Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Last Sunday I took in a male BCC as a foster.
He's about six feet long or so, and is not very tame. My goal is to tame him down, switch him to f/t, and then find him a new qualified home (I'm not into big snakes - I'd love to be, but I'd rather work with smaller snakes with the resources I have).

He came with a tank that measures 48" long x 18" wide x 23" high.

For heat he has a 150W ceramic heat emitter and a smaller day bulb, but the day bulb doesn't seem to affect the temp all that much at all (I'm guessing too far away).

I'm going to try to aquire a used 6' x 2' tank for him, that should be big enough for him for the rest of his life (male Boa Constrictors I understand don't get as large as females) that I can pass on to whoever takes him, but for now, I need to do something better as far as heat goes, the ceramic heat emitter doesn't quite seem to be cutting it, and seems to dry out the air in the tank pretty quickly.

I thought I'd pass by my plans to fix the heat issue by people who care for these things on a yearly basis.

I'm thinking two independent pieces of 11" flexwatt independently controlled - one for warm side, one for cools side.

Warm side flexwatt will be controlled by a proportional thermostat and aided by the existing ceramic heat emitter. The goal is that as the warm side reaches target temp, only a little bit of current will need to flow through the ceramic heat emitter.

Cool side flexwatt will be controlled by an on/off thermostat with a rheostat inline to keep the current limited, chances are it will only kick in on the coldest of days (I try to keep my house heat set low in winter, and where warm clothes - results in smaller gas bill) but it will kick in if needed.

Does this sound appropriate?

For humidity - I received him with signs of too little humidity, namely pieces of shed skin still stuck to his head. We have dry air, and the heat emitter and screen top don't help it any. Keeping a towel over most of the screen lid does help, but I'm constantly spraying.

I'm using cypress mulch for substrate, I hear it retains humidity better than aspen. He came with a ZooMed "Habba" mister, I have not set it up because to be frank, it looks like even with suction cups, he's have no trouble knocking it over or getting tangled in the power adapter line. Any thoughts on that? I've seen some external misting systems that keep the pump and water tank outside the tank, would they be better? Do any of them have humidity sensors to kick in automatically when humidity gets too low? The one I looked at down seem to, but seem to require trial and error in dialing the frequency/duration of the misting.

Thanks for suggestions.

Some pics of him:

I was told on another forum that he probably is a BCC opposed to BCI based upon his saddles, probably from Suriname - though that was less certain. Other opinions are welcome.
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3.0 WC; 0.3 CB L. getula californiae
1.0 CB L. getula nigrita
0.1.1 WC; 0.0.3 CH Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata

A few comments -

It is a good call for having 2 pieces of Flexwatt independently controlled. However, for the warm side piece, do not use a proportional controller with that and the ceramic emitter on the same controller. Keep them separate. I would use the proportional on the ceramic emitter, and just use a dimmer on the warm side Flexwatt. Or to save electricity, do the opposite.

For the cool side Flexwatt, there are issues with putting a dimmer in-line with an ON/OFF controller. If the dimmer setting is somewhat low, the output will not come on once the thermostat goes OFF and then comes back ON. Kind of a pain when your heater is cold but your thermostat is switching power to the dimmer. Adjusting the dimmer back up fixes it until the next time.

In short, the dimmer in line with ON/OFF controller only works as expected when you barely dimm the heater. Keep that in mind, or just use the dimmer alone, or use another proportional if you have one.

Another thing that helps if the cage is a glass tank - cover much of the top of the cage with something. I use corrugated plastic sign material. You can get it at sign shops or from signs at Lowes, etc. I also tape this material to the outside back of glass enclosures, and the sides too if needed. It makes a big difference in holding in the heat = less power used to heat it if using a proportional controller.

Good luck.

Thanks for the tips!
I'll probably put the flexwatt on proportional and use a dimmer with the ceramic heat emitter. I'll try both ways actually and see which way has less of an impact on humidity.

As far as the cool side goes, that's too bad that dimmers don't work well inline between an on/off thermostat and flexwatt. I'll try it, and if it becomes an issue, then I'll just bite the bullet and redo that part with a second proportional. Eventually the snake will probably go elsewhere, but I suppose having an additional $$$ thermostat isn't the end of the world. I'll need it sooner or later anyway.

Thanks for the tip about blocking thermal transfer through the glass. That definitely sounds like a good idea.

I might try to find some attractive aquarium backing paper to go between the glass and that plastic stuff - just for aesthetics.
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3.0 WC; 0.3 CB L. getula californiae
1.0 CB L. getula nigrita
0.1.1 WC; 0.0.3 CH Elgaria multicarinata multicarinata