Live plants in bp enclosure?

[Ivyjoe69]

Hi guys, I was wondering if putting live plants, in their pots, inside the enclosure is safe for my baby ball python. He is on cypress mulch. I would let them in their pots so I don't have to put dirt all over the floor. I thought it would help with humidity and stuff so please let me know. I know some kinds of plants are to avoid also, if you have ideas of which one will be best, if it s a good idea, let me know .

[ringorock]

My wife made a "live" tank for my son's normal. He's doing just fine.

[JodanOrNoDan]

Eventually the snake will destroy the plants. I would be real sure about what may be in the dirt. Insecticides, parasites. I keep my snakes hospital clean. There is too much time and money invested to screw the whole thing up by introducing a foreign contaminant.

[ShaneSilva]

Just make sure to process the plants first and use organic soil

[ShaneSilva]

Lots of information here.

http://www.neherpetoculture.com/plan...singprocedures

[Kcl]

Live plants are nice enrichment for them and do keep the humidity a bit higher. I've had some lucky bamboo in with mine since he was a baby and will be adding some new plants once his bigger enclosure arrives. You can always order plants from places like Josh's frogs. Amphibians by nature are going to be far more susceptible to pesticides than snakes so anything that is safe for them will be safe for your ball python. Definitely do pay attention to the soil you are using though - nothing with miracle gro, etc.

[Kcl]

They are chubby-bodied and will squish anything that's delicate though. Lucky bamboo's pretty much immune to being squished, but lots of things aren't. Other than that, they won't eat them, so basically anything that isn't a skin irritant or give off aromatic oils should be fine (everything that's ok for frogs would also be fine here).

[Lizardlicks]

I would keep a couple back ups out side of the tank so you can switch out plants that get a little too "loved on".

[Ivyjoe69]

Wow thank you guys and for the link too ShaneSilva! I ll make sure to process the plants before adding them.

[Coluber42]

I have a peace lily, some philodendron, and some pothos in my BP's cage that are doing well. The peace lily is a dense, grassy-type plant so he doesn't try to go through it or on top of it too often, and it has held up pretty well. The pothos and philodendron are pretty tolerant of abuse, and they do get sat on plenty. But they provide a nice amount of cover, and my snake often likes to "lurk" in the leaves in the evenings. I did have a birds nest fern in there and also a spider plant, but they didn't survive. But I think that was more the result of how they were planted. One of these times I'm going to try again with a spider plant in a different container.

The plants definitely help with the humidity and also provide cover/visual barriers, a variety of textures/smells, etc. One thing I did with the peace lily that I've been pretty happy with is that I planted it in a way that sort of makes a humid hide area. There's a raised platform in the cage made with a shallow plastic bin, and I planted the peace lily in the corner of that bin just by piling the soil up on one side. Then the top is sprinkled over with coco husk and sphagnum moss, and there's a hide filling the other side of the bin. So the hide ends up sort of like a burrow, which gets a bit of extra moisture from the plant. It's one of his favorite places to spend the day. When he poops or pees around there, I just spot clean it and then sprinkle new coco fiber and moss. I figure if a little urine soaks into the soil, the plant will take care of it.

As others have said, make sure you use appropriate soil - organic, no fertilizers or pesticides, and preferably no perlite (which could be dangerous if swallowed). Although I ended up getting soil with perlite at one point, and I just make sure it's always covered with other substrate at feeding time and it has stayed safely buried.

If you buy plants at a regular garden store, rinse them completely in running water and wash the soil out of the roots, then re-pot them, since you can't know what kind of fertilizer or junk is in the soil. Or you can propagate plants like pothos, philodendron, spider plant, etc, from cuttings and then you know what soil you've put them in. Obviously, any plant that is going to potentially be sat on should be reasonably well established before you put it in the cage so it doesn't get uprooted.

Last thing is, if you want the plants to survive and grow, you have to give them light. It doesn't have to be fancy, a fixture the snake can't hurt itself by climbing on. The easiest thing is to keep the lights on a 12-hour timer. The light won't bother your snake as long as it has dark places to hide in.