Cage Size - Newbie Question

Hi,

We have recently "inherited" two BPs (Sid and Nancy, one male, one female) that my sister could no longer take care of. Our original intent was to give them to a friend of ours who is into Herps big-time, but after we got then we decided that they were pretty cool and decided to keep them.

Sid and Nancy are both around 3-3.5 ft long and when we got them they were in a (I think) 20gal reptile tank. My mom had given us a 48x24x18 fish aquarium and we decided that Sid and Nancy would be happier in the larger tank so we bought a screen top and moved them in. Sid didn't seem to care too much but Nancy went on about a month long fast. She did eat this last weekend so I'm feeling a little better about that, but I do have another concern. We have a large dog dish in the tank that we keep water in and they have both taken to burrowing under the dish (we use ReptiBark for the substrate) and staying under there. I haven't seen them out even when I get up at night and check.

Based on what I have been reading I do believe that we don't have the temp/humidity right in the tank and we're going to get some temp and humidity gauges today so we can get that under control. Finally the actual question:

Is the new tank too large for them? We have some branches and some half-logs in the cage and a heating pad under one end but they don't seem to care about any of that. The water bowl is directly in the center of the cage. My current plan is to remove the water bowl and set it directly on the glass bottom so they can't burrow under it, but I don't want to stress them out if it's the cage size that is making them seek the smaller space under the bowl.

Sorry for the lenght of this but I wanted to make sure I got as much detail in as I could. I appreciate you guys helping us newbies out. Thanks.

First off....Welcome to the site.

I would suggest getting a digital thermometer/hygrometer instead of one of those 'gauge type' deals from a pet store. Your temperature is going to be the most important thing to get correct right now. Get you warm side to 92-94, cool side to 82-84, and humidty around 50-60%. If you are not keeping you ball pythons in the correct conditions, that is most likely the reason for the 'fasting' and can result in a unwanted trip to the vet to treat respiratory infections. The aquarium size sounds just fine but I would not recommend keeping two ball pythons in one enclosure. Keeping them in the same enclosure can cause stress on the animals due to competion for space. Also, if one becomes ill you will not be able to know whos feces is whos, etc. And worst case...one may eat the other. Ball pythons really do not need branches because they are a 'ground dwelling' species....they naturally live in field and holes in the ground. The reason the ball pythons are burrowing under the water bowl is to use it as a hide. Check your current hides for size. Half-logs are also not one of the best hides, because ball pythons tend to like hides that they can touch all sides when they are in the hide (ie. under the water bowl). If you have any plastic type tubs (i.e. butter tubs, coolwhip tubs) cut a hole in it and place it in the enclosure as a hide...they may like that better. Hope that covered it all....if not I am sure someone has my back. If you need more detail just ask :)

Thanks for the info. I have seen a couple of more posts that agree with you on the digital vs. gauge temp/hydro. I am curious about the two snakes in one cage issue. My sister bought both of these guys when they were babies and they have been together their entire lives and in fact they are both under the water bowl. We take them out and feed them seperately but other than that they are together. Is that uncommon behavior for BPs? I do see your point about them getting sick though.

Some people say that too big of cage is a bad thing but as long as you have 2 hides(one on hot side and 1 one cool side) then you should be fine. All of the snakes I have owned have always been in a bigger sized cage and done fine. As for why they are under the water dish I am almost 100% positive that this is because they are dehydrated and looking for moister, Your humidity leval is probably way off to the point of being unhealthy. Daniel is correct about the digital thermometer/hygrometer!! Those analog ones are garbage and wouldn't even waste your money. You can get perfectly usefull digital thermometer/hygrometer's from walmart for far less then you would at a pet store. Get 1 digital thermometer for under the hotspot hide & 1 digital thermometer/hygrometer combo for ambient and himidity levals-(centre probe on back wall about half way up) make sure both come with probes for easy placement. I also agree with Daniel that keeping 2 snakes in one cage is NOT a good idea for every day life. If you want happy healthy snakes I would move one out.
As far as the logs go I think they are great ideas, I have only had one snake in my life that never used them while the rest seem to spend most of their nights on them.

One more thing I forgot is that once you get you digital's and can monitor your levals correctly, I'm almost sure your going to have a hard time keeping the levals you need with that screen lid. the problem with those screen lids is that the environment of the cage is pretty much the same as the room it's in. I would try and come up with something more solid that will hold humidty better and separate the cage environment from the room it's in.

I had thought about the screen top thing. The tank we use has a lip aroung the inside that I could put something like melamine on. That may be what I do long term. In the interim I was going to try putting a beach towel over the top except for about a 6 inch gap to help with the air flow. Will that help at all? Should I trry and keep the towel moist? I am also going to try a 100 watt red bulb to try and help with the temp. I do have a spray bottle that I have begun misting the tank with, but we have about an hour commute to and from work so I'm not sure that will be much good during the day. I appreciate the tips and I'm sure that Sid and Nancy will appreciate them even more. :)

What kind of heat source are you using? You really need an under-the-tank-heating mat. Belly heat is important for bps. I'm seconding Daniel. You definitely need to get the environment stable and up to the right temps. Oh and welcome to the site! Glad to have you, and good luck getting everything setup right for you bps.

I'm not sure I would use melamine as it is heavy and even a small piece may add stress to the glass. I'm not sure about the wet towel either, I know I've read somewhere that this is not a good option..can't think of why but I will have a look and see what i can find. Before you start adding things and coming up with solutions that may not look very nice and might not work anyway you may want to think about just getting a couple of rubbermaid clear tubs from walmart. You could get 2 perfect sized tubs for about $25 that would have lids and are with out a doubt 100% easier to maintain the right environment levals needed for healthy, active feeding snakes then aquariums. All you'd have to do is place holes for air flow and your set. Just something to think about before you start adding money to something that may or maynot work and probably won't look very good. Plus you also want to think about cleaning, those snake cages will need to be disinfected often and aquariums are an absolute paid when it comes to that, with a rubbermaid tub you can bang that sucker against the tub and not think twice...try that with an aquarium...yikes!