Ameron your setups look great but I wanted to mention a couple things.
You mentioned having only one hot spot as opposed to more than one as if it were a bad thing which is not accurate. Unless you have a very large cage, like six feet or more, it is easier to provide more of a temp range with only one hot spot on one end of the enclosure. A larger temp range is always best for the snake. While having a light in the center of your cage like you do is nice visually, it is not the best for the snake. Having a heat source like that in the center makes it to where the entire cage is warmer and your not able to provide as good of a temp range. Overhead lights as a heat source also dries out the cage much more than you might think as opposed to UTH heaters. When you just provide a hot spot in one corner you are able to keep the other side cooler which gives the snake more of a temp range. A light on the top of one end is good with arboreal species as they generally warm up by sitting in the sun because they spend almost all of their time in trees and bushes and basking in the sun is the way they have to heat up. Largely terrestrial species like the two you keep generally prefer to warm up where they don't have to be exposed if possible. They will often not spend as much time warming up as they would like when they are forced to sit out exposed to do so. Due to that a good secure hide at the heat source is what they would prefer. It all depends on weather visually looking nice or what benefits the snake most is what your looking for.
More of a vertical or arboreal setup is good as you mentioned for some species but the species you keep would benefit as much or more with more floor space to move around as opposed to an arboreal set up as they spend more time on the ground. Don't get me wrong though, I do think more hides and things to crawl up on is a good thing.

I do tests with all species I keep to see what they prefer. I will give them different shapes, colors and sizes of hides to see which they prefer. I put the different hides in the same moisture and temp range so it's not a matter of those type things but just the size, color and shape of the hide that I see which they prefer first. I then put their preferred hide in different temp, moisture and sometimes different supstrates to narrow down what range of those things they prefer most. I can then tweak their individual setups to give them a range around what they prefer. I found that with pretty much all species, they will usually go into the hide they prefer even if it's NOT in the temp or moisture level they prefer to spend most of their time in. I guess my point is that while attractive, naturalistic setups are nice, specific preferences are much more important to their health and feeling secure.
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Randy Whittington

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