So about four months ago is when I built the Kenyan sand boa newest varium-vivarium
she went from a small ten gallon with like a couple fake plants in a water bowl and
The heating that she needed
And I put her into a twenty gallon with all natural plants all natural-all live plants
Not fake plants along with some other unique things that she probably doesn't care about but it makes it more interesting for us
Uh like the excavator clay background. I'm sure she actually prefers the two types of substrate that way
I've been there and just some different things like that Now, I've only done two of these fancier enclosures so far
I thought I was going to already have a third one done
But got delayed a little but until then I already updated you on my ball python vivarium in its own video
It was like six months after something asked you how it's looking and how I'm keeping it up so now
I thought I would do the same with the Kenyan Sand boa vivarium with how it's holding up four months later
So I came up with the just general idea to do this video last night and usually what I do before I record a video
On a certain enclosure is I'll touch it up and make sure everything looks nice
And it's all in place so that it's nice and presentable for the video
But I thought I wouldn't touch it
I would just leave it as is so I can show you exactly how it looks after
Like a week of no touching up like usual cleaning and water bowl filling and stuff
But no actual like aesthetic changes or whatever you can kind of see over the past few weeks
The walls had had a couple issues the wall of reptiles just little things like the light for smokey the ball python right there
That I thought the bulb stopped working, but it turns out
I think the lamp stopped working so I took that off for now. Gobi
Not only did it his light stopped working, but his hide snapped. Shadow
Down there her bulb also blew and then there's just a couple of things kind of thrown around so the wall is having its struggles
Right now and the sand boa enclosure is not helping because I haven't touched it up so here's a look at that
Now keep in mind. I didn't just throw the plants in here
Occasionally because I water the plants outside in the enclosure
I do sometimes get lazy and just like toss them in but this time I did very carefully situate them in place
About a week ago
I think but Ember, the Kenyan sand boa in there, she digs around right under the substrate and pulls all the plants up so as she's
trucking around the enclosure
Just every plant is like popping up and falling over because these are air plants
And they don't have any roots to hold him in a place even if they did have roots
She'd probably do the same. You'll also notice there's a very big gap right in the back
That is not the excavator plate failing on me
I was a little scared because I hadn't used it before as to how it would hold up
but that's a spot that we left empty just because I ran out and that's where I put the
Spanish moss, I forgot what it's called some kind of other plant which is still actually doing quite well
But I said I wouldn't touch the enclosure
So I left it where it was I was just spraying that Spanish moss a couple days ago
And I just hadn't put a back in yet, so that's just drying but it's dry now
Also you're gonna see the water bowl is essentially empty
This is not because I like neglected her
But it's because this enclosure is so dry with such low humidity that it dries out within 24 hours
So I have to fill it basically every morning or every night
And it's not a huge bowl so it dries up very easily
I might just get her a bigger one because she is large enough to where
Like she'd be fine with a bigger bowl. You can also see that
There's the sand and the Aspen
Which were separated when we made this if you didn't know this is just how I did it because I wanted to give her multiple
Textures and options and just to get it to look nicer, but at the same time
I definitely not be comfortable with the entire thing being sand I would also never want to feed her directly on sand or
Really anywhere near sand so that's why the- the far Aspen area is a perfect feeding place
So I don't have to take her out
But and there's no chance of impaction or whatever. However these occasionally mix. Now one time I think maybe a month ago
I actually took all the substrate out
I took all the Aspen out threw it away replaced it with him before I put the new Aspen in I vacuumed the entire
Aspen side and it actually picked up quite a bit of sand no
I don't think I actually have two shots of this, but whenever Ember comes out of the sand
There'll be this long trail of sand on her back
It looks like it's just like a stripe supposed to be there
But she moved so carefully that when she gets over to the aspen side
And then she borrows in that, that long trail of sand that was down her back
Just come like mixes in with the aspen, so that's kind of an issue because I don't want any mixing
There's also the reptisun, the LED UVB, on there. That's still working perfectly fine. I kind of dropped it
So it has a very small crack in it, but it's not a big deal
It's just a crack in the Plexiglass. You can't even see it or notice it really so just don't drop your
Panel but it's pretty sturdy for that to be the only damage and then the probes
I've just started moving their probes from my thermostats from the inside of the enclosures to beneath the enclosures
lots of people ask like why don't you just put the probe between the heat mat and the enclosure that makes a
Lot more sense because then the animal can't reach the wire
the issue is a lot of- I'm using a lot of zoomed heat mats and some of them are stuck to the bottom of the
enclosure and the top and bottom of the heat mat are different temperatures, but like you can just set the
Thermostat higher or lower to compensate for that
I don't know I didn't think about that, but yeah, so I'm just resituating a couple things like that so there we go
That's a look at that next thing
I'm gonna do is actually do my little neating up a bit
So you can actually see how it looks and basically how good it can look compared to how it originally looked
So before I do that would I make an enclosure like this again
Yes, but there's a couple things that I would do differently I definitely use excavator clay again
I definitely use more of the panels. I would definitely use certain plants like I do really like the Spanish moss and that bigger
Xerographica (Subslave: I looked it up) I think it's called. If my memory's right today
However certain things like trying to do a sand and Aspen keeping them entirely separated is nearly impossible
And I just have to move all the Aspen
and then push the sand back over and
Replace the Aspen every so often and then the air plants are just the biggest pain if there were just a couple it wouldn't be
A big deal, but right now. I have to take all the air plants out and water them
If this was a tropical setup
I could either spray the air plants in the enclosure or they just wouldn't dry out as quickly
But because this is a desert like setup, so it's very dry
Air plants have more trouble retaining any moisture so air plants kind of a pain sand kind of a pain
But everything else is going well with it so now. I'll go ahead and straighten it out
