Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello everyone i just purchased a yellow anaconda bout 4 weeks ago its a she and shes bout 2 ft long i have some questions this is my first anaconda and i've always wanted one so yes i did my resarch before i went and bout one right now she is just a baby and i know she'll get big fast what i need is ideas for a cage like what materials i should use and how big etc. any help would be great i'll try to get a pic up asap. oh and i'm horrible with nameing pets any suggestions on a name?

Well, a 75 gallon would be large enough until she reaches 8 feet or so. Petco and Petsmart usually have them for about 160 bucks or somtimes small pet shops, aquarium stores and the newspaper have used for pretty cheap. As far as a lid goes, if it's a screen lid, you will need to staple a towel or some piece of cloth on top to keep in humidity. You can even soak the towel once in place and it will "rain" into the cage. Condas get pretty strong, so of course be sure to have a strong lock or means of securing the lid. I have been told that vita-lights are not essential to some snakes because they are nocturnal, but I guess I've kept lizards too long, so I still like to give mine lots of UVA and UVB. My green anaconda has an exo-terra 5.0 flourescent and two 100 watt round zoo-med bulbs that I alternate to regulate temp, which you will find can become challanging. The infra-reds are good for 24 hour heat, but the cage can become too hot in mid day if the house gets too hot and 110 degrees is pretty fun for any snake, for about an hour, but then it gets too hot for them (or mine anyways) I prefer zoo-med's analog dual temp and humidity gauge bacause I just didn't want a digital to break on me or get water in it when I spray the cage. For humidity retaining substrates, I have been told that cypress mulch is great, though I have found that it absolutely sucks. You have to make puddles in it just to get humidity to 60% and then it dries out in a few hours and back down to 20% (here in colorado anyways, don't know where you live) Anyways, it just gets too icky and moldy and smelly after a week of trying to work with it to keep humidity in. I use Exo-terra Jungle Earth. Just opening the bag and pouring it in the cage will usually raise humidity to 50%! It has big, soft chunks, not tiny saw dust granules like cypress. I also have a few handfulls of green moss in my cages, which you can get from reptile depot or LLLreptile for pretty cheap (a compressed square foot for like 10 bucks) this stuff gets really moist and retains humidity superbly. For a water dish, please do not go spend 30 bucks on designer "reptile water bowl" from the pet shop, just go buy the smallest cat litter dish you can find or a good sturdy plastic dog dish will do fine, as long as enough room to fully soak in. For a hide box, half-logs can be pretty cheap sometimes. Just look around, though with enough jungle earth, like 2-3 inches deep, your snake will just burrow in it for shelter. Condas don't usually climb, so you should give more floor space when you can. That's about it for the upkeep that I can recomend. As for names, I can only tell you that I prefer to give my animals BIG EPIC names. My green conda is Kundalini, after the spiraling chakra binding center energy channel in our bodies, my female retic is named Clovis, after the first of the Carolingian kings in europe, and my male retic is Merovech, the first frankish king who started the Merovingian Dynasty. Good luck with your new snake!