View Full Version : My Mexican Black King Snake
stephanbakir
04-14-11, 07:10 PM
Welcome! Grats on your first snake!
natsamjosh
04-14-11, 08:28 PM
Congrats on the new (and first) snake. Great looking king snake. One of my desires is to have a collection of black snakes. I only have one right now (eastern indigo), but one day...
thank everyone, and im so stoked to have him, how do i make the pic show up in the post?
belovedboas
04-14-11, 10:17 PM
Welcome thats awsome I love kings!!! Had a few over the years I love snakes with a lil bit of attitude:)
Freebody
04-14-11, 10:29 PM
GRATS! he looks awsome :)
mistersprinkles
04-14-11, 10:35 PM
Looks very healthy. :)
Might want to list your setup if you haven't already with your size/type of enclosure, substrate, heating type, temperatures, humidity, etc etc, what you're feeding how often and so on.
belovedboas
04-14-11, 10:49 PM
Looks very healthy. :)
Might want to list your setup if you haven't already with your size/type of enclosure, substrate, heating type, temperatures, humidity, etc etc, what you're feeding how often and so on.
Agreed!!!:):)
ok im gonna do my best to describe his set up, i dont know all the technical names for the stuff yet, so if you arent sure what im talking about please tell me and i will try to explain what it looks like or take a pic of his tank.
its a 40 gal long fish/reptile tank. i have a day time lamp with a 100w uv bulb. 1 night time lamp with a 75w uv red bulb, i have 2 heating pad that are b oth on one side of the tank together. he has a big piece of driftwood tree lookin thing in there, so far thats his favorite thing to slide around on, i have a thin that has like stairs on each side with like a flat area on top, he has a pretty big water bowl looks lke a rock, a tree branch that is completely removed of its bark its pretty long and im using aspen bedding i think, its like a cream color. and ofc i have 4 cage clamps. i only bought him 2 days ago, i have not fed him yet. they pet store said they fed him every sunday. i was going to try to feed him this sunday for th first time, they said with his size all he can eat are pinkys usually only one, maybe 2. i also have abox they gave to feed him in a seperate tank then his regular tank. hope that helps guys
also i have two thermometers in his tank one on each side, i try to keep his tank around 82ish during the day, and at night around 72ish the care sheet i got said his day tim temps are 80-90 and night time are 70-80
mistersprinkles
04-14-11, 11:34 PM
He can definitely eat 2 pinkies.
Hate to break it to you but your snake can't use UV light to process food any more than you can. There are few snakes that use UV and yours isn't one of em. Once those bulbs conk out you can replace them with the ceramic heat emitter bulbs which last much longer. 95% of the snakes out there care very little about lighting conditions. If the snake can see well that's all that matters.
As far as the heating goes you need to make sure there are heated hiding spots as well. Depending on the setup you would usually need a heat pad for this under the tank.
Controlling the heat from the pad is a matter of using a certain thickness of substrate above it in the tank itself.
By 80-90 they mean the cold side is 80 and the warm side is 90. Reptiles can't regulate their body temperature so they need a gradient, equivalent to hiding under a rock or going out in the sun.
Light timers would be helpful. You can probably accomplish the right temp ranges by moving your heating lights around. May need to add another one. 2 light timers, 12 hours apart will set up your day/night temps without you having to touch anything.
Use digital thermometers with probes on a cable. They're $8 at an aquarium store. You can move the probe around and get temps for different exact places.
Damion930
04-15-11, 12:13 AM
Very nice lookin snake you got ther sounds like you have most of the basics id add some hides as mentioned anything it can coil up tight in. I keep my king at 90 on the hot and around 80 on the cool side kings are very forgiving so give or take in that range. I wouldn't worry to much about providing a nite time temp drop just make sure it dosent get to cold I just let the temp drop naturally. Also kings like to burrow so they like a nice deep substrate I've got like three inches plus aspen works well .
well to be honest you guys have me kind of worried i will work on a screen shot of his setup. please tell me what you think i should change if needed
Nice MBK. Looks about the same size as my guy Grendl (http://www.ssnakess.com/forums/lampropeltis/84905-grendl-10-mbk.html).
The UV bulbs are indeed unnecessary, though if you are using a UTH (under-tank heater) additional heating such as a ceramic heat emitter isn't really needed in my opinion. One heat source should do the trick and for snakes I prefer the belly heat provided by a UTH to a light heat source as I find they decrease humidity, which is especially troublesome to maintain in the dry climate I live in. Usually a rheostat or thermostat are required to regulate heating devices, though it sounds like your temperatures are stable.
A 40g is probably quite large for your little guy, though as long as you provide plenty of hiding spots and coverage I'm sure he'll feel secure enough. Mine borrows underneath his aspen as much as he used his hides.
Giving him some time to settle in is often recommended, though some keepers have success feeding as soon as their snake is brought home. You'll probably want to keep up a feeding schedule of approx. once a week, as he was previously. For his first feed, I would suggest thawing 1 pink (I'm assuming you're going to feed f/t - frozen thawed). If he takes it no problem than try 2 the next feed. When you're no longer seeing a lump, time to upgrade to small fuzzies.
As for how to link pictures into your posts you'll have to upload them onto a hosting site such as Photobucket, Flickr, or my favourite iHerp (because it easily allows you to resize and provides you the link). Copy the link into the box provided once you've clicked the Insert Image icon above. I look forward to more pics of Hydro :)
mistersprinkles
04-15-11, 04:44 PM
well to be honest you guys have me kind of worried i will work on a screen shot of his setup. please tell me what you think i should change if needed
You could go to aspen bedding as suggested and get a heating pad. You have to test after you get it to see how hot it's getting because you don't want to exceed that species' basking temperature.
