Newcomer Looking For Advice

[bigsnakegirl785]

Originally Posted by Ambaryerno

Heh, never said I was one to take the easy way out. ;-)

Where do you see being the main bottleneck? Water depth or surface area? Was thinking I could squeeze in more water by making a custom tank where the part containing the water feature would actually be deeper than the floor of the rest of the tank.

Maybe use a sheet of clear acrylic in front, with another material for the sides, back, and bottom. I'd kinda have to draw what I'm thinking, tho.

You have to make sure you have adequate total volume, it's not just depth or surface area. Not enough water, and the fish will cause the ammonia level to rise to dangerous levels. A filter and conditioners can only do so much.

If you make the fish's tank below the snake's tank, make sure that it's easy for the snake to get in and out of, and not too tiring to navigate. I'm not sure how deep garters are willing to dive, so if the fish are the snake's only source of food, if you make it too deep they may not be able to catch enough fish (assuming they don't dive more than a few inches to a foot). Vary the diet and that should fix that problem, if they will dive all the way to the bottom then it doesn't matter so much. I would still vary the diet, though, variety for these guys are best.

The snake drowning is the main worry I see here, since you'll have to make the pool area much taller than it is wide to provide the breeding fish adequate water volume without taking up too much of the snake's floor space.

A couple fish in the water just long enough to eat won't pose these problems, but you sure do have your work cut out for you trying to actually breed them inside the snake's enclosure. lol