Quick Bioactive Question

[Slither Seeker]

the old expression "there are more ways than one to skin a cat" comes to mind. I've had a bio-active set up for my rainbow boa for 2.5 years with great success, probably due at least in part to a generous serving of luck. I struggled initially to find a way to provide heat inside a closed enclosure (no screen). all forms of overhead heat readily available in the pet trade are overkill and cause humidity/heat balance issues for a snake that prefers moderate warmth and moderate to high moisture. for desert snakes and lizards, no problem, screen tops and heat lamps are the way to go, but IMHO, not so good for a BP or other moisture dependent critters. a huge % of the threads on this forum are, one way or another, related to finding solutions to this struggle.

I prefer front entry enclosures to help regulate temp and humidity, they provide a thermal daming effect. providing any sort of hot spot with a front entry set up is difficult because you have no reasonable/safe way to mount a light bulb or CHE inside a closed top, relatively sealed, enclosure. add a thick substrate for a bio-active set up and your options for bottom mounted heat sources narrow as well.

trapping heat and moisture comes with perils that one must keep in mind. heat encapsulation can lead to run away thermal situations, burns and ultimately fire, so you have to account for that, a reliable thermostat is a must. lowering ventilation to conserve heat and moisture can lead to mold and or anaerobic bacteria and their toxic byproducts, so you have to account for that (I like cypress mulch because it holds up well over time and has a natural anti mold component). so why use a blow torch when you can use a candle? the various heat tapes/heat panels/UTH options when combined with a thermostat seem to offer the best combination of controllable heat, IMHO. the fine members of this forum do a good job promoting various heat tape/UTH/thermostat options that I have found very helpful.

with a bio-active set up for BP's, it appears to me that you are venturing somewhat into uncharted, or less charted territory but it has distinct advantages and some appeal to the biology/ecology minded.

for the hot spot, I would suggest either going under tank or finding a safe way to place a heat source inside. for under tank, using a temp gun to fine tune the temp in part by making the substrate as thin as needed in that place, and placing a hide over it, periodically checking on the temp and watching moisture. a sweet spot is attainable. you can periodically move droppings to the deeper substrate. you will need to increase the temp of the surface under the substrate above what is ideal, should your BP burrow down and contact the glass. there are differing opinions about whether that is a good practice or not, but I believe if you monitor this and use a thermostat, that you reasonably reduce the risk of burns/overheated snake. setting this up toward a side of the enclosure also leaves open the possibility of side mounting more flexwatt tape or an UTH, but that will also need a probe. Herpstat/spyder robotics offers a very elegant way to control multiple probes independently while minimizing spikes in temp. there is one other scenario that I have recently been experimenting with as well, and that is using an UTH on a thick pain of glass for the ceiling of the hide. I've started with a wooden box for my juvenile red foot tortoise, removed most of the top and mounted an UTH to a pain of glass with a probe affixed to it's back, facing down. In a snake enclosure this will need further shielding to prevent direct skin contact from above when the snake climbs on top of the hide, which is easy to do with silicone spacers and a second pain of glass or plexi, leaving room for ventilation so that if/when the thermostat fails, thermal runaway is prevented. look in my gallery if you want to see my DIY UTH set up... so far I'm liking it. I've been tweeking the design for about 2.5 years and I've used it in hermit crab set ups, turtle set ups and snake enclosures. I've run the design by zoo med tecs and the owner of herpstat and taken cautions into consideration.

another moderate heat source is LED lighting. I hang my LED set up, a finnex planted +, using suction cups from above to avoid using adhesive inside the ensclosure. it will create a thermo cline in the tank, heat the glass and radiate some heat downward, but hasn't caused over heating issues so far for me, not even a heat spike in the hides because the probes simply adjust the heat there accordingly. having LED grow lights of some sort allows for adding things like pathos vines (not much else seems to thrive with snakes that trample and turn over substrate). plants do two things that help with a bio-active set up that I'm aware of, they harbor good bacteria and symbiotic mycorhizae, especially in their roots (helps keep things aerobic) and they absorb nitrogenous compounds created by snake dropping decomposition. This has worked really well with my BRB and I'm curious and cautious about how well it will work for my BP's. I use cypress mulch as a base and basically pot the plants and spot feed with organic fertilizer. you can use the mulch to hide the pots for a more scaped look.

to retain heat, I use thermal mass (thick cut glass/ sometimes rock slab above etc) and insulation around the outside. so far, it's not very sexy looking, a bit more like a NASA space project, but it seems to be doing the job quite nicely.

One last thought on my venturing into the bio-active approach so far is about controlling mites. the only practical way to control mites in a bio-active set up is to be OCD about preventing them, as it's very challenging to get rid of them once they occur. I would start with sterilizing the enclosure, freezing the substrate and perhaps even pre-treating the snake, at least with olive oil, maybe even quarentining the snake for a bit prior to adding it to the "biodome". tissue cultured plants are the best for avoiding mites. contact folks like Josh's frogs for sourcing plants that are free of mites. I've done planted aquariums and have had a hell of a time controlling microbes that come in on plants, so I have become a bit more hard core in this respect.