Hey, posted this on the Husbandry website. Heard from Mr. Gilbert and thought might get more exposure here. Sorry for the redundancy.



Ok, so I think I am going to make the jump to my first Bolivian BCA after previous years working with Dumerili, Rosy, and BCI’s. I thank Chris Gilbert for some backchannel thoughts on working with this species and welcome additional anecdotal thoughts, particularly as to how they may differ from BCC.



I do have a particular question about housing, as in our new house the only option is to keep the snake in the finished basement. My main question has to deal with temperature. I would say that the basement hovers around 65° year-round. So, I will probably need a pretty solid PVC cage to retain temperature. Based on my experience with Boids, I am planning on going with belly heat.



My main questions are:

1) how do I manage a reasonable temperature gradient of 90° on the warm side and 75° on the cooler side with such a low ambient temperature. I laughed when reading Gus Rentfro’s article, where he commented that most people keep their interior homes between 74° and 84°. Sadly, not in Wisconsin!



2) Without purchasing a thermostat with night drop, it doesn't seem that I will be able to achieve that 10° drop in the evenings. Think that will be a problem?



I will be using my 24” Neodesha for now, but are there any thoughts on reasonably priced and readily accessible PVC cages? Back when I was active in the hobby, the options were Neodesha and Vision. For heat, I was planning on an under tank mat controlled by a Zoomed 500R.



Any other ideas that might be more practical or will allow for future expansion would be appreciated.

Thanks all,

Jon



Follow-up:

How about a 36" cage with a 12x24 heat pad controlled by a Zoomed 500R and some of those halogen hockeypuck lights (Junglehabitats as some on their site) on the basking side that are on a 12 hour timer? Too hot?

Jon

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