Thanks for the compliment. I've tried to make a setup that is attractive to me and will give the snake what he needs. I could probably do better for him with much less clutter above the substrate and more substrate, but I like the clutter and am moving towards giving him more substrate with each new version of his enclosure.
I've never really cleaned anything "simple," so I don't know whether cleaning time is that much worse. The biggest time factor in cleaning is the time that I let the tank sit after spraying with a bleach solution and the time that I let it air out after rinsing and wiping the solution from the tank. Likewise, all of the furniture is soaked in a bleach solution and then must be rinsed and soaked multiple times. Having more furniture means that I need a bigger bucket, but I'm not certain that the extra furniture is costing me that much more time. Obviously, the time would be less if I had interchangable plastic bins in a rack system and could just dump one, spray it, and let it dry for a few weeks while I substituted another one into the rack. If I had more than two snakes, I might have to go to a system of that kind.
The PVC piping is mostly there to let me see into the bottom of the substrate. I can't see very far, but if I noticed that everything were molding or something, I'd take corrective action. I'm not sure that the PVC is really doing any good, but the idea was to give me an extra window into the underground. I don't have a true "underground hide" but the log is sitting on another piece of PVC that gives another access into the ground.
The idea to build up a deep substrate came from some folks on these boards. FR was one advocate. Markg advocated the same idea and steered me towards using Eco Earth as the substrate. When my kingsnake was shedding, he spent a great deal of time in the substrate.
Thanks,
Bill
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.
