Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm converting a room in my house into a snake room for a burmese python. The room is 12' long, 8' wide and 8' high. The floor is vinyl over concrete which slopes to a drain in the middle. I'm going to use a fish pond in it and I plan on putting a drain in it too for cleaning purposes. I need suggestions from people more creative than me on how to fix the pond and especially on how to heat the room. As it is it will be 72 degrees with the rest of the house. It has a ceramic light fixture in the ceiling in the center of the room and I can add another one anywhere if needed. It also has an outlet that will be inclosed in the wall I build around the pond if I can use that in some way. If you've got any ideas or criticisms let me know. Thanks.

You could use a large Kane heat mat to help with heating. See www.beanfarm.com for a large selection of Kane heat mats suitable for large snakes. These heaters can get wet and can withstand a heavy python no problem. Plus they don't heat the underside of the heater.

Only criticism.. if you ever try to sell that place, that room will be a handicap. A cage may be a better approach for that reason.
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Mark

I checked out the heat mats. If that's what it turns out I need to get I can certainly do that. The room won't be a problem as far as selling the house goes. I build houses for a living so I can fix it up as good as new. Thanks for the input.

>>The room won't be a problem as far as selling the house goes. I build houses for a living so I can fix it up as good as new.

I envy folks with that skill. Good luck with your project.

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Mark

I would just make sure you have really good drainage. A good layer of gravel or something lose to let the water drain. They make that rubber roofing material that comes in big rolls. I can't remember what it is called, but it might be a good idea to but a layer of that down so you don't completely destroy the room.

The floor is 2 inches lower at the drain than it is at the walls so it should drain pretty good. What's the purpose of the gravel? Thanks.

i woulod suggest building a cage too, i think that may actually be easier if the roomis 12x8x8 you could make a 8x8x4 with minimal cutting as ply wood comes in 4x8, 4x2, 2x2 sheets, that would also help with your heating, i used linoleum on my cage floors for my snakes works great its cheap and easy to install.home depot sells under floor heating that i believe for that area would be cheaper than a cane heat mat, then all you would have to do is make a good basking spot and ur temps should be great afetr that.8x8 would be big enough for like a 16' burm.
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1.1 jungle carpets
1.1 sumatran bloods
1.1 het albino rtb

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill
English economist & philosopher (1806 - 1873)

I actually have another room that I'm going to build enclosures in. I really wanted this one to remain open if it's possible to do it without endangering the snake. The floor temp right now reads 74.5 degrees without any heat other than the central heat and air. What would I need to get it up to? Thanks for the advice.

a vinyl floor over concrete might be cold for the snake.. but if you said the floor temp reads low to mid 70s it might not be so bad. i dont know if its worth it or not but if your handy at all (sounds like you are) might make cleaning easy if you add some vinyl flooring up the walls a bit. just a suggestion it MIGHT help is all im thinking

i dont know what temps a burm requires but if i where to guess i would say a hot spot in mid 90s should be about good (if someone knows better feel free to correct). IMO a kane matt sounds like a good option. only other thing is if you are thinking of using that cermic fixture 8' is kinda high... you might want to look into dropping it closer to the floor.
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-Stephen-

0.1 soon to be wifey (hopefully)
1.0 rotwiler/chow (Boomer-wifey's pooch)
1.0 norm corn (Jake aka grumpy old terdhead)
0.1 col redtail boa (Dixie-my baby girl)
0.1 ball python (Bella- wifey's baby girl)

hopeful for not to distant future:
--brazillian rainbow boas 1 female for sure
2 or 3? maybe a breeding pair?
-- bearded dragon for the wifey my list got to big...

more distant future hopefuls
1 or 2 of each maybe a breeding pair?
--anery boa (ooooh)
--jungle carpet python (love to have 1 or 2)
--dumeril boa (ahhhh)

slightly more wishful thinking
--hypo br rainbow boa (love em)
--anery br rainbow boa (oooh even better!!)
--motely boa (gorgeous!!)

Where do you think I should put the heat mat in the room? I have the same doubts as you do about using the ceramic fixture that high. I don't know if the heat would make it down to the floor or not. Thanks.

