Ok, sweet! Can’t wait 
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Well Im gonna ask here. Whats the best way to heat these pvc enclosures? I want to stack them, so Im guessing interior lights? I’ve always used aspen for my snakes. Is coconut husk better?
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Most people will likely recommend radiant heat panels for pvc enclosures. Either mounted on one side, or the ceiling of one side to give a gradient.
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Is there a size preference for enclosure size? Anyone make a chart of this stuff?
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Personally, because of where I live, I use 22 inch heat tape from reptile basics. And because I stack my enclosures, I use the VE 300x2 thermostats. You can order LED interior strips on the ones from animal Plastics. They’re a little overpriced, but they’re nice. I personally would recommend the use of Reptichip coconut husk substrate.
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Not really, it kinda of depends on the users preference. And if the animal is a breeder versus just a personal pet.
Also, larger boas don’t really use their hides, so at least for me, I go from multiple hides when they’re younger, and then down two for subadult, and I am possibly considering going hideless with my adults.
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Radiant heat is my go to in all enclosures, regarding what size to use, you’ll get different answers, but the overall info you’ll find will be, depending on room ambient, enclosure height, length and species you’ll need to figure that stuff out to get an idea what to go with.
I have VE panels as well as pro products panels.
I have ve40 panels in animal plastics T8s, Neodesha 4’ pro cage, 4’ self built, vision 332
I have pro heat 70 watt panels in vision 400s, a ve 120 in a vision 432 and pro heat 125 watt in vision 632s. I need to order a pro heat 100 watt for the vision 600, but not rushing to get it.
This is all kept in a finished basement room that averages 72 during the summer and 68 in winter.
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Room temperatures are super important to know about. The lowest my room temperature ever goes is 75 in the winter and 79-80 in the summer. Also your ambient humidity of your room also matters mind never goes below 45-50%.
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I personally don’t recommend not providing hides. Every one of my Boas use hides. At any given moment I can go check on them and find 10 Boas in hides, including the adults.
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I personally like the look of hides and like that it gives them the option to use them, so I’m really highly leaning to keeping them anyway. Always room to grow.
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Thanks for all of this great information and discussion guys. I’m leanring a lot. Kinda tired of the glass enclosures on shelves and only getting a few at a time on a set of shelves. I’m looking forward to nice clean stacks of white pvc enclosures and only my tarantulas on shelves lol.
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I know the feeling! I am going to be ordering 3 T8s in the coming months for Slim Shady, Mr. Sorbet, and Leaky.
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I have an adult female in a t8. While the floor space is more than sufficient, I feel like it’s all the drawbacks of a rack system with none of the positives. The lack of height is a huge drawback in an enclosure that only opens in the front. When it’s financially feasible I’ll be moving her into a 4x2x2
Feeding is frustrating cause you can’t really get the prey item in there without them hitting the top of the enclosure or worse, hitting the tongs cause of the angle you have to hold them. So I basically have to hold the prey outside the opening, allowing her to strike and coil halfway out of the enclosure then try to muscle her back in so I can close the door.
Also, getting her out is tough because the opening is so small and she wants to defend her space. You don’t have any room to maneuver.
I have an adult male in a 4x2x15” and just the extra 3” of height makes a big difference. Not perfect, but manageable
Long term all my adults will either be in a rack or if an enclosure it will be an enclosure with at least 2’ of height.
I would also probably keep an 80w panel but put a basking ledge underneath. At 4ft my thermal gradient would be near nonexistent with a 120w
I do have a large bp female in a t8 though and it’s great
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I definitely agree with you that the 1 foot height can make maneuvering in the cage a little bit more difficult. I also have a T10 and that houses my soon to be six year old male. Trust me, I have seriously considered buying T10s for all my female breeders and keeping my all of my males in T8s. Right now for me the height isn’t that big of a deal because I only currently own five boas but maybe as I get more this height difference will become more of a burden and I will decide to go with the 15 high T10. But definitely some good points on disadvantages of the height
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Kaluha, my large momma boa, is too big for her XL hide but she still sits under it a lot. She and my BRB had 2 hides for a long time but each of them pretty much only use 1 hide.
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Is there any real evidence that this is true? I would not consider this to be the case with any of the python or colubrid species I have most experience with.
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Yes, when you talk to breeders, girls that are kept really really healthy and bred every other year will live up to 16, with rare exceptions. But if they’re kept as pets they can live over 20 years. I don’t know, that’s just what I’ve heard from breeders that I’ve communicated with over the years. Basically, the assumption is that giving live birth and carrying the babies full-term is higher stress on the females body than actually producing a clutch of eggs.
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I normally build my own enclosures but the price of those t8s are really hard to overlook. Specially with the $15 off multiple sale right now. The shipping has kept me from finalizing the purchase, not knocking AP but on 10 units it really adds up.
I built my ‘19 females 48x30x18" enclosures. They are around 5-6’ at this point and seem very content in there. If they get much larger I really think they’d appreciate a 60-72" long enclosure.
One thing I’ll say when deciding on dimensions - I almost went 48x30x12" to stack more. I’m very glad I didn’t. The back corners would have been very difficult to clean at that height and I think it would be hard to heat correctly as well but that part just a guess. Something I’ve decided going forward all enclosures will have a minimum 2/1 ratio for width(front to back)/height. Example: 24/12"; 30/15"; 36/18" ect for maintenance purposes.
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I have a T8 and T12. T8 is setup and have one of my BPs in there testing it out. He is over 800g just under 2yrs old. There is lots of space for him to stretch out. I had one of my females in there when it was empty thats almost 3yrs old and over 1600g and it was spacious for her as well. I plan on getting more of the T8s for the rest of my collection. The T12 will be for my carpet python.
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So the top two pics are the T8 I have setup. My BP approves as he ate on the second night in there. I have a large 3ft + cork bark that he can use to move from hot side to the cool side without exposing himself. The cork was a little bit of a pain to get in there but i like the way it looks. Pretty sure it will be a pain to get him out when i need to.
Next is the T12 I am still setting up for the carpet python. Took a minute to get the branches in there. Still trying to figure out what to put under the sky hide and the center back wall as those are sorta bare. Might put a slate shelf. Just have to grab some large pieces from the pond store and mount them. The pile of fake plants will be a work in progress. Plan on making it bioactive with pothos and vines.
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