Hi everyone, I'm new here, been browsing around, and I'm looking for some advice about our BP. We have a 4 year old female who has been in a 20 long fish tank. Basically the worst possible setup, no insulation, screen lid. Add in that I don't keep the heat too high in the house, you get the picture. She eats well and seems to be in good health though.

I just built a new enclosure (hence my joining here, as I was looking for info and wanted to browse posts) The enclosure is made of 3/4" cabinet grade plywood, as we wanted something that would look like furniture, but also be easy to clean and maintain. After reading here I now know it's going to be too big, as it's about 4' long, a little less than 2' deep, and about 2' tall. On top is a light box that is 6" tall so the overall inside height is about 30". The front is 1/4" acrylic, on a wood frame that is hinged at the bottom to allow access for cleaning. The light box on top is also hinged at the rear so the top opens up. I put a vent you'd use for a floor heat duct on top to help regulate heat. We have indoor outdoor carpet for the bottom, and the entire thing is painted inside with water based outdoor enamel to help with cleanup.

I'm still experimenting with the heating. I have a 2 socket spotlight type set mounted to the lid, and have a 250w red heat lamp in there. So far it gets very hot directly under the bulb, but almost nothing outside of that area. I'm trying to use the dimmer to regulate the temp and find where it should be set. In the 2nd socket I have a regular light bulb to use for viewing, which is also on a dimmer.

We're going to make a humidity hide with spaghnum moss on the cool side, and use the hollow rock hide we use now on the warm side. Since the cage is so big I'll probably do another hide in the middle. We have a small cat pan for water, it's about 9x12 and a couple inches deep. Indoor outdoor carpeting on the bottom of the cage as we've found this easy to clean. We have a fake little tree in the current tank that we'll move over too.

With my lights mounted inside the box, I'm in need of some advice on how to keep the snake from getting up there and burning herself. I was thinking about chicken wire but it looks like crap. I was also thinking of some kind of rack or screen system.

In a larger enclosure, how do you keep the cool side at the right temp? Is the ambient heat from the hot side supposed to do that?

It seems like this 250w bulb is overkill, as I have the dimmer down pretty far now in my testing. I have a regular 75w heat bulb like we use in the old setup, but I'm thinking the light is too far away from where her basking spot will be to be effective.

We have an undertank heater. Obviously that won't work on a wood enclosure. Can I put it inside the tank, under a flat rock and have it heat the rock up?

Thanks for any suggestions.