Since you have building experience I would consider building an elevated floor and use some form of floor heating (such as reptile heat cable) that way you can maintain a warm floor (which you will want as burms are prone to Resp Infections). If you go this route you can put more loops/bends in one location to provide the hot spot.
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.

Do you think it'd be okay to just do this for part of the room? I'd really like to leave the drain uncovered if possible. If I had a false floor for half the room It would still be easy for me to clean it and use the drain. I've been out of the game a while, when you say reptile heat cable are you talking about the heat tape or is it something different? Thanks for the help.

Going with a partial would work, would provide plenty of warm space for the burm to use. I am referring to the actual heat cable/rope. It is a round heating cord that you can get in various links (www.bigappleherp.com is the only place I've seen as of late that carries it regularly.)
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Randall L Turner Jr.
Boas make the world go round.

can you access the draim pipe? like take the cover off and get to the pipe itself.. because if you can do that then do as suggested and frame a floor with a pitch in it and get yourself some pipe to match and extend the drain up to the level of your new floor....

now you can insulate, cover the whole thing in vinyl.. plus keep your drain!!!

its not hard just have to get a little creative with the framing... but with a table saw and a few 2xs its not that bad!!
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-Stephen-

0.1 soon to be wifey (hopefully)
1.0 rotwiler/chow (Boomer-wifey's pooch)
1.0 norm corn (Jake aka grumpy old terdhead)
0.1 col redtail boa (Dixie-my baby girl)
0.1 ball python (Bella- wifey's baby girl)

hopeful for not to distant future:
--brazillian rainbow boas 1 female for sure
2 or 3? maybe a breeding pair?
-- bearded dragon for the wifey my list got to big...

more distant future hopefuls
1 or 2 of each maybe a breeding pair?
--anery boa (ooooh)
--jungle carpet python (love to have 1 or 2)
--dumeril boa (ahhhh)

slightly more wishful thinking
--hypo br rainbow boa (love em)
--anery br rainbow boa (oooh even better!!)
--motely boa (gorgeous!!)

I haven't thought about that but if that's what I have to do I can. I really wanted to be able to use the water hose to wash the floor off though and I don't think I'd trust the vinyl to keep all the water from getting to the wood underneath it. I'll do whatever it takes though. Thanks for another option.

yeah keep the drain for sure... i bet you would do fine with a vinyl floor, get a good thick one from a flooring co, dont go to HDepot.... but if you still dont feel comfortable another option is rubber roofing, or rubber pond liner (same thing) its alot more expensive but would more than hold up...

but thats all assuming you wanna go through and frame and insulate a new floor...

if not a couple kane matts, or just one i think they make those pretty big, you could cover as much or as little of the floor as you wanted... drop you light fixture to within a couple feet of the floor use what ever CHE incadesent for a basking spot... hell you could even hang a shelf or two with flexwatt under it, something up high for the snake to go hang out on and get warm...

there are tons of things you could do
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-Stephen-

0.1 soon to be wifey (hopefully)
1.0 rotwiler/chow (Boomer-wifey's pooch)
1.0 norm corn (Jake aka grumpy old terdhead)
0.1 col redtail boa (Dixie-my baby girl)
0.1 ball python (Bella- wifey's baby girl)

hopeful for not to distant future:
--brazillian rainbow boas 1 female for sure
2 or 3? maybe a breeding pair?
-- bearded dragon for the wifey my list got to big...

more distant future hopefuls
1 or 2 of each maybe a breeding pair?
--anery boa (ooooh)
--jungle carpet python (love to have 1 or 2)
--dumeril boa (ahhhh)

slightly more wishful thinking
--hypo br rainbow boa (love em)
--anery br rainbow boa (oooh even better!!)
--motely boa (gorgeous!!)

The floor temp right now reads 74.5 degrees without any heat other than the central heat and air.

What part of the world are you in? Do you know if your slab is insulated?

You're in a tough spot. I agree that an insulated subfloor is probably best for the snake but I don't like the idea of giving up the drain.

I think you could use an overhead radiant heat source which will help keep the slab warm and allow you to continue using the drain. But if your slab is un-insulated and you live in a northern climate then you might be spending a lot of money to heat the earth below your house.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

I live in East Tennessee. The slab is not insulated. Can you recommend a radiant heat source that would work with a room this size? Thanks for your help.

