setting up fake plants in tanks

[jncoclub]

I want to put some plants (most likely fake) in my snakes’ tanks. Currently each tank has an arched wood hide-hole of some size, a large ceramic water bowl, one grapevine stick, and it’s all on eco-earth substrate.

I want to do it to give the snakes a more natural habitat, and to make the tanks look more appealing. How do you get them up the sides of tanks? I know you can loop them around the climbing sticks, but where else can they go? Any special kind of plants (real vs. alive) should be used?

Also, in the background of some peoples’ tanks you see desert pictures, or rainforest, or some sort of pic that covers the backside. Why? Is it for esthetic appeal? Or does it hold a purpose? Please let me know your thoughts on this- I want to spruce up their tanks.

[Lisa]

Many of our cages have plastic plants suction cupped to the back wall, using standard aquarium plants. We put the background on for 2 reasons, mainly for improving looks, the second to isolate them from other tanks when we have multiple tanks on one shelf.

[Linds]

In addition to what Lisa said, some backgrounds are also "insulating backdrops", they are built thicker with filler and foil, however IMHO they aren't effective in insulating a tank, since they are only placed on one of the 6 sides.

It all depends on the animal that you wil be housing whether or not you want to use live plants. Many live plants such as certain ferns, pink polka dot plants, etc are safe to use however very fragile and are easily flattened. Pothos are usually a good candidate, being a more strudy plant, and ficus trees are great if you have vertical space in your enclosures. Click <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Woods/4512/tplants.html">here</a> for a page on how to care for some of the more popular terrarium plants, and click <a href="http://www.bmts.com/~csz/MingsExoticZoo/Mingsnontoxicplants.html">here</a> for a list of non-toxic plants :)