Possibly sick BP, could really use some help figuring out if it's a big deal or not

[Malum Argenteum]

Yeah, I'm definitely starting to realize that. The set up came with the snakes, and it was fun to learn about the process and how it all worked, but it definitely makes addressing problems a lot harder, I'm discovering. Also made moving the tanks quite a pain too.

When you said 'a decent bit of hydroton at the very bottom' it was apparent that this is one of those 'jam it in a bioactive' things that the previous owner did without understanding what they were doing but were just hopping on the bandwagon.

With BPs, you can get 100% of the benefit of a "bioactive" with roughly zero percent of the potential harm by employing naturalistic design. Naturalistic enclosures use wood, cork bark, natural substrate materials, possibly a live plant or two (potted is best). I find that herps prefer natural materials over artificial materials, so naturalistic builds can have benefit for the snake.

With naturalistic design, you ignore the (very oversold) role of the "clean up crew" that doesn't actually do much clean up for an animal with the pooping habits of a BP. You also don't use a drainage layer (because it isn't necessary, since BP enclosures aren't misted enough to build up water in the drainage layer). This enables you to have a depth of substrate that is shallow enough that heating isn't such a challenge, expense, weight, and wasted enclosure space.

When/if you strip out your enclosure, if there are isopods or other microfauna in the substrate, be aware that it is both environmentally damaging and illegal (in the US) to release those isopods outside. Heating the substrate to kill them before disposing is best, though it is often thought responsible enough to double bag the substrate and put it into the regular trash. Whatever you do, don't compost it.