Post Your First BP Setup!

we all started somewhere as BP keepers. so let's take a trip down memory lane and post pix of our first enclosure(s)!


some of us started in tanks, some in tubs or whatever u got, post it; some of us struggled and some got it right off the bat. let's laugh, cry and admire at our beginnings. whatever u had, post it!


ok here's my first enclosure. i read up on BP's for weeks but interesting enough i didn't read anything about thermostats. (they didn't sell this essential equipment in stores either.) thank goodness i found the forum! with a Jumpstart, i got setup a like a week before i brought Elphie home. anyway imma just repost the actual post of my first enclosure (no BP yet):

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ax01

i have my home ready for a baby! it's an 18 gallon terrarium with aspen and moss substrate. it's got a tree (hot side) and log (cool side) for hides.

I was also thinking of putting in a landscape scenery for the backdrop and leafy plant.

(not pictured - 75watt infrared heat lamp.)

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/GXsu6kI.jpg

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/iKAE7fQ.jpg

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/3rb4k7q.jpg

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/dfqqmuw.jpg

anything I'm missing that u would like to recommend?

thanks for looking!

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1st and current setup, AP T-10 on order.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4556/...498d0dd5_k.jpgL29C1984 by David, on Flickr

I don't have pictures of my old ball python from so many years ago I can't honestly remember when I got her but it was some time way last century for sure. It was horrible. Reptile carpet, half log hide, no secondary hide, and I had to give her up when I went away to college. :(

I do have the burnt out husk of the old glass cage I kept Dante in however.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SDA

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/AkVMkg6.jpg

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1st setup - a pair of AP T8s. 3 of these 4 original girls are now proven (and still in my collection) and one is FINALLY deciding she wants to fill out. She's been built like a giraffe until the past few months - then BOOM, so hopefully she will be proven this year.
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/vynIEsL.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eric Alan

1st setup - a pair of AP T8s. 3 of these 4 original girls are now proven (and still in my collection) and one is FINALLY deciding she wants to fill out. She's been built like a giraffe until the past few months - then BOOM, so hopefully she will be proven this year.
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...om/vynIEsL.jpg

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:confusd:

she had a long neck?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ax01

:confusd:

she had a long neck?

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Kinda. Up to the recommended weight to breed, but very long and slender - not of egg carrying/development/laying proportions. Weight is more than a number. :P

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Very artistic Ax01! I like it.

Man, can't believe five years went by already...

I bought a used AP-T12 in which I had two BPs living together. With help from local reptile owners and this forum I gained knowledge and ended up separating my BPs. Pretty glad they were too young to breed!

Here's my setup 5 years ago and now.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...d334fe1b8f.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...9069406b33.jpg

Don't have a photo of it, never took one! Back in '98 it wasn't as common to snap photos of everything (film, development cost, etc).

Snakie (beepers name) was in a 50 gallon glass with wood trim enclosure that I got for free from someone through the Pennysaver. Had repitbark substrate, water dish, a one half log hide on the warm end, heated with a CHE and a night time bulb. Not great but not totally terrible, very sparse though. Snakie never had any issue feeding (live), we'd soak when s/he'd go in blue since the CHE dried out everything so much. Snakie belonged to myself and my roommate, when I moved out about a year later, roommate kept Snakie (I also had a corn snake, boa and iguana so I was fine with it). I followed up with him about 4 years later and he said Snakie was doing great. Hopefully s/he had (or is still having) a nice life.
:)

My first set up - 40 gal aquarium - he was in it from 132g to 850ish, and just over 1.5 years. Other than constantly working at / monitoring humidity, and the pain of having to remove the CHE's every time I needed to open the tank, it worked well. Now that he is an adult he is in a T11

1st is when I first got him - lots of clutter, 5 hides total, and LOTS of digital monitoring devices (Lol I was a bit obcessed with making sure every hide had its own thermometer, as well as the CHE thermostat and the ambient temps on both sides)

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...1379_thumb.jpg

2nd is from a few months later when he out grew some of the hides and was reduced to 3 hides total (which is the method I use now)

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...1799_thumb.jpg