Reptile & Amphibian Forums

if I'm making a naturalistic desert vivarium for a milksnake? I have a 40 gallon breeder tank, 36" by 16" by 18", that I was hoping to use. Lots of rockscaping, a few live plants, some drift wood, large water dish, etc..
I think a Sinaloan would look very nice on a bed of bright white calcium based sand.
I'll avoid it if there are impaction issues as with lizards and terrestrial geckos.
I want to make as nice, yet safe and functional, a display for this snake as possible.
Thanks.
Sean

I wouldn't use sand with a sinaloan. I prefer to use aspen or newspaper as substrate for milksnakes.
-----
Randy Whittington

I thought I would add that although expensive, cypress mulch is a good natural looking substrate if you want to go more natural looking. It's great for maintaining humidity levels but it often comes very damp so you might want to let some that you are putting in the enclosure dry out some first.
-----
Randy Whittington

I have a milksnake hybrid and I tend to agree with the experts on this. Though I do have calcium sand and haven't had any impaction problems, I tend to avoid getting the sand on the food item and/or feed separately. The spot cleaning aspect of it is great though, it acts like cat litter. I'm looking to change the substrate soon too, as I find it really dries him out (I live in a very dry climate as well). The sand also leaves a fine dust on him, dulling his scales, and a gray banded king I had on purple sand for a while turned purple! It's pretty gross stuff, I wouldn't recommend it, but I'm troubled as to find a more attractive, sand-like substitute. Maybe ground up walnut shells? I haven't heard anything about them on this forum yet though.