Reptile & Amphibian Forums

OK, I'm looking at putting in a waterfall like feature into an enclosure I'm currently designing, basically running from the back of the enclosure, through a "stream/river" and into a collection lake. Now, here's the true question. It's going to be for a rainbow boa or some other humidty loving snake, now, do I need to be concerned with the depth of the stream and or the collection lake?? Don't want the poor thing to end up drowning in something I made. My ball pythons only a fan of a water depth he can touch the bottom of the bowl/dish with. Thoughts comments and or opinions welcome, no worries about hurting my feelings like some others on this message board. I promise not to get all butt hurt!! lol

The biggest concern with a waterfall/stream/collection pool for a snake is that they tend to produce infrequent but large amounts of deficate. If this happens in the pool and you don't find it right away that can mean you have a strong solution of snake poop being recirculated through your system. Not easy to clean.

I'm not sure what to recommend. I don't mean to suggest don't do it, but you should keep this in mind.

But otherwise, you do not need to concern yourself with the depth of the pool. I have seen Rainbow boas kept in cages with very large pools and they were fine.

Thanks for responding ...... The maintainance issue was going to be taken care of by making the system modular for ease of cleaning purposes, along with that I'm incorporating a 100 gallon fresh water filter system that I had left over from a old fish setup I once had. I've thought about putting several all plastic or at the very least plastic coated screens along the path of the water and in the collection pool to make spot cleaning easier and not to prevent a large cycle of pooh going round and round. Something that I heard aquatic turtle owners using is a product that breaks down the pooh making it easier to filter and keep the water clean. Any one else heard of this?? I would assume that it's animal friendly otherwise they wouldn't use it right??