Suddenly Soaking - not mites

[VyReN]

18-20 year old BP, 5ft 5in, temps and humidity are perfect (Regulated with day/night cycle). Typically this time of year "she" (never had 'her' sexed) goes dormant and we don't see her for the next few months. But this is not the case this year. She last ate 2 months ago, again typical for her as we drop the temps and reduce the day cycle as winter comes.

We feed medium live rats when she starts to look for food. Oh, I should mention she is in a 400 gal enclosure - we have created a habitat as close to her natural environment as possible. Several hides (Basking, warm, cool), two pools of water (again, one on the hot side, one on the cool side). We feed her when she starts to hunt, usually once a month (except in the winter months, last winter she went 5 months without eating with no loss of body mass). After 5 years in this enclosure we are very aware of her behavior, by looking at how she is moving we can tell if she is hungry, about to shed, hot, cold, stressed, etc. Its all subtle differences in how she moves her body and head.

But she isn't going dormant, she isn't hunting, she isn't basking, she isn't 'scratching/rubbing' -- she is soaking. For 4 days now. Twice I have gently coaxed her out of the water, but she will simply move to the other pool.

So something is wrong. This is not typical by a long shot. I've seen her partly soak for a few minutes, but she is completely submerged with only her 'nose' sticking out of the water. For days.

I've searched over her entire body, no mites. Nothing around her head, nothing under her scales. Perfect white belly, last shed was perfect (about 2 months ago). No pink/red/grey anywhere. No bugs, mites, etc in the tank - I've searched for hours. The kicker was last night I cooled her enclosure to 68F (For about 2 hours), expecting her to move to bask. Nope, refused to leave the water. Usually when we open the lids she is very aware and does like any good BP and tries to escape. She won't leave the water.

So - she is not too hot, no mites, eyes and body look perfectly fine. Last time the bedding was changed (cyprus), like every time, it was washed and baked to 180F (Baking 200 lbs of cyprus is a LOT of work).

No exposure to any other reptile (us or her)...everything looked perfectly normal until 4 days ago.

What am I missing here?

[Homegrownscales]

That is very normal here with our females that are breeding. She most likely is cycling and feels like a nice bath. I see it with my girls every year. I wouldn't worry too much.


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[RichL]

I have a male BP that soaked for 4-5 days on end.. No mite's etc. Guess he just felt like a bath.

I wouldn't worry too much as long as their are no mites and your husbandry is good..

I would, however, LOVE to see a few pictures of your enclosure =)

[VyReN]

Better than pictures: Video!
http://youtu.be/f2f-9LgRKZE

The enclosure is rated for ~388gal, About 7 feet long, 3.5 ft high, 2.75 ft deep. Got it for a STEAL. $200 for the tank, stand (that weighs at least 200lbs alone) and a brand-new filter. Could NOT say no. I hope to build a saltwater reef aquarium some day -- but must re-enforce the floor first. The weight of the water (8.5lbsx380 - just over 1.5 tons!) will crush the flooring. Oh, plus the bagillion dollars to start the ecosystem. And about $5,000 in fish that are just going to die suddenly one morning.

There is about 200lbs of cypress (I know, not ecologically sound) for the bedding, about 6 inches deep. Moisture is a major issue for us, I needed something that would really hold in the humidity.

On the left side is the "hot" side, where Tai Ping is currently soaking. Right now there is a 150w basking lamp on 24x7 (We drop it to 100w in the summer, it's much warmer in here then). As we pan to the right you can see her 'pool'. This is a recent addition, but she doesn't seem to like the movement in the water. There is a filtered waterfall with a ultrasonic vaporizer. The vaporizer maintains humidity and turns on and off automatically. The pool looks MUCH cooler with a layer of mist on top.

Near the pool is a 250w ceramic heater (150w in summer) for maintaining the overall temperature of the environment. This is also attached to a thermostat for worry-free operation. It usually cycles on for 10-15 minutes every 4 hours during the day.

While this setup is a COMPLETE WASTE OF SPACE about 85% of the time, it is really awesome to watch her lay across the branches, one of them is only about 0.5inches wide yet Tai Ping will be perfectly balanced for hours. Or "the hunt". She started eating A LOT more when she was transferred into this home, from a 55gal. Shockingly, she was not stressed AT ALL in this new tank, ate the day after she was introduced to it.

Ummm... The corner water dish, hides and waterfall are the largest ones I could find.

Cleaning is a chore. Before adding a rat we hold it by it's tail for a minute to help "empty" the rat of urine to try to keep the contamination low, so we typically only do a complete clean out twice a year. We do spot cleaning as needed (Skin, poop, etc) by scooping the skin and a large handful of surrounding bedding. The major cleaning involves removing EVERYTHING, washing it all, scrubbing the glass (Really hard to do, will usually just climb in the enclosure), and removing an entire top layer of bedding. Usually takes about 5 hours for two of us to do. Tai Ping will spend the entire time in the backup 55gal trying to get out, she likes her space now.

It look about 3 months to get this monster tank to regulate correctly, we really battled with humidity but heat was a problem as well. The glass and bedding is too thick for UTH. Took a lot of trial and error to get the heat sources located just right to give a nice airflow without venting too much hot/moist air out.....ummm. I can't think of anything else to tell you about her house.

[RichL]

nice. Only thing I would suggest is adding some fake plants to 'green' it up a little =) Of course that does add to the cleaning though..haha

Other than that, i wouldn't be too worried about the soaking as long as your sure there are no mites and your temps aren't getting too high where she is soaking to cool off. Once my spider shed after soaking before he even went into blue, he stopped soaking. Just keep an eye on her and make sure everything is fine. She will do what she wants =)

[VyReN]

Funny you should mention plants... We've been discussing replacing the bedding next to the large pool with dirt and growing hardy plants in there as well. My concern is the plants attracting bugs, as this is a perfect environment for almost any creepy crawly to live.

She is still soaking. Moves around every once and a while in the water, but is staying put. We need to scrub out the water dish she has been in, but are letting her stay put for a few more days.

And - wow, the glass was really dirty. Didn't really notice until I watched the video.

[RichL]

Fake plants work just as well if your worried about bugs =)

Here is a pic of the terrarium I had setup, but moved everything to tubs to combat the humidity and heat issues I was having once winter hit. All fake plants =)



They make a huge difference imo !

[Scaleyz]

Wow this is the first time I've seen on here someone else that has an older BP, I rescued a female normal she is around 20-25 years old. She gets a lil cranky when I change her tub, yes tub she's not in anything quite as luxurious as yours. But mine on the other hand doesn't seem to like water in the least, I've had her 9 mos. and have only seen her drink water the first month I rescued her. Neither of them had any water source and they were all housed together in a wire framed cage on layers of poop and old sheds .

Even when she goes into shed I have to mist her to get a shed from her, they all seem to not know what the water is for. My other normal female from another rescue however will sit in her water for days on end even poop in it and still remain in the water. Even when I try to remove her from the water which has the poop in it she gets all puffy hissy because she wants to stay in it. She will do this sometimes whether she is going into shed or not. So snakes are just weird sometimes. Like you I checked for mites and nope!!! Nada!!! Just a freaky behavior I can't explain. I just kept an eye on her, and nothing ever came of it. Good luck with yours.