally removed them and he is stuck with some fake branches, a water bowl, and eco earth. He crawls around the cage floor every night and he even swims.

My ball has plants and is very gentle with them. The only thing is she doesn't display very will like my gtp.

[lefty]

asian vine snake.

[bcr229]

Garters! They are very hardy and likely won't get sick or die quickly if the plants in the viv crash, they come in a variety of colors, they're cheap to feed, and they do like climbing in foliage.

[Roman]

In my opinion you may keep pretty much any colubrid in a planted enclosure. As it was said before it depends on the size of the enclosure, the light(s) you use and of course you should choose plants which have at least the same basic needs in terms of temperature and humidity as your snake (no desert plants for your rainforest viv).

The same should be true for small to medium sized boids, but I have no personal experience with any boas or pythons myself. Active snakes like carpet pythons might be a problem, but even here you could use plants for your enclosure. Put the plant pots somewhere in an elevated position, so that they are “out of the way” of the moving snakes (at least most of the time) and use several sets of plants and rotate them in and out to give them some time to recover.

I keep three large tiger ratsnakes (Spilotes pullatus) in a large planted enclosure. Both of my males are more than 2.8 m (>8 ft), the female is 2.8 m (ca. 8 ft) long. The snakes and the plants share the enclosure since July 2011 and the plants are doing really good.

I just added another thread about plants in terrariums which I wrote in another forum a few weeks ago. --> http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...67#post2208367

For more information about my Spilotes enclosure --> http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...lotes-pullatus


One final remark about the recommendation of keeping the Asian vine snake (Ahaetulla prasina). In my opinion this is a snake most of us shouldn’t keep. Almost all snakes you might get are wild caught, with a large variety of external and internal parasites and a extremely high mortality rate within a view months after arriving. Even if you get a healthy snake you may only keep it alive for a longer time is by providing lizards as food, mice and other substitutes might result in an early death of the snake (at least that’s the information I got from a friend of mine, who had a reptile shop and got them from other keepers. He had to feed them with anoles or geckos to keep them healthy).

Roman