Hi! Welcome to BP.net! And congrats on choosing an excellent snake to keep...but most of all, kudos for wanting to get everything set up properly before bringing the snake home!


Glass enclosures can certainly work, especially if you want something "pretty" and you don't mind putting in the extra work it takes to keep them. But if you're going for the most practical, economical, ideal environment for your snake, believe it or not, plastic tubs are the way to go.

For setting up a tub, you need a few basic things:
1. The tub itself, of course...
2. A soldering iron for making holes in the plastic
3. A UTH...either an Under Tank Heating pad from the pet store, or flexwatt from an online supplier
4. A thermostat to control the UTH...best if bought from an online supplier...the pet store brands are not reliable
5. A thermometer/hygrometer....digital indoor/outdoor from WalMart or Lowes works great and is inexpensive
6. Newspaper substrate
7. Two identical hides and a water bowl.

Use the soldering iron to make holes at the ends and along the sides of the tub for air flow. Also, make a hole near a bottom corner for your thermostat probe wire to go through.

Attach the UTH to the bottom of the tub, usually covering about 1/2 - 2/3 of the bottom.

Plug the UTH into the thermostat and slide the t-stat probe through the hole provided.

Place newspaper on the bottom and make sure t-stat probe is relatively stationary over the heating pad, either above or beneath the newspaper, whichever you prefer.

Set up the thermometer unit in a corner of the cool side of the tub....run the "warm side" probe over to the warm side, and hide excess wire under the newspaper.

Place the two hides in the tub...one right over the top of the t-stat and thermometer probes...the other on the cool side. Place the water bowl on the cool side as well. If your humidity is too low, you can shift the waterbowl over to warmer territory to help raise humidity.

That's basically it. Make sure the lid is secure, realizing that snakes are much stronger and squishier than we'd ever give them credit for!

http://www.mgreptiles.com/
That link will take you to a supplier who should have all the above items you need. And there are lots of others to choose from if you want to look further.