Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I will confess that I have tried to do a ball python display tank and it failed MISERABLY. They are quite the one-snake demolition team!
Of course, that can also be a function of what I like in a display setup... Live plants and heavy snakes don't work too well.

My cal king is still small enough to not wreak too much havoc on a display cage, although I have had to remove the live plant because she liked to tip over the pot it was in.

My White's Tree Frog has both the newer plants in its cage, mostly because neither plant worked in the other two displays. They both will grow at least to the top of the tank and then it'll look a lot cooler in there, but for now there's a fake plant for the frog to hide behind (which it never does):

And last but not least, the angry orange spider that I've posted up here before - Redid her cage since I had to take out the live plant I was experimenting with in there. The plant was outgrowing the tank! The spider was most upset about the dismantling of her web tunnel of death.

Anyone else enjoy setting up realistic displays?

~jenny
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."
- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)

Yup we love to do that too...It's fun watching them explore
Some of our enclosures

Dang Rita, you don't hold back do ya? Those are pretty elaborate. I like

Quig

Very nice! Have you been able to keep them in there long enough for them to develop habits? My kingsnake has developed a kind of routine when I turn on the basking light, and when she's hungry she'll sit with just her head out and stare at me whenever I'm in the room, until I feed her.

Love your setups though. Are the plants all fake?
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."
- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)

The plants are fake...but I bought some live plants and a bigger tank for the water dragon...just haven't put it up yet...The rocks we get at the creek....we wash em and bake em in the oven to sterilize em...we have 2 more 55 gallons we havent even put up yet...just bought those too...e have 9 snakes all together...we want to make like a showcase along that one wall in the living room....lol

Nice job Jen!

It looks like you have the tree frog in a 20 high - correct? I think they make the best tree frog tanks, both visually and functionally.

I have always wanted to keep Archer fish myself. Are you familar with these fish? They are very beautiful with unusual patterns and some color..they are really cool and unusual hunters too.

The idea I have (ie; the voices in my head that talk to me when I am alone - lol) is to take a 20 or 30 high and fill it with water 1/3- 1/2 way up and have branches or small logs both in and out of the water. This way you could place crickets on the dry branches and, as they crawl around, watch as the Archer fish either shoots them with a squirt of water, so the cricket falls into the water and is lunch for the fish, or the Archer will sometimes jump from the water to snap up small food items from low hanging branches or on leaves over te water.

The ony drawback is that Archer fish like brackish water, and although I have successfully keept a saltwater reef tank for many years, it is a pain keeping the salinity correct and the salty water requires lots of glass maintainance.

Awesome job! Great, now I really, really want a spider, fish and more frogs now..

I think it's actually only a 15 gal tall, not sure, our tank maker doesn't always label things by the gallon. It looks a lot bigger than it is thanks to the angle and how small the frog is right now. It's a CB baby aussie, and only a little over an inch right now

My local fish shop somehow manages to always have at least one archerfish in stock. They have a lot of really cool stuff, actually.

I've seen some really cool archerfish setups on the TV, but don't the archerfish get kind of big? 20 gallons seems small. Maybe it's just been that long since I've been there!

And I agree, the brackish water would be an absolute pain. I just have a little freshwater tank with an angelfish in it, can't imagine the work that goes into a well maintained tank with any sort of salt in it!

Thanks! It's a ton of fun setting these things up. The kingsnake has been the most fun so far - she is extremely interactive and exhibits a lot of behaviors (basking, hunting, etc) that I like to think these kingsnakes will do in the wild.
And a side note - she's an albino, and when I had a UV light on the tank for the live plants in there at first, I never saw her. She spent all day hiding and only came out after all the lights were out. Took off the UV, and it was like having a totally different snake.

~jenny
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."
- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)

I successfully kept a group of archers (jaculatrix and chatareus) along with M. sebae for almost 14 years and from my personal experience and from what I've heard you really need a 100g or larger for long term success. I kept mine in a 150g standard. Archers also do well year round in seasoned fresh water.

Michael

This is the display tank that I have been working on. It is still in the beginning stages. 40gal breeder fire skink setup.

IMG]http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t17/beclende/DSC00669.jpg[/IMG]

I have since gotten a much better T5 light for the top and am now working on planting the wood with some live moss and orchids. The only problem with the setup it the lack of ventilation with the full glass top. I think I am going to have a couple of cutouts made and install small computer fans for air circulation.

That looks AWESOME. Have you thought about using tanzania (i think that's how the name is spelt) instead of live moss? It's a kind of air plant. Not sure about the humidity needs of fire skinks but that's a thought too. I'm debating using a couple of those in the kingsnake tank.
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."
- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)

Slowly making mine look better, still need to add more to cover the screen in the back

Zoomed has been coming out with some really cool realistic display stuff, including some unique plants and flower stuff that are tall enough to cover a good portion of the screen. Maybe check them out?

Maybe try anchoring some hanging plants to the screen too? You could even weave a vine throgh it if you found the right width vine.

I like the setup though, and it looks like your ball actually uses the vertical space too. Cool!
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."
- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)

Thanks Ill have to look into that, are the ones you are talking about on the zoomed website?

If I cant weave it in and out of the screen I may have to settle for zip tying individual sections of leaves until I have a large section covered or maybe find a good fake looking moss.

I used zip ties to create the network of bendable vines to the ceiling, screen and log and then wrapped a really long leafy plant around the vine because the vines by themselves look too fake to me.

Two of my snakes really seem to like climbing. Before I added all of vines they would try climbing the side of the cage and fall multiple times a night and I'm a light sleeper. Now just about every night they can be found either quietly laying out on a vine or balled up on the top of the log.