pictures of my semi-aquatic enclosure setup.

[syeph8]

I was asked recently by a friend of mine to put up some pics of this enclosure to give some idea of how a semi-aquatic enclosure could be set up.
This is a couple of pics of my old exo-terra enclosure now that the beardie has upgraded. I have forever wanted to have a semi-aquatic enclosure for my tree snakes and thought that the exo-terras would definitely be the way to go. enclosure is 45 x 45 x 60cm. water is heated to 27 degrees which is sustaining a nice ambient temp, 50W heat lamp is on through the day to provide a hotter area and decrease the humidity a bit. I currently have 2 sub-adult tree snakes in there. one blue/olive and one gold phase. the water is very murky as i have just put in some new gravel and no matter how much you wash it, it still messes up the water. In the water are 2 goldfish and 17 guppies who are very happy and also very readily available to the snakes. there is a small trickling waterfall in the enclosure to provide water flow and a small amount of oxygenation. All in all, the snakes seem to be happy in there up to this point (a few days) and I'm very happy with the outcome.







Pardon the quality of some of the photos and the format in which I inserted them into the post. I don't know how to add it to this website very well.

Sye

 

[varanid_mike]

Looks great mate, might need some more land/basking areas as tree snakes don't spend a huge amount of time in the water. Otherwise very nice.

 

[beney_boy]

awesome setup. are all the plants fake? im looking at getting some tree snakes soon and was thinking of something very similar to this enclosure.

 

[jordan-gibson]

do you have any kind of filtration in for the water? i am aslo into aquariums and know that with that many fish in that amount of water without proper filtration will mos likely kill the fish, and will foal the water and i doubt it would be very good for your snakes, so if i was you i would look into doing a bit of research on aquariums and aslo yes it would be better for the snakes to also have some more branches in there

 

[syeph8]

Plants are all fake.
The pump I'm using for the water fall was used in conjunction with a filter and I am currently in the process of swapping them around. done some research into goldies and guppies and the husbandry there is all good. The cloudy water is a gravel issue, and slightly a tannin issue, not a filter issue and will subside shortly.
I do have a vine that goes in there above the water, but I took it out for photo purposes as it gets in the way and makes it look very crowded. was thinking of doing a thicker diagonal branch from the dry part into the front corner over the top of the water to give them more hunting areas as an alternative to vines. they are supported well on the leaves of the fake plant also, as you can see in the pics.
Both of these snakes have also spent a surprising amount of time in the water since going in. I will try to take a photo if time permits.

 

[jordan-gibson]

good to hear you have done your research and are looking after both the snakes and fish well, both your snake look awesome by the way, and great looking enclosure

 

[syeph8]

Ta, the blue phase (Roxy) was sourced from the good people at Amazing Amazon here in Glen Waverley and the gold phase (Ben) is a wild caught from up north. The enclosure is just an evolution of an idea given to me by NicG on this site, whom first introduced me to the semi-aquatic enclosure.

 

[snakeluvver]

That's an amazing enclosure! Hopefully when my snake outgrows his exo terra enclosure I can use it for something semi aquatic. My mum won't allow snakes so maybe frogs?
How did you make the land bit?

 

[syeph8]

That's an amazing enclosure! Hopefully when my snake outgrows his exo terra enclosure I can use it for something semi aquatic. My mum won't allow snakes so maybe frogs?
How did you make the land bit?

land bit is a piece of driftwood cutting across the corner to create a sort of dam (not waterproof or anything) and filling behind it with gravel. the piece of wood keeps the gravel packed into the corner and not spread all over the tank.
in my opinion, having a semi-aquatic enclosure should look awesome. but the hard part is hiding the electronics. it took me weeks of searching to find the right bits of driftwood to use for my dry land and to hide my water heater and pump. It was a real pain in the bum, but now it's finished it was so worth it.
Frogs are good, I also know someone who gets away with a semi-aquatic for their angle headed dragons.

So this morning/early afternoon (I'm allowed to sleep in my my days off) I went downstairs to see if i could take some photos of the tree snakes swimming. Both were in the water and I thought "great photo opportunity" but alas, Ben was too shy and disappeared into the vines before the camera even turned on. Roxy put on a real show though and in hindsight would have made a better video than photo's as she was swimming around with her mouth open and snapping into the water and having a real good hunt. This meant most of my photos were taken from awkward (is that how you spell awkward... it just looks wrong to me today for some reason) angles and most of them were blurry. Also thought I would throw in pics of my other swimming snakes who I am thinking of doing a nice water-heavy enclosure for in the future.



My apologies for the aforementioned poor quality of these photos. here is the last one of my water pythons enclosure with both of them chilling in the water. they seem to have a great time in their water tank and there is always one of them in there. the tank is sitting on top of a glass panel with a heat mat under it. the back left quarter of the tank is heated this way, as well as having the heat from the radiator above.



enjoy