Lankyrob
04-15-11, 05:30 PM
You could go to aspen bedding as suggested and get a heating pad. You have to test after you get it to see how hot it's getting because you don't want to exceed that species' basking temperature.
Or set it up with a thermostat controlling it to ensure the snake doesnt overheat.
mistersprinkles
04-15-11, 09:12 PM
Or set it up with a thermostat controlling it to ensure the snake doesnt overheat.
Much better and worth it but expensive(r).
infernalis
04-16-11, 12:33 AM
Now I see the confusion, black lights are UV, that is infrared.
infernalis
04-16-11, 01:16 AM
looks good to me.
I have Pueblan and eastern milk snakes, care is roughly the same, and I can say that you put a lot more thought into your set up than I have mine.
so what are the temps i should keep on the left side and the temps for right side, night n day....
infernalis
04-16-11, 01:32 AM
An ambient daytime temperature in the high 70s and a hot spot of about 90 degrees is ideal. Night time temperatures can fall as low as 70 to 75 degrees.
I maintain the whole room at 80-85 during the day and 70 at night....
I have too many snakes to try and heat just the cages.
The only animals that get extra heat are my tropical pets.
The colubrids (Garters, milks, racer & corn) have been doing fine with just room heat.
It feels like Florida after a rain storm in there, but in the end, it's loads cheaper for me to keep the room heated rather than running so many heat pads and lamps.
ok so i just took a look at his temp, its 517 am left side was at 82 and right was at like 76ish. looks like the red heat lamp is un neccessary. i check his day temp and usualy it runs like 86-90 hotside and 82-84 cool side
It looks like your probes are attached to the side of the tank? It's better to place the warm end probe below the substrate, directly above the heat pads. Then you'll get temperature in the warmest spot your snake can actually get to.
Feed Him For His First Time today. he ate a pinky, he did not hesitate to grab the food. not complications swallowing. also he was very calm after he ate, he was kind of skidish to get back in his regular tank though. i had to kinda assist him in getting back in
Grats on the successful meal. Mine doesn't like to be picked up from his feeding tub, so I either slowly tip it over and let him slither onto my hands or place the tub in his enclosure and let him come out whenever he's ready. Also, a couple days like Wayne suggested in your other thread is usually a good amount of time to let them digest before handling. If the pink only left a small lump, you can see if he'll take 2 next feed. Judging by the photo he'll probably be able to handle fuzzies pretty soon if not already.
mistersprinkles
04-16-11, 11:07 PM
oh by the way- use the aquarium trick on your background. Cut it roughly with scissors to match the back of the tank, tape it on. Now with it secured use a razor to precisely cut it to the size of the rear glass without the black tank trim.
Now clean the background and the tank itself and wipe them totally free of dust and then cover both with vegetable oil (just soak a paper towel then rub them down). Now just stick the background to the tank. It won't move. To remove the air bubbles use a ruler, then a credit card for smaller bubbles. It looks like the background is inside the glass. It doesn't come off for 10 years. The vegetable oil evaporates mostly but it leaves behind a slick that holds the background in place.
oh by the way- use the aquarium trick on your background. Cut it roughly with scissors to match the back of the tank, tape it on. Now with it secured use a razor to precisely cut it to the size of the rear glass without the black tank trim.
Now clean the background and the tank itself and wipe them totally free of dust and then cover both with vegetable oil (just soak a paper towel then rub them down). Now just stick the background to the tank. It won't move. To remove the air bubbles use a ruler, then a credit card for smaller bubbles. It looks like the background is inside the glass. It doesn't come off for 10 years. The vegetable oil evaporates mostly but it leaves behind a slick that holds the background in place.
is that safe with using heatlamps? wouldnt the oil cause a fire? and the backround isnt on yet cause i didnt buy tape yet lol
infernalis
04-17-11, 07:42 AM
I'd just tape it on..
To answer your question though, even the lightest oils require over 400 degrees before it would burst into flames without the aid of an ignition source, heavier oils need to be heated to nearly twice that to catch fire on their own.
Not even a pile of gunpowder could ignite at the temperatures we keep our reptiles at.
I'd just tape it on..
To answer your question though, even the lightest oils require over 400 degrees before it would burst into flames without the aid of an ignition source, heavier oils need to be heated to nearly twice that to catch fire on their own.
Not even a pile of gunpowder could ignite at the temperatures we keep our reptiles at.
oh ok i didnt know that, i appreciate that very much.
is this normal, besides me feeding him yesterday, he has been hiding in the same spot for almost the last three days.
mistersprinkles
04-17-11, 02:30 PM
He'll be in that spot next February too. You find the same snake under the same rock 6 months later in the wild. They're like that.
Lankyrob
04-17-11, 03:06 PM
Much better and worth it but expensive(r).
Our animals safety is always worth a few pounds (or dollars), i would have no heating device near any of my animals that wasn't thermostatically controlled.
infernalis
04-17-11, 03:37 PM
He'll be in that spot next February too. You find the same snake under the same rock 6 months later in the wild. They're like that.
I have a wild garter snake we affectionately call "Nubs" who shows up every year under the same board in my back yard every June for the last 3 years.
Nubs has a major chunk of her tail missing, makes it really easy to identify her.
Cannot prove or disprove, but there was a dozen babies under that board last summer very shortly after I saw her there gravid.
vBulletin® v3.8.7, Copyright ©2000-2025, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.