Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently fell in love with a litte viper boa female I discovered at a local herp show. Being pathologically impulsive, I brought her home. While I've a considerable amount of experience with iguanids and tortoises, I've never really done snakes at all. So, I began searching the web for info. Now remember I said I was impulsive...Less than a week later, I've got three female vipers (two red morphs), two male vipers, and two pair of white isabel island boas. At the moment, the viper boas are set up in a 75 gallon aquarium and the isabels (subadults less than 12 inches) are set up in a 20 long. I've provided water dishes suitable for soaking and plenty of hiding areas. I'm using a thin layer of peat moss covered with a generous portion of spanish moss as substrate. Daytime temperatures range from 80-90 degrees from hot to cool end and I'm misting every other day to maintain very high humidity levels. Now, as a paranoid beginner, I want to make sure these conditions are appropriate i.e. is the substrate okay? Am I keeping the enclosures too wet? Are the enclosure sizes suitable? Also, any advice or information from some experienced candoia keepers/breeders would be greatly appreciated. I've just become utterly obsessed with these little guys. I find them so unique and interesting and (contrary to some opinins I found posted on the web) utterly beautiful. I would also really like to try my hand at reproducing some of these guys so breeding advice is welcome also. I'll try and post some pics later and would love to see pics of other candioa morphs. Thanks in advance for any and all input.

This is a good Candioa site. I dont have any, but would love a pair of any of the Candoias.I love the Indo Tree Boas, Candoia carinata carinata, which i see all the time but never purchase.HTH
The Candoia Page

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1.1 Argentine Boas
1.3 Eastern Garter Babies
1.1 Florida Blue Garter(Felzer Babies)
1.1 Poss Het Albino Red Sideds(Felzer Babies)
1.0 Northern Water
1.0 Anery Corn
1.1 African House Snakes
0.0.2 Rough Green Snakes

The site Tbone linked to (Jerry Conway's Candoia page) is pretty much THE authority on these beautiful little snakes. As for your setup, it sounds fine for a naturalistic vivarium though I prefer to separate my animals and not put that many of them together. They need to be able to have their own hides and plenty of room individually, so watch for any problems and you should be fine. Be sure not to over saturate the substrate as you don't want to cause mold/mildew to grow or cause skin problems with the snakes. A general rule of thumb is that the substrate can dry out between mistings. I would be VERY cautious with the temperatures...ambient temps of 80 are perfect but if they can't get away from the higher temperatures you will have problems. Sustained high temps, especially with young candoia, can be fatal so be sure that they DO have a cool end to get to. Other than that, read Jerry's site as it's the best out there I've found. I've also found Jerry to be more than willing to offer advise and suggestions via email...he's really a great guy.

Raven