Empty Tank Syndrome...

[Shanna66]

OM FREAKING G
i talked to the fiance today and he said yes to a boa! i told him the biggest size and he said that as long as i kept it friendly and well fed then i can get one! he also liked the idea of it being in the living room/creative room. ill be filling the room with all my art stuff and book shelves so it will be called the creative room  

[Foofy_Miru]

Yaaaaay! Congrats! Boas are so great... You'll have such fun with it! =D

So, have you decided what kind/sex you're going to get?  

[Shanna66]

im rally leaning towards hog island boas. ive been told the island RTBs are a bit more nippy as babies but they get over it easily enough. im also leaning towards a male but if i see a female i fall in love with.... well you know how it goes lol. sometimes you just cant say no to a cute little face

though i think i would also be just as fine with a male of the common ones.

and there are some really crappy caresheets out there. i mean i saw loads of bad info for leopard geckos on the internet but there are some caresheets that recomend you hardly feed your snake just so it can stay baby sized and cute gonk some sites also recomend power feeding. in general i know what to look out for with bad caresheets but its things like temps and humidity that are making me wonder whats what.

do they need a basking spot in addition to a wartm side of the tank or would a warm side be enough?

some sites say the highest temps should be 80F and some say 100F

and humidity im seeing all sorts of things, they may as well be telling me the humidity should be ducks. ive heard everything from 20-90%  

[Foofy_Miru]

I looove Hoggs. I think I've said that already, though. =3 Yeah, I've heard of the babies being hissy. They're (usually) all bark and no bite, though. My little boy ('08 Hogg Isle x Colombian cross) is usually pretty nice, but he's hissed at me (and my little cousins, the only two times they've been over) a few times. He's never genuinely offered to bite, though, and I discovered today (his latest hissy fit) that I can still pick him up when he's like that, and he'll calm right down. Like I told my cousins today--all bark and no bite. =)

Blah, no kidding. The basking spot discrepancy can get confusing... But I think I've gotten it figured out. "Basking spot" is code for "warm spot"--in other words, the temp controlled heat pad. "Warm side" encompasses the ambient air temperatures on the warm end of the enclosure. I don't really bother worrying too much about keeping the warm side temperatures up.. I just make sure the enclosure isn't too cool, and keep the warm ("basking") spot nice and cozy. This might be different if you decide to indulge your boa's semi-arboreal tendencies (which, from what I've heard, is even stronger in Hoggs), but that's on you to choose what with, and even more reason to use a specially made reptile enclosure.. Radiant heat panels will heat the air of an enclosure without drying it out, but you can't exactly mount it on the screen top of an aquarium. (Not to mention all the heat would go right out through the screen.)

I've heard from reliable sources that the warm spot for a classic Colombian BCI should be ~90*F, maybe 92. Who in the world thinks 100 is ideal? Seriously. Slightly cooler temps than that might be okay, though... Maybe my girl is a weirdo, but she seems to prefer somewhat cooler temps (and she's 100% Colombian).

When I got Jekyll (the Hogg x Col), I researched Hogg care, specifically, just in case his heritage would impact his care requirements. What little I could find (mostly on redtailboa.net) suggested that Hogg Isles like somewhat cooler temps... More along the lines of mid- to upper-80s. That's what I keep Jekyll's warm hide at... He seems to do a little better at the upper end of that (otherwise, he'll stay almost constantly in his dark phase), but that may just be his Colombian heritage.. He can handle cool temps much better than Osiris. Really, aim for upper 80s and lower 90s... Or get more "specialized" and "professional" advice from serious boa keepers. I think I directed you to Vin Russo's site already? He'd be a good one to ask about requirements, as well as a good guy to get your boa from.

BCIs like moderate to high humidity. I consider 50% a bare minimum, and 60-70% ideal.. With extra misting during sheds. I could be wrong, though. I haven't been measuring my humidity, either. Jekyll is doing GREAT in his tub, and Osiris only has good sheds if I keep up on misting and/or supply a moist hide when she's in shed. She's currently being heated with a CHE, though, which has a lot to do with that dryness.

