Substrate....

[Andariel]

Ok, after buying a 40lb bag of pine mulch (which don't worry... will now be used in the yard this spring)... I wanna double check before I go buy another bag of yard mulch in the middle of winter

Cyprus mulch is safe for ball pythons? And can you/do you bake it or just throw it in the tank as is? I ask cause I've heard a lil of both from other places (pet stores/people in the area) and wanna check with the crowd that I KNOW will know the correct answer. (Kinda funny huh... ya trust people you've never met in real life more than the bozo's that live in your town lol)

Thanks

-Chris

[Andariel]

Ohh... and any of you that have 55 gallon tanks... how many lights/UTH's do u have? I just paid for a 55 gallon tank with stand and lid ($100) and it'll be delivered this weekend from a girl at work. Not gonna put anythin in it until after i move, but I think it'd be a great home for my soon to be Redtailed Tree Boa.

-Chris

[RPlank]

Yes, cypress is safe for BP's. If it is packaged for reptiles, you don't need to cook it, but if you are getting it from work, you should probably cook it to kill any bugs off.
Can't answer your question about the 55, I've never used one for a snake. My 75 gallon aquarium has one ceramic heat emitter (75w) and one UTH at the warm end. My boa is in it.
"Redtailed Tree Boa"?????
Do you mean a Red Tail Boa (BCI) or an Amazon Tree Boa? Big difference!
My Jazzy is a BCI. There are pics in the Tree Boa forum of an ATB.

[emroul]

I have a 55 gallon that does fine with a UTH on one end with a thermostat set at 90 degrees , and one connected to a separate thermostat on the other end set at 80 degrees. The ambient temp. stays at around 85. Works like a charm...

Yeah, and I'm curious now too... do you mean a tree boa or a redtail boa? LOL.. :lol:

[Andariel]

musta been a redtail boa... i thuoght there was a tree in there somewhere lol my mistake.

-Chris

[Andariel]

ohh and the only place i was able to find cypress around here this time of year was at a small side of the road kinda garden center, so i went out and got a 3 cu/ft bag of it, and baked about 8 cookie sheets worth of it till it was good and dry and let it all cool down from the 200 degree oven before placing it in the tank.

Ya know, not only does it look WAY cool but its the only substrate i've put in there that she liked immediately? When i first got her i had her on newspaper and took her a couple days to come out, about 2 weeks later i put her on astroturf and she hid for 2-3 days... with this stuff she was out and about about 5 minutes (if that) after i put her back in the tank!

On another note... lol I have three adult mice in a 10 gallon feeder tank that are living their days peacefully until she decides to eat them... but just for EDITED and grins i got a lil baby hopper mouse last night to see if she might eat a smaller mouse. Well I put it in and she seemed interested in it but still wouldn't strike. So after about 30 minutes of that i got the hopper and put it in with its own kind... and one of the three (the one i think is a male, the other 2 prolly females cause of how they all interact) tried to attack the hopper. Was it because the hopper is a male? or was it just cause of the size difference? Needless to say i rescued the hopper before it was eaten (had to flick the other mice on the head a couple times to get them to back off) and then i put the hopper back in with the snake (its hiding in her other hide box) and looks like its sleepin right now.

-Chris

Edited by RPlank for language.

[pimp_n_python]

cypress works great
i've never used it but i've heard good things about it