Hi everyone. My fiancé bought a male CB '19 Japanese rat snake last weekend. The snake is currently in a smaller quarantine tank and will be there for 3 months (I have an iguana but no other snakes yet--still planning to get my Trans-Pecos rat snake later this year). We do want to plan a bioactive vivarium for once we move him into his final enclosure.
I have a few general questions about the vivarium:
- Once we move the snake, should we allow him time to adjust to it, like the standard "leave him alone for a week and don't feed him" that people do for quarantine? Or should he be comfortable enough with us by that time, that we won't need to?
- Is there a recommended amount of time the bioactive tank should be set up and allowed to just run by itself before introducing the snake? Like, should I just keep it and the isopods, heating, lighting, etc for a few weeks or a month or whatever, before we introduce the snake?
Also, for Japanese rat snakes in general:
- I could only find two care guides online, which are these:
https://www.reptiletalk.net/japanese-ratsnake/
and
https://idoc.pub/documents/care-shee...a-6nq860xdq9nw
I also found this post on the Field Help forum, which sounds to me just like someone keeping their snake too cold and it wouldn't eat as a result:
http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/...pic.php?t=7727
My question is: I seem to have limited information on what humidity they prefer. We were contemplating a small water feature in the bioactive enclosure (maybe like a small waterfall or clean-able pond/maybe just a water dish that looks more "natural"), but will not do this if it would raise the humidity too much. I can't find much info on the humidity in the above "guides," and I don't want to assume they are like North American rat snakes.
If anyone has insight to any of the questions above, either for the enclosure or the snake in general, please let me know. Thank you!