Question about bioactive house snake setup

[Malum Argenteum]

I'm glad your snake appears to be doing well.

With respect, 3 months is not nearly long enough to make a judgment about any care program, nor is a sample size of one. I also understand that house snakes are generally very tolerant of less than ideal conditions, so aren't the best species to use for making a judgment about care protocols.

Unfortunately, there's a strong tendency for supporters of novel methodologies in all areas of life to have a confirmation bias -- that is, to take apparent successes as proof and to dismiss counterexamples (this is why the downsides of all sorts of practices sometimes take an unreasonably long time to become apparent).

Sometimes a husbandry methodology works in spite of its features, rather than because of them (common in the more durable species, since they don't give signs of less than ideal conditions), and there are a lot of examples of this among different herp species: ball pythons being fed live, or kept in glass enclosures; the current uptick in multispecies cohabitation among other taxa (or at least uptick in visibility of it); causal and poorly monitored use of UVB for species that don't require it.

I breed and sell a couple hundred herps a year, and not only do I get some later feedback from people who buy my animals online, but I also speak to people who have nothing to lose by being honest about their experiences when they visit my expo table without the intent to buy anything (which is virtually every visitor). I also help moderate a longstanding herp forum where we get lots of people rolling in with 'my animals are dying, what's wrong?'. So I get to hear some of what works and what doesn't, so my comments don't come from a place of closed mindedness (except that I'm closed minded to anything that has more risks than benefits, since that seems to be one thing that gets animals killed -- the other big one is cutting corners on necessary equipment and enclosure features). And as I pointed out above, I keep a number of animals "bioactive" (14 enclosures, currently).

So I guess I'd caution not to necessarily consider contrary recommendations to be coming from a lack of open mindedness simply because of one very short term experience. Again, what matters is that your snake is doing well, and for that I'm happy.