You can limit food intake to keep your boa small. I'm not sure I would ever recommend it (a person shouldn't have a snake whose potential adult size they aren't ready for), but it can happen. Osiris was technically underfed her first two years, which is why she's only a little under 4 ft instead of 6-8 ft right now. Moderate prey items every two weeks or so is how her previous owner did it... And by moderate, I mean feeding her rats 1/3 to 1/2 the size of what she was ready for. She was only 2.5 or 3 ft-ish when I first got her because of this regime, where most Colombians would have been 6+ ft at that age on a more "normal" schedule... Colombians grow fast and generally reach adult size within their first two or three years.  

[Shanna66]

how often should i feed one as a baby and as an adult? ive heard once a month but some people also say once a week like most other snakes

gotta love all the bad info on the internet XP  

[Foofy_Miru]

For adults, go by your individual snake. I'm sticking to 2-3 weeks for Osiris, and will probably go to that when Jekyll hits adulthood. For now, he's at every 7-14 days, and I could still feed him more without hurting him... I'll have to go track down my boa manual. There was a good guideline to go by in there for boas... I think it was every 7 days for babies and juveniles, then move up to every 10-14 days as they pass the first birthday, and work up to every few weeks as an adult. Or something like that.  

[Sarahmooo]

Awesome!
Congrats =D

 

[BubbleE1]

Hello i'm Bubbles and i'm a fish lover. i too have ETS...
i just got a new 29 gallon tank to put my community in and i'm wondering what to do with my 3 gallon...
i have a betta that i'll be putting in it i suppose but i kinda want some catfish too because the 2 i had, died about a month ago and i feel like my betta misses them....
and i wonder what kinds of new fish i should put in my 29 gallon. i was thinking angelfish but i want to breed my guppies so the angelfish will eat the fry :<
but i think i have to seperate them because so will the mom and dad. either that or get gravel shrubbery for them to hide in =w=
or maybe i should save it and put some of my babies in it...
angelfishies are so cute though...but so are baby guppies biggrin  

[BubbleE1]

i used to have a leopard gecko, iguana, and a boa. (:
but i was too young to care for my boa and iguana. they were family pets and my parents took care of them.
then we gave away my iguana and the boa died..
:<
and my leopard gecko passed away from age. :<  

[Foofy_Miru]

Iggies are such a handful. I'm tempted to get one someday when my life and living situation are stable... Only I'd rather have a Savannah monitor if I was going to get a massive lizard. Savvies are so cute!! =)

Lol! My mom got mad at me when I told her I wanted to get a betta the other day. The local department store is selling their used 10 gallon aquariums, complete with heater and hood, for $10 each because they're shutting down all the aquariums and cricket tanks. My mom got mad at me when I asked if we could get one of them. She says I have too much going on with the reptiles to start a fish tank... Heh. Oh well. I might get one, clean it up, and stick it in the garage or something to wait until I DO have time if they still have one or two next time we're down there. =P

It's a shame most of my tanks don't hold water, though, because I REALLY DO want to try a smallish fish tank and I've got more than a dozen aquariums ranging from 10 to 29 gallons that are newly empty since all the snakie-poos got spiffy new tubs to live in.

Bubbles, I vote for the shrubbery! One of my half-baked "dreams" is to have a nice, planted 20 or 29 gallon full of guppies or white cloud mountain minnows that breed to their heart's content with no intervention or fry/parent separation from me... Of course, I reaaally want some garter and water snakes, and I wouldn't be surprised if I had a rescue turtle or three before 2010 was over, so such a fish tank would kind of be dual purpose. xD  

[Shanna66]

a betta in a 10gal would hardly be any work at all. bettas hardly make any waste and would be so happy in a 10gal. right now ive got an unusual case where im keepign a male and female in a 20gal community tank. its been months and still no fighting, not recomended of course, i think i just have a very docile boy, the worst thing he has done was n** at a gourami who tried to take over his favorite sleeping spot  

[Foofy_Miru]

Yeah. I can see where she's coming from, though. We're in the middle of dealing with a major health crisis with the snakes, and the tortoise is still a way's to go from healthy, so putting off another new pet is probably a better idea. =P  

[PythonHandler]

I suffer greatly!! Though it's tubs, not aquariums... But the symptoms are the same.
But I know a cure!! Whenever I suffer from ETS I save up my money and get some balls...(pythons)
Seems to cure it until the next flare up! sweatdrop 3nodding