After many hours on the forums, finally got my first BP!

[stratus_020202]

Hello. And welcome. What is the thing you have him in? I like it. Almost like a cross between a tub, and an aquarium. Where did you get it? He's a beautiful snake by the way.

[rabernet]

Hello. And welcome. What is the thing you have him in? I like it. Almost like a cross between a tub, and an aquarium. Where did you get it? He's a beautiful snake by the way.

I'm not the OP, but it's an Exo Terra Faunarium or Kritter Keeper. You can get them at Petsmart or Petco - I've housed mice in one that has punch out's for the water bottle.

[waltah!]

Congrats on you new bp!

[stratus_020202]

Oh. I was thinking it was bigger than those. I realize it's just a little bp.

[sullitf]

It is indeed the kritter keeper that rabernet mentioned. I don't remember the exact dimension, believe it was around 17.75 x 12 x 6.5 inches, just slightly bigger than the tubs most people on here recommend for baby ball pythons. I will be building a viv this fall when I'm back at college that will be much bigger and something he'll be able to grow into and use for years (full of many hides for a small snake).

I've changed my setup a little bit today based on everyone's recommendations. I now have the logs on the cool side of the tank with a small hide over the heater, a saucer from a small planter. I also got a heat lamp to keep on during the day as I was finding it hard to keep the ambient temp at 85 degrees. I have found the sweet spot in my rheostat to keep the hot spot at 95 but the cool side was more like 80. I now have a 60 watt heat bulb in an overhead desk lamp to help bring the temp up a little more.

I think he was just checking out the new tank and searching for an escape route when I saw him wandering all over the tank. After half an hour or so he settled in and was laying on/under the logs. So far today he's been comfortably curled up underneath the logs sleeping all day, so I'll take that as a good sign! He ate on Sunday I believe so I'll be trying his first feed on Sunday or Monday of this week. He was eating frozen/thawed at the pet store, hopefully he'll take them for me too!


I'll try to get a few pics up tonight of my modified tank setup tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for all the help!

[psycho]

Congrats!! thats a cute looking normal...i suggest you dont take the water bowl out they still need water and if not its going to get dehydrated...if you have a heat lamp turn it on and it should bring the humidity down...

[Mettle]

Congrats on the new arrival.

[sullitf]

As promised, here are a few update pictures of the enclosure. I tried to consider as much of the advice on here as possible. I have moved the logs to the cool side with a large covered space underneath for him to hide in. I added a den on the warm side made from the saucer of a 6" pot. Like I said in my last post I added a heat lamp to bring the cool side ambient temp up, now hovering between 83 and 85 degrees. The lamp is on a timer set to go on at 7:00AM and off at 7:00PM.

I don't know if you can see it very well in the picture but I also bought a little 4" high speed fan from Walmart. I put this behind the tank and have it blowing towards the back of the tank to bring down the humidity. There's only so much I can do about humidity being in a humid summer in Alabama, but I between the fan and lamp the humidity now sits around 55% rather than 70%.

He seems to be very happy, spending most of his time under the planter I added. I have the thermometer on the cool side measuring cool side ambient temp and humidity and the probe on the warm side. The probe is under the substrate directly above the UTH. At the moment I'm getting a 95/83 degree gradient with 58% humidity. Jake's hiding under the potter with his nose poking out of the opening.


Think I finally got the setup just right!




It looks like the logs are just sitting flat on the ground in this picture. The outside log is tall and thin, standing on end with the other log propped up on it making a perfect little cave underneath it for Jake to hide in

[stratus_020202]

I like the desk lamp idea. Does it still hold humidity well with it on?

[sullitf]

I was actually having a problem with the humidity being too high so the lamp helped bring it down to the 50-60% range. I'm using a 60 watt reptile bulb which brings the ambient temp up by 3-5 degrees and humidity down by 7-10%. This is exactly what I was looking for so its working great for my setup