Bobby

You could probably get away without a subfloor then, especially if you included a lot of thermal mass in the room.

I would call Bob Pound at Pro Products and discuss your project with him. He'll give you some good advice. He probably will recommend a subfloor but I'm not sure.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

Okay thanks for the help Chris.

I would make a box for the pond to sit in that would double as a hide box with hindges such as this... ( Sorry my paint skills are caveman at best)

The issue you will have that will become a chore would be to clean the water, now if you can cut a hole in the bottom of the pond and put in a shower drain/ plug that has some PVC running to the floor drain, then that problem may be solved.

Heating can be done by making a "sub screen wall" on one side with the heater behind it.

The pond will have a drain exactly as you described. I like the hide box idea but I don't think I'd be able to access underneath and behind the pond good enough to clean it out good. It will be framed up like your drawing and I'm considering putting a heater under it on the left side since I have an outlet there anyway. I'd just put some vents on the face of it for the heat to come out. I actually thought the floor would be too cold like you did but I checked it with the Ray-tek temp gun and it's real close to room temperature. Do you think a big burm needs a hide box? I can incorporate one somewhere in the room if I need to. Thanks for the ideas, they help a lot.

Bobby

Dont know if Burms need a hide box or not (I just dont and would not keep anything that big) but I do give all my kids all the options I can and let them pick where they want to lay about...

If I were you I would NOT permanently mount a large pool in any cage and here's why. All they seem to do is crap in them and cleaning them is very difficult. I have done this before and what I found is put a rubbermaid container in from time to time for him to soak. This way when the container is not in the cage you gain that much living space for your snake. After a few weeks I found the mounted tub to be so much of a bother, I removed it and now had this huge hole to cover. I did not want to tear the cage apart so I patched it and this makes it more difficult to disinfect the floor. Unfortunately all of the really cool, naturalistic ideas for a cage do not work well for large snakes because when they excrete, it is allot and it goes everywhere. Once I figure out how I am going to do the floor, I'll be right with you in terms of building a room. Maybe we can share ideas.
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DZ

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell

I e-mailed Bob Pound of Pro Products as suggested. Are his radiant heat panels the best on the market now? Here's his reply to my e-mail which was about the same as my original post on here...

"We have set up hundreds of rooms and zoo displays like this very successfully. The method I would recommend would be to install a shelf on the end of the room that is about 3’ off of the floor, large enough for the snake to comfortably lie on. You would then mount a heater directly over the shelf to create a higher basking site temperature that can be controlled with a thermostat. A second panel would be mounted over the opposite end of the room, which will provide a gradient in the room that can be controlled with a separate thermostat. This is how we have done most zoo setups. If you feel that your floor temperatures will never get below the low 70’s, you could also mount one panel under a shelf a couple of feet over the floor to create a basking area on one end of the room, but you will not get much warmer on the floor on the opposite end of the room.

For your setup with the information provided, I would recommend 2 Pro heat model PH-24, 375 watt, 24” x 48” panels. These units are $389.95 ea. S&H for 2 of these units would be $50.00 to the lower 48. They can be made in either 120v or 240v and supplied with a 6’ cord and plug, or with 6” leads out the back of the panel which is directly wired. We recommend the 6” leads in these installations as it will eliminate the possibility of the snake being able to wrap around the cord and damaging it."

The presence of ceramic in the room will help to maintain radiant temperatures right?

So, you're a builder type guy.......just put some floor tiling down underneath a spot light, and install it with silicone instead of grout (no gaps would be better for thermal transfer)and it'll adhere to the vinyl flooring and be easy to clean.

For the pond, just install it like you would a garden tub with a 2x4 frame around it and a 3/4" deck, cut for the pond to drop right into and the drain can be accessed like you would with a hot tub or spa installed in someones bathroom.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

You think ceramic floor tile would heat up good under a spot light? I've never thought about trying it but it would be super easy to do and I've got a lot of brand new perfectly smooth tile left over from a job. Thanks for the idea, I believe I'll experiment with it a little bit.

I think like water, it might take a good bit of initial energy to get it up to temperature, but once it's there it'll radiate it very well.
Let me know if anything works out with that. I'd be curious to see if my hunch is right or not.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

Alright man, I'll try it and let you know.