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You've gotta work with what you've got,lol. My snake room is/was a 3rd bedroom in my house. Very small, only 9x8 feet. What made it easy for me was not keeping a billion different species which required many different habitat set-ups which lead to very difficult environment requirements in a very small space. Over the years, I finally narrowed down my choices to southwest herps and etbs. The ballpark all around temps for a lot of these is anywhere between 78-82F. I don't use heat lamps since they tend to heat the room more than just the cages themselves, for those that need a spot a little warmer, I use the flex-watt tape. Overhead lighting is provided by fluorescent lights that are made to fit underneath multiple shelving. I live in New England so even summer night temps get too low for the etb's so I have a small oscillating space heater(with thermostat) that keeps the room a few degrees warmer than the rest of the house. To keep the oil heat(for the house) and the space heater from drying out the room, I do nothing since the southwest herps don't mind humidity levels around 25%. So that's where the plastic wrap comes in for the etbs. I had to experiment a little with each enclosure as the placement of the enclosures in the room varied with humidity...also having to keep in mind that while I wanted high humidity, I wanted good airflow so there's a method to how the wrap is placed on the screen doors with openings at the bottom and the top. I use cypress mulch for substrate and it holds moisture very well along with an 8" diameter 2" deep water bowl for each enclosure. There is also a smaller, plastic bird feeder cup of water located higher up in the cage for drinking use too. To keep humidity up, I may have to only spray once a week, but I allow each cage to drop to around 50% before I get concerned. Most of the time, humidities are anywhere bewteen 60-95% and I try to not keep them at the higher end for longer than a day and that is usually right after a spraying. Each cage is equipped with a thermo-humidity gauge that I got from LaCrosse Industries and they are placed on the walls of the tanks using adhesive velcro strips. I get accurate readings every 45 secs. with these and feel very confident using them. If I hadn't had a boat load of aquariums sitting around, I would've used WalMart plastic containers for these guys while they were little. But placing them in huge tanks from the start gives them the advantage, IMHO, of being able to crawl around more, thus facilitating defecation more often. The tanks are decorated with lots of silk plants for cover and the etbs do have their fave spots to hang out when they are resting. Having 10 of them is great because each one has a slightly different personality, ie. some are aggressive feeders(gotta watch that!), some need just a little coaxing, others want to just be nosy, it's fun watching them slowly grow up. Over the years I've kept a lot of herps, have enjoyed them all, but this etb thing is going to be a great adventure for many, many, years to come and I'm excited over what the future holds.
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