A Very Adventurous Snake?

[Vanthios]

So the newest addition to my family, a regular ball python named Archimedes, seems to be of the most adventurous type. When I first got him he spent most of his time curled up in the corner under a plant, and he still does that quite a bit now, but he's become very active. I added a very large Zoo Med branch and now, in the afternoons and at night, I find him climbing all over it. That doesn't really bother me, and I sort of enjoy watching him, but I noticed that he does a lot of surveying of the top of the terrarium now that he has the ability to easily reach it. For about an hour and a half, he's been running his head around the rim of the tank, gently poking the screen with his head. He gets pretty close to the lamp I have sitting on the screen, and once or twice poked his head into the screen under the lamp. I became worried and felt the screen myself, but it was only warm. Is it that he wants out? Should I purchase a larger vivarium? It seems that ever since I added the branch, he's been surveying the top, even if he doesn't utilize the branch to reach the top, as shown in one of the images.










And yes, I know the humidity and temperature is down. I'm doing the best I can until I get the rest of my order from Amazon so I can overhaul his current setup.

[anicatgirl]

OK. Screen top = bad. To help with temps and humidity you can cover like 90% of the top with foil. How old is he/ how much does he weigh? That tank looks like it may soon be too small.

[Albert Clark]

Nice looking bp! He looks like more than just a normal btw! I would ditch the branch for a tight fitting hide. It could even be a cardboard box that he can squeeze into. How are you heating the enclosure?

[Vanthios]

OK. Screen top = bad. To help with temps and humidity you can cover like 90% of the top with foil. How old is he/ how much does he weigh? That tank looks like it may soon be too small.

He's about two years old. The person I purchased him from doesn't have any documentation on his date of birth, so it's a rough estimate. I do know that he's about 522g. I'm conflicted on how I should change vivariums. Petco was having a sale on tanks, so I could've gotten a 40G tank for $40, but then I have to purchase a screen and deal with that issue. Or, I could get an AP T8, which I really like, but is much more expensive to fully set up. What would you recommend? I plan on breeding in the future, so I guess the T8 could be divided for the intermediary time, then undivided during the breeding season.

Nice looking bp! He looks like more than just a normal btw! I would ditch the branch for a tight fitting hide. It could even be a cardboard box that he can squeeze into. How are you heating the enclosure?

He's Het Albino, but I don't have any documentation stating if that's 66% or 100%, or if the Het could possibly exist, which makes my future breeding quite a gamble. I purchased an Exo Terra rock hide in size medium (since it was an add-on item on Amazon, and I could get like three of those for the price of one large), but I guess he thinks it's too small; he will only go about 10 inches in, then he comes back out.

I'm heating the enclosure with a UTH that's not yet mounted to the tank, just sitting beneath it, and the lamp above which has been set to 95 degrees at 6 inches since when he's on the branch he's about 6 inches from it. I'm awaiting the rest of my stuff, which is in shipment, so I can completely redo his vivarium. I'm just trying to go with what at least works until Monday so I can provide what's best.