Plants for BP Vivarium?

[M_king0347]

You can make tanks work, but they certainly aren't intuitive the way other enclosures are. Just like you can fix a lot of things with duct tape and have it "work", yeah it gets the job done, but it's going to be a never ending fight of tweaks and modifications, and more fixes.

If you can post pics of your set up, we can troubleshoot better. Written descriptions always seem to miss things; for instance I can't see where you say if you are regulating your heat source. Remember that only the warm side of your BP's enclosure should be upper 88s to low 90s. Ambient should be 78 - 80. Heat mat needs to be regulated by a t-stat or else it can get over 120 and burn your snake. I would ditch the light bulbs and go with a single ceramic heat emitter.

Heres my current set up so far:




On on the top I have a dual lamp, one with a simple reptile light that will give off heat and allow for "daytime", as for the other bulb it gives off a red glow, which I use at night to keep the temps up, though it does drop because it's a lower wattage than the usual light. Sometimes I'll turn it on with the usual light to give extra warmth during the colder days. Under the tank I have a small mat, that is regulated with a Jump Start controller, which I keep set at 96 right here:



i do have two thermometers, one digital for the hot side, and a simple stick for the cold. Right now it's about 75 on the cold side and 89 on the hot. As you can see, I made (a really terrible) humid hut for her in case she needed some extra while I sort things out. I placed my water bowl underneath the light, even put the mat under, added two plants, and the humidity is still stuck at 40 percent! I'm a new reptile owner and I've been worried sick my BP will get sick because I cannot figure out how to make sure the humidity sticks!

[Lizardlicks]

Nice. Okay then, I would ditch the dual light set up (BP's do not need a day/night cycle if there is any natural light in the room) and just go with one CHE regulated with an additional t-stat or a dimmer. As others have suggested, switch your substrate from aspen to something that holds the humidity better, like coco husk, and then cover the top of the screen leaving an opening space for the dome fixture (use glass, plexi, or even just a piece of card board cut to size and wrapped in aluminum foil). Last, cover 3 of the 4 sides for better security for your animal.

[M_king0347]

Im not sure if the pictures were visible, but I did post some to my gallery just in case. I only ever invested in the bulbs because I'm gone most of the day, and my light is off the entire time until I get home around 4-5; so I'm gone 7-8 hours of the day. I'm heading out soon to pick up some coco husk as a substrate; though, where could I purchase some plexiglass that I could cut to size?

[Lizardlicks]

See reply above ^^^

[M_king0347]

Oh okay! So would the CHE light be an option if I'm gone most of the day? Like it's pitch black in my room during the afternoons; my curtains are pretty thick, and my snake is nowhere near my window ):

And I had another question; Should I be overly worried about my snakes temp during the day? I mean, I care and I want to make sure it's proper, but I worry all day she's baking alive while I'm gone! Like I said I've never had a reptile before, plus I'm just an anxious over thinker as it is