DIY PVC the easy way (plus lots of ways of making it more complicated)

[Coluber42]

So far, the one glitch is that there's juuust enough of a gap between the front edge of that arched piece and the outside sliding door that Hoosac can wedge his head into it, if he loops himself over the upper frame in order to get a good angle on it. I've stuffed a paper towel in there for now, which solves the problem, but is a little inconvenient for opening the doors. So I might have to come up with another solution until his head gets too big to do that. Although I have to admit it was kind of fun watching his problem solving process trying to figure out how to get himself positioned to be able to try and squeeze his way down there. It makes me want to try a puzzle feeder with him!
But he seems to be settling in well. During the day he's been in the same hide in the same spot that he was in his old tank, but there's a duplicate of his other favorite hide (which is actually a piece of moss mat rolled into a tube) on the "top floor" and when I got up to pee in the middle of the night he was in that one. Last night we were in the living room and he was hanging out on his upper level with his head resting on the edge of the tray so he could look out into the room. Maybe he likes the vantage point, or maybe he was just waiting for us to go away so he could go prowling. But I really do think he will use and benefit from the space, the multiple levels, climbing opportunities, etc.


Yeah, I wouldn't do sliding doors (at least not out of 1/4" acrylic) this tall for a bigger/stronger snake than a BP without some reinforcement. Although actually reinforcing the edges of the doors with a stiffer edging or molding where they overlap would probably make it work for a bigger snake (although would defeat the purpose of having a mostly uninterrupted view in front would both make the edges stiffer and also take up the gap between the two. I wouldn't be surprised if the way your snake blew them out was not actually by head-butting them directly, but by wedging into the gap. A vertical piece (wouldn't even have to be very wide actually) in front to support the overlap area so the doors couldn't flex out would also help support the doors, and that piece could be held in place with a latch to make it removable for when you want to take off the doors and clean.

The other thing I'd do differently for a larger/heavier species is that PVC pipe is not the stiffest thing for its diameter. The framework I built will be fine for a BP, but a heavier snake might make it sag too much. The easiest way to fix that would be to just stick a dowel or aluminum tube or something inside to make it stiffer, or the whole thing could be built out of a heavier gauge pipe (although that gets heavy pretty fast).

Other construction notes, for anyone who's interested: The interior width of the cage is 42", and that's getting close to what I would consider the max width would be for having a ceiling out of just PVC that isn't supported in the middle. It wants to sag a little, although the sliding doors do help support it and that little bit of sag actually makes the doors more secure if anything. But much wider than this and the front edge should really be supported. One way would be with a vertical support in the middle. Another possibility would be to make a "lip" across the top and the bottom, using two pieces together to make it 1" wide, with the sliding door track mounted in that narrower opening. This would also make the doors less flexy because they'd be shorter, and the lower lip would contain the substrate too.