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. Nor is it possible to know whether a care program is better than some other one, and in what ways it is better, without having experience with both. I also understand that house snakes are generally very tolerant of less than ideal conditions, so they aren't the best species to use for making a judgment about care protocols in any event.

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). That's why there's a lot more than examples of success to appeal to in figuring out how to care for a given species.

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. Some of these are associated with a common understanding of their disadvantages, and some are not (yet).

I breed and sell a couple hundred herps a year, and not only do I get some later feedback (some good, some not) 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?'. 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'd consider myself to have a pretty open mind, and that comes from at least a basic understanding of different care methods. I sort of thought that my extensive post above (#2) made that apparent, and I'm a bit disappointed that it did not.

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.