Monty and the Road to Being Bioactive

Well, it's been a while, and a lot has changed! As some may know, I love snakes and in recent years I've really wanted to have one, but I never got one because of certain limitations. After doing my internship in 2020, I got to work with snakes and that made my desire to have one even stronger. Of course, I looked into it quite a bit to determine how I can have one. I looked at how much it would cost me to feed it, maintain the proper habitat conditions, and just buy a snake in general. It turns out, it's not cheap at all, especially since I didn't have a suitable terrarium for any snake, or more like I didn't even have a terrarium in general. Anyways, to make the backstory quick, I didn't end up getting a snake during 2020.

Skipping forward a couple of months I ended up going to Ontario in the summer for various reasons, and in July, my friend ended up asking me if I wanted her spider ball python (spider meaning he has the spider gene, unfortunately making him retarded) along with all of the accessories for free. There's no way I can pass on this sort of opportunity, especially since it was free, and I ended up saying yes right away. But I didn't realize all the obstacles that would be in my way. After saying yes, I realized that I need to talk to my landlords to make sure that it's ok for me to have him. In the end, I did manage to convince them to let me have him, although It did take some time as they were really not into the idea of having a snake in the apartment building! But you know what they say, if you want something enough, you'll get it... That's definitely not what they say but pretend it is!! Anyways, after convincing them, I let my friend know that I can have him and we set up a day to transfer his terrarium to the apartment I was living in at the time.

As you can see, it isn't that bad of a setup but it didn't satisfy me at all. Originally, the enclosure did not have any thermometers or hygrometers to measure the humidity and temperature, so I bought two of them and added them to the hot and cold sides of the terrarium. I also got two different branches and added them for verticality as ball pythons like to climb despite what the internet says. Furthermore, I also bought an infrared heat bulb and a deep dish dome in order to provide better temperature profiles since my friend was only providing an under-tank heat pad that turned off after 2h (it was horrible).

After a bit of time, I ended up removing one of the branches because it just didn't work out properly, and in doing so, Monty ended up using the remaining branch way more often. But this still wasn't satisfying as there was just too much exposure for him and I wanted to make sure he felt safe. What's worse was that he only had one hide on the hot side, which is terrible, so I bought another one!! After seeing the care he was in before I had him, I needed to make sure he had an amazing setup that he was happy with. Because of this unsatisfying setup, I ended up doing some more research into what I could do, and that's when I stumbled across a bioactive setup.

After doing a bunch of research, I realized that this bioactive setup thing would be much more difficult to pull off than I thought. I needed soo many different things, and it was actually overwhelming. I had several panic attacks and sometimes I felt quite lost because I thought things weren't going to go well, or that I wasn't giving proper care. I second-guessed myself a lot, only adding to the problem. But I had support along the way, and that helped a lot as it cleared my mind and pushed me forward while also reassuring me that my current care is as good as it will be for now, until the bioactive setup is finished in which case it'll be even better.

To put time into perspective, I did research on bioactive setups for about 2 months before finally starting to acquire the required items, so I started in August and only began getting most of the goods in October. To begin, I ended up ordering 60 quarts of bioactive soil from Josh's Frogs, since that's what they used for their substrate, and it had pretty good reviews although it was absurdly expensive (around 200 Canadian). Once I have to change it again, I'll be making my own mix instead as it will be way cheaper. Aside from the soil, I needed to get another terrarium, at least a 40 gallon, to build everything in it. This was quite problematic since I wasn't able to find any used terrariums big enough, and I definitely didn't want to buy a new one as they're quite expensive and I didn't want to spend more than I needed to. But to my luck, an approximately 90 gallon (way bigger than what I was actually aiming for) presented itself to me for free. Why do you ask? Because it was broken, dirty, missing both sliding doors on the front, and being thrown out. So, why not make use of the perfectly fine terrarium by cleaning it and fixing it up?

I started cleaning the terrarium on October 10th and it probably took an hour. To clean it I used a diluted soap/bleach solution and a scrub brush. It was super dirty, but it was very satisfying once it was completely done. Unfortunately, the terrarium was too big to fit in my car, so my girlfriend had to transport it in her car for me, meaning that I wasn't able to bring it back with me when I went back to Montreal and the project would have to be put on hold.

Finally, on the 27th of October, she was able to come to my apartment in Montreal, bringing the terrarium with her. It was dirty again because it was put into storage at her workplace, but not as dirty as it was originally, and it was an easy cleanup. After the quick clean-up, we went to buy more supplies for the background to which he can climb on. I decided to make the background out of expanding foam using the Great Stuff expanding foam thing (which I actually bought in August). Furthermore, I planned on using silicone and eco earth to hide the expanded foam and make it more natural-looking. In total, I had 1 large tube of expanding foam, 2 tubes of silicone (animal safe), and a caulk gun.