New bioactive themed enclosure for Spilotes sulphureus

[Roman]

Finally – my new enclosure for my yellow-bellied puffing snake (Spilotes sulphureus) was delivered in March. There were many delays, some miscommunication and misunderstandings, so it took much longer than I had thought, but that’s another story.

So here it is. Dimensions are 200 x 100 x 200 cm (ca 7 x 3 x 7 ft) length x width x height, PVC and glass. I covered the whole inside of it with coco mats, some of them with special pockets for planting small plants. The enclosure is set up as a bioactive enclosure, I will add the cleanup crew in a few weeks when the snakes have settled down a little. So there is a drainage layer of pebble stones and another layer of soil on top of it.

I use a LED light as ambient light (FLUVAL, 115 cm, 33 Watts, 25000 Kelvin, 2260 lm, 2700 Lux at 45 cm distance), an Arcadia ProT5 6% Forest for additional light and ambient UVB (54 Watts, 7000 Kelvin, UVB 6%, UVA 30%) and a Bright Sun Metal Halide light as basking spot and main UVB and heat source (Bright Sun Jungle Flood 150 Watts, 67700 Lux at 60 cm distance).

I used only plants from the same geographic region (Central / South America). In addition several branches for climbing and two cork tubes as additional hiding places, old / dry leaves to cover the ground.

Some fun facts (materials I used):

4 square meters of coco mats
5 tubes of silicone to glue them at the walls (=2250 gramms)
90 kg of pebble stones
170 liters of soil

Plants I use

1 x Dieffenbachia seguine
1 x Monstera deliciosa
2 x Philodendron scandens
2 x Monstera spec.
1 x Calathea orbifolia
1 x Calathea spec. (rufibarba?)

I will add some bromeliads as well (into the pockets of the coco mats), but I don’t have much hope that they will survive for long (at least they didn’t in my Spilotes pullatus enclosure).

When I finished the setup and added the snakes they could start to wreak havoc on my new enclosure.

I added the two males I got in 2016, they were WC, but already with their former keeper for more than a year. They have grown to more than 250 cm (8 ft). They feed on large rats (150 – 200 g) and day-old chicken. My female is CB from 2017, so she has still some growing to do before she can join the boys.

So here is the first batch of pictures

The "naked" enclosure


The coco mats


Adding the Dieffenbachia seguine and Monstera deliciosa


Adding pebble stones


Dieffenbachia seguine


Monstera deliciosa


Monstera spec.


Calathea orbifolia


Calathea spec. (rufibarba?)


The finished enclosure before the snakes came in


Spilotes sulphureus male #1


Spilotes sulphureus male #1


Spilotes sulphureus male #1


Spilotes sulphureus male #1


Spilotes sulphureus male #1


Spilotes sulphureus male #1


Spilotes sulphureus male #1


Spilotes sulphureus male #2


Spilotes sulphureus male #2


Spilotes sulphureus male #2