My Mexican Black King Snake

chydro · 04-14-11, 05:14 PM

Meet Hydro

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...

chydro · 04-14-11, 08:34 PM

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by mistersprinkles

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!!!

chydro · 04-14-11, 11:01 PM

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 .

chydro · 04-15-11, 01:57 AM

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

Marica · 04-15-11, 01:48 PM

Nice MBK. Looks about the same size as my guy Grendl.

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by chydro

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by mistersprinkles

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.