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I am currantly treating an Asian Blue Beauty with daily doses of antibiotic for a respitory infection that I suspect was caused by high humidity levels in his plastic tub enclosure.
I've since changed his housing to a screen lid covered tank and after an expensive vet visit and an anxious roller coaster ride he's looking to pull though ok.
My tubs don't appear to be set up any different from what I've seen posted here including heat tapes and water bowls but humidity levels seem dificult to keep at a manageable level.
My reptile room maintains a 70-75% humidity level.
I am using tanks with screened lids, reostated heat tapes set at 90-95' and an electric heater that keeps the whole room at the mid to upper 70's.
Aspen shavings are the primary bedding.
This is working well with the tanks but my experiance with tubs hasn't been good. Condesation usually appears inside the enclosure dispite ventilation holes provided.
How do you guy's make it work?
Mike.

I don't keep any snakes but hatchlings in tubs but I can give you a couple ideas.

How many ventilation holes do you have? maybe add more.

Keep the water dish off the heat tape?

How are you measuring you humidity levels? I would suggest getting a good hygrometer to be sure.

Condensation is the result of high humidity without ventilation. All my enclosures have a little condensation after I spray them down for maybe an hour, if it doesn't go away within a couple hours you most definitely more ventilation.

Nate

Yes it makes sense that more holes are necessary but what I see from photos here looks no different from what I have been using. The tubs seem harder to keep a stable temp too. I'm doing something wrong somewhere.
Aside from the glass tanks I do have one vision cage though for a D'Albert's Python which I am very impressed with. It is the easiest for me to maintain the right temps and humidity. Wish I could afford more.
Mike.

What works for some doesn't work for others. Sometimes we need to make adjustments.

Nate

I guess what would really help me would be to find someone local with a well established rack system and see it up close.
Mike.

You're room humidity seems very high! Do you live in Florida? With that high room humidity, I would punch at least a couple of hundred holes in each box-I'm not surprised you are having in-box humidity issues!
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

Did your blue ever show any signs of wheezing, bubbling from the nose or just mouth gaping. I just wonder if the high temps you mentioned you are providing your blue and a screen top aquarium which usually makes for way too low humidity levels for that species are the correct way to address the problem.
When in tubs did you have your water source on the cool side? If you keep it over the heat tape side it will make condensation appear on the sides.
It seems strange that your room would be that humid because a room with electric heat generally has fairly low humidity.
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Randy Whittington

The blue had occasional mouth gaping with audable whezing and crackling every couple of minutes. I got him out of the tub and into the screened top aquarium right away which had a 12" heat tape under half of the tank and added a UVB lamp.
Though the rooms temp was around 76-78 degrees he still gravitated to the side with the heat tape. He looked bad and I was feeling that he wasn't going to make it.
Over two days I played phone tag with numerous vets leaving a message then getting a call back too late to go and also finding they wanted near two hundred dollers just to walk in the door because the blue was an exotic and then there would be a likely additional two hundred for treatment. Cripes!
In these two days keeping the snakes stress level low and being on the heat his condition actually improved somewhat. Finally I found a vet that was reasonable and all told came to $244 for exam, antibiotic, fecal exams(2) and disposal of (?)who knows what that was. In the exam we opened his mouth to find it a healthy pink but filled with clear clingy mucus.
I've been treating him daily with an oral dose of antibiotic. Must not taste too good for them either because he always gaps his mouth open a minute afterward almost to say Blaaah.
I have a number of tanks in the room with water bowls in each. Though they are not centered over the tape, the heat does radiate to the width of the tanks and the bowls do dry out over a couple of days but thats when they get cleaned anyway.
The room is closed up now to hold the heat as it is built in a cooler basement. It will get more ventilation as the basement gets warmer. Looking at the humidity gauge today, a little zoo med piece, its more like 65-70%. I do need to get a better unit to measure the humidity. Thanks for you feedback guys.
Mike.

What is the tub/rack setup? Is the back and sides open, like vision racks, or is it enclosed sides and back?

I use vision racks for all my high ventilation species like subocs because they are open side and back. Although any rack without solid enclosed sides and back would have the same enefit. For tubs in these setups I just heavily perforate the front and back walls of the tub so it looks like a makeshift screen wall. This keeps the ventilation very high and humidity low. I just add a humid hide as one of the hides in the enclosure so they can access humidity for shedding purposes.

Sean.
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1.1 BRB
0.1 Pacific Gophersnake(unproven Hypo)
1.0 Amel Pacific Gophersnake
0.1 Striped Anery Pacific Gophersnake
1.1 Triple Het TPRS's
0.1 Silver TPRS
1.1 Amel Bloodred Corns
0.1 Abbott Okeetee Corn
0.1 Blizzard Bloodred Corn
1.1 Thayeri Kingsnakes
0.1 Reeve's Turtle
0.2 Amstaff's
1.0 Pudytat

Just to be sure, what leads you to believe the high humidity lead to the respitory infection? Sometimes our first assumption is not the correct one. Beauty snakes come from quite humid areas of the world.
I generally associate respitory infections with low temperatures. Is it possible that the tub wasn't warm enough? Plastic is an insulator and it doesn't allow as much heat transfer as glass or even air, maybe the heat tape wasn't hot enough? Were the nights proir to the infection really cold?
Just trying to muddy the waters a little bit.

