Plants for BP Vivarium?

I recently got my first Reptile ever, my Ball, Missy. Every night since I'd gotten her she's been stretching her body up to touch the top of the screen in her Vivarium nonstop, like she's trying to get out or climb on something. It's not that it bothers me, I just don't want her to burn her nose near the lamps. She'll lean against the glass, and has knocked off my hydrometer so many times the sticky portion won't even work anymore. I have a pony tail plant in there for her to chill on, but it's quickly dying because of my heat lamps. I'd like something to keep the humidity up (Since it's usually only around 40% w/o the plant), and to allow her to climb on and get her nightly jitters out. All I find are websites posting plants that aren't harmful to my snake, and I would appreciate it if I could get some insight from someone who's more experienced with BP care. :)

My bp does that as well. Reality is, they don't seem to like glass terrariums. He will do it till I encase the enclosure in paper. Then he feels secure and goes into a hide and relaxes. The breeder I got him from recommended that I cover the sides, and uncover 1 side a week so they slowly get use to it. Mine doesn't seem to be getting use to it, so I covered the sides in paper again, and he stays in his hides again.

So is it a matter of being scared? Or simply wanting to explore what they see but they can't quite get to it kinda deal? What kind of paper do you use? Something like construction paper?

Ball Pythons like to hide, so being in a viv with four glass walls will make her feel exposed. I'd suggest blu-tacking paper to the outside of the viv. I would use printer paper, but to be honest I don't think it matters. Another thing to check is your temps and humidity. When we got our girl she moved around CONSTANTLY and we found out it was becuase her temps were off. What are yours currently at?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Booper

Ball Pythons like to hide, so being in a viv with four glass walls will make her feel exposed. I'd suggest blu-tacking paper to the outside of the viv. I would use printer paper, but to be honest I don't think it matters. Another thing to check is your temps and humidity. When we got our girl she moved around CONSTANTLY and we found out it was becuase her temps were off. What are yours currently at?

---

For my temps I can't seem to get them at a constant rate, especially where I live at. I was pretty surprised when she ate the moment I brought the mouse to her because I heard they can be picky about that! I like to keep it in a range of 88-92 like I saw on a care sheet, but sometimes it'll get to 95 or so but only for a while. I use a heater mat(which isn't very big at all) and two bulbs, one for heat in the morning and the other at night to give her a proper cycle. As for her humidity, it's still all messed up, and no matter what I do I just can't keep it up, and I would like to avoid a RI if I can. Could her restlessness be because of her humidity problems maybe along with the insecurity?

It would be best to try and get up the humidity and have regular temperatures, yes. Like I said, we struggled at first to keep our temps and we ended up buying two heat mats, one to give a cold side to the viv and another for the hot side because the ambient temp. in our room was just too cold. I'm no expert though, and I have no experience with raising humidity, so you'll have to ask someone with more experience than me :) Best of luck for the future!

I just use printer paper on the sides of my terrarium. Any kind of paper should work tho. From my understanding, they want to feel hidden and secure. They dont seem to care about exploring outside of the tank. If you watch any BP video on youtube or take your snake out and observe it. You will notice they typically dont wanna "explore" as much as they're just ALWAYS looking for a good place to hide.

There's some threads on here about upping humidity for a tank. I tried covering mine with foil, great results, and changed to coconut fiber over aspen too. Find what works for you but I found every thing I needed with the search function on this site. Hope that helps ^_^

Sent from my SM-J320V using Tapatalk

9 times out of 10. Temp problem == tank, Humidity problem == tank, Restless Animal == tank

I see a trend.....

Please look through the sticky threads on this page. All the answers are there.

You can make tanks work, but they certainly aren't intuitive the way other enclosures are. Just like you can fix a lot of things with duct tape and have it "work", yeah it gets the job done, but it's going to be a never ending fight of tweaks and modifications, and more fixes.

If you can post pics of your set up, we can troubleshoot better. Written descriptions always seem to miss things; for instance I can't see where you say if you are regulating your heat source. Remember that only the warm side of your BP's enclosure should be upper 88s to low 90s. Ambient should be 78 - 80. Heat mat needs to be regulated by a t-stat or else it can get over 120 and burn your snake. I would ditch the light bulbs and go with a single ceramic heat emitter.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lizardlicks

You can make tanks work, but they certainly aren't intuitive the way other enclosures are. Just like you can fix a lot of things with duct tape and have it "work", yeah it gets the job done, but it's going to be a never ending fight of tweaks and modifications, and more fixes.

If you can post pics of your set up, we can troubleshoot better. Written descriptions always seem to miss things; for instance I can't see where you say if you are regulating your heat source. Remember that only the warm side of your BP's enclosure should be upper 88s to low 90s. Ambient should be 78 - 80. Heat mat needs to be regulated by a t-stat or else it can get over 120 and burn your snake. I would ditch the light bulbs and go with a single ceramic heat emitter.

---

Heres my current set up so far:

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/webk...f2ec/imagejpeg


On on the top I have a dual lamp, one with a simple reptile light that will give off heat and allow for "daytime", as for the other bulb it gives off a red glow, which I use at night to keep the temps up, though it does drop because it's a lower wattage than the usual light. Sometimes I'll turn it on with the usual light to give extra warmth during the colder days. Under the tank I have a small mat, that is regulated with a Jump Start controller, which I keep set at 96 right here:

https://ball-pythons.net/forums/webk...f5ec/imagejpeg

i do have two thermometers, one digital for the hot side, and a simple stick for the cold. Right now it's about 75 on the cold side and 89 on the hot. As you can see, I made (a really terrible) humid hut for her in case she needed some extra while I sort things out. I placed my water bowl underneath the light, even put the mat under, added two plants, and the humidity is still stuck at 40 percent! I'm a new reptile owner and I've been worried sick my BP will get sick because I cannot figure out how to make sure the humidity sticks!

Nice. Okay then, I would ditch the dual light set up (BP's do not need a day/night cycle if there is any natural light in the room) and just go with one CHE regulated with an additional t-stat or a dimmer. As others have suggested, switch your substrate from aspen to something that holds the humidity better, like coco husk, and then cover the top of the screen leaving an opening space for the dome fixture (use glass, plexi, or even just a piece of card board cut to size and wrapped in aluminum foil). Last, cover 3 of the 4 sides for better security for your animal.

Im not sure if the pictures were visible, but I did post some to my gallery just in case. I only ever invested in the bulbs because I'm gone most of the day, and my light is off the entire time until I get home around 4-5; so I'm gone 7-8 hours of the day. I'm heading out soon to pick up some coco husk as a substrate; though, where could I purchase some plexiglass that I could cut to size?

See reply above ^^^ :D

Oh okay! So would the CHE light be an option if I'm gone most of the day? Like it's pitch black in my room during the afternoons; my curtains are pretty thick, and my snake is nowhere near my window ):

And I had another question; Should I be overly worried about my snakes temp during the day? I mean, I care and I want to make sure it's proper, but I worry all day she's baking alive while I'm gone! Like I said I've never had a reptile before, plus I'm just an anxious over thinker as it is :D