First off, thanks Kelly for the kind words regarding my set up, I appreciate it. I too believe that most cannot keep their anacondas with large ponds. With some work however, it is possible. My green anaconda is very large (I actually weighed her the other day at 186 lbs) but she totes fairly easily most of the time. This allows me to pull her from her pool without too much worry. I also pull her pond for 2 weeks following each feed (every 9 or so weeks) so that she isn't able to soak in a pond full of feces until I can get home from work to change it out, so this allows me to keep that aspect of her husbandry in check. I also, as stated, treat her pond and everything in it with Bioshield which kills bacteria even in water so I think that helps with keeping things as clean as possible. She also has a dry cycle for a month or so each year that helps. I also have a large 10 foot yellow anaconda that has a pond in her enclosure; I maintain it the same way. The one thing that I have noticed about both of these snakes is that they actually do not spend all of their time in their ponds. The yellow anaconda spends only a few hours (that I've seen) a week in her pond even though it is maintained at 80 degrees. The green is more aquatic, but will sometimes spend weeks without going into her pond. Again it is maintained at 80 degrees. I keep both of their enclosures at 70% to 80% humidity which may be why they are not constantly soaking in thier ponds. Both are very healthy animals. I maintain them as well as my retics, Afrocks, and other reptiles in a building built strictly for them, so they are not in my house, which makes it possible to have a large enclosure with pond for my green anaconda. If I kept her in the house there would be no way to house her the way I do, which is why I agree that for most the large setups are impractical. Also, I do not believe that filtration would work very well with large anacondas due to the nature of their urates and feces. Back when I was in the zoo field even very large sand filtration units couldn't do much with the feces of semi aquatic reptiles such as crocodiles, and truth be known, large anacondas, when they go, make a much bigger mess (urates especially) then even 550 lb crocs. Just my opinion.
Best regards,
Shane

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