A humidity level of 70-75% should not be a problem for Blue Beauties, or any oriental ratsnake for that matter. However, ammonia accumulation sometimes causes respiratorial problems, especially with active, high metabolism snakes like Beauties (which shouldn't be kept in racksystems, IMHO), so ventilation improvements may still be the proper solution.

The temps we're always in the mid seventies and it had me confused about the humidity as you have said bueaties come from a humid part of the word so what did it? As you've said is there something else going on? There is...
Well I got a call back from the vet a little while ago and the fecal exaim test results are in. Lung worms!
Also known as nemotodes and properly called "Strongyloides"
Wonderful damn. The vet said the I just got it soon enough though and I have to medicate with "Panacur" and she me gave the recomended dose information. She said the lung worms will cause all the symtoms that we've seen with this snake.
You know I got this snake from a dealer in the classified here and he swore that this was a captive bred snake. Won't buy from him again. I intend to dose others in my collection too.
I can get liquid Panacur from horse supply stores, am I right? Agway? If not where?
I do appreciate what I've learned from this thread guys thank you!
Mike.

Lungworms, that explains a lot. BTW, most Blue Beauties out there actually are captive bred, so this particular dealer probably wasn't even lying to you. Problem with buying snakes from reptilestores is, that is if proper quarantine measures aren't met, you can bet the bank that diseases and parasites WILL be transfered from one animal to another, and tags like "captive born" or "wild caught" do not make that much of a difference.

Herman, yes I hope it does explain alot though I'd rather it not be worms. Better to know and treat than assume its something else and watch the snake perish.
Guess I've either been lucky or ignorant when it comes to parasites over the years as this is my first experiance with dosing with Panacur.
My vet gave me dose instructions for the oral suspension liquid form but as I've called around all I can find is paste. Now I'm playing phone tag with the vets office to get dosing info for the paste plus my vet is off today so I have to get it from another vet in that office I've never delt with before.
I'm told he'll call me back within an hour. :/
I've seen the paste sold online with a book on parasites that provides dosing info. I'm ordering it but that will take time to come. Anyone had experiance with the paste?
Thanks Jeff also for the tip. Did you cover the Hardware cloths edges?
Mike.
PS-I'd recommend that even if parasites arn't an issue now that you get the book so you'll have it at hand if this situation comes up. Like I am now, you won't want to wait for it.
( one place to find it is The Bean Farm ).

Unless the paste is for dogs and cats, DONT use it! Paste wormers are usually for horses and cows and are EXTREMELY difficult to dose correctly for little animals like snakes. I've seen many animals get VERY sick and even die from people doseing them with horse or cow paste thinking if a little is ok more is better!!!
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FireDrake Exotics
www.FireAndLilac.com

Ok but when I go to the reptile dealer sites like The Bean Farm and others the panacur product listed has a horse on the package???
I did end up picking up two doses worth of the oral suspension Panacur from the vet which I started the first of four treatments once every seven days.
Mike.

I do have the paste on order from The Bean Farm with a book on parasires that recomends dosing. I intend to do a precautionary dosing step by step through my collection and for anything new that I may pick up in the future. I've heard of other keepers that do this and the wisdom of this is becomming clear to me now.
Like you've said though I want to make sure not to over do it and lose the animal that way.
Mike.

Since you already talked with a vet....
"Panacur" is the brand name.
Fenbendazole is available as "Safe-Guard" also.
I find it readily and inexpensively at small "Feed and Seed" stores in the dog section in soluble powder packages.
Since it dissolves quickly in warm water, dosages can be measured with a syringe and injected into a dead pink, mouse, rat, or cricket.
If you try this route and are calculating dosage, read the package carefully and give consideration to how much Fenbendazole is really in a package; for example, a 5 gram package of the powder may only contain 1.1 grams of Fenbendazole.

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Regards, Bill McGighan

Bill I appreciate your getting your expertise in on this. I had actually shot some e-mails back and forth with you about E.fox snakes. Maybe I'll reach the top of the list when you have a clutch . Anyway I find myself leaning back on things I learned in school some 30 years ago as in metric measurement.
I'll be using the oral dosages that the vet provided now but I also ordered and recieved panacur (yes fenbedazole)and a book by Klingenberg that provides dosing info. Now the fun starts:/

The paste is 100mg/g and the book calls for 25-50mg/k.
So, if the snake in question is one kilo I would have to measure out 1/4-1/2 gram as the dosage.
(It is a tiny amount but there appears to be some leeway in the recomended dosage, 25-50)

What do you think Bill, do I understand it correctly?
Thats really not alot and if my memory serves me correctly we used to use a paperclip to equil one gram in chem lab.
Guess I'll have to get my hands on a rather delicate digital scale to measure a fraction of a gram.
Is there an easier way to measure it out that you know of?

Theres got to be right as paste is what most all of the reptile suppliers sell.

Also from talking to other herpers it would seem that they don't worry about accurately measuring but dose with a guesstamit dab of paste which seems rather reckless.
Do you use the powder or the paste?
Incidentally,to complicate things further, Klingenberg's book recomends dosing three consecutive days followed by a repeat in two weeks. My vet instructed me to dose once a week for four weeks.
I'm following my vets instructions but its confusing to say the least.
Thanks for your time on this, really, Mike.

This works for me and has for at least 10 yrs.I use rubbermaid tubs and cut out the center of the lid and replace it with hardware cloth(rat wire).The screen is secured with nylon zip ties you can buy in bulk from any hardware store or Walmart.I secure the top with four paws brand aquarium clips turned upside down. This is just my opinion and has worked for me for quite awhile!! Jeff