Hello all! This is my first post here besides my introduction that I made in the subforum of the off-topic cafe. I'm a first-time snake owner, and my little guy (at least I think he's male - I haven't gotten him sexed yet but we're calling him a male for now until we can get him properly looked at) has been with me for about 5 days.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the enclosure right now but I'll have some taken soon and then I'll add them to the thread. I just wanted to run by how I have his enclosure set up and see if it sounds good as is or if there's things I need to add.

So to get started, here's a couple pics of Ikky (short for Ikiriyo):





The tank is a glass hexagonal vivarium/tank, 65 gal TALL. I know this is very large but keep in mind it's a tall tank, not a long/wide. The floorspace of the tank seems to be pretty perfect, as I have been able to fit a ceramic water bowl, two hides, a moss bowl (to help keep humidity) and a little fake tree (for aesthetic purposes) in there with no problem. It's cluttered enough that the snake seems to enjoy it, but open enough that he can move around the tank with no issues.

His favorite hide is a stone, hollowed-out "tree" type hide with two holes of entrance/exit. Underneath this "main" hide is a UTH set on "warm". I've felt the bottom of the tank directly above the UTH after it warmed it up and it's warm to the touch but not hot. His second hide on the "cool" side of the tank is a half-log, which he seems to like to hang out in as well. The water bowl I have in there is a long, ceramic bowl that sits right in the middle of the tank towards the front. He's slithered into it a couple of times and appears to have no problem in that regard.

The warm side of the tank get anywhere from 85 to 90ish, the tank is in my living room and sits within reach of a skylight which warms up the tank because of the sunlight, so I haven't had much of an issue keeping the tank warm, especially during the day. During the night the temperature does dip, but the UTH keeps at least the ground warm on that side though I imagine the ambient air temperature takes a hit.

The cool side stays 70 and above, around 78 to 82 during the day and down to 75-78 during the night. I'm not sure if that's too cool, but I'm in the process of getting a heat lamp set up (with the red bulb) to keep the temps up during the night and on cloudy days.

Substrate is this: http://www.petsmart.com/product/inde...ductId=2752443

Now as for the snake himself, he seems to love it here. I mean, I'm not a snake but as far as his activities and his feeding he seems to be doing very well. When I first got him the woman that sold him to me told me he hadn't eaten in a week, so I decided to purchase two mouse fuzzies (live) to see if he would take them. I knew it was a long shot because he'd just arrived in a new environment, but he ate them up with no problems at all. I have handled him every day for short periods since I got him and he actually seems rather content with that - he has never tried to strike me or nip me, and actually when I put my hand in there sometimes he comes out and peeks at me, then tries to slither up my arm.

Anyway this is a lot longer than I thought it would be! Sorry!! Hope I didn't bore you all to death. Let me know what you think of my setup!! Pics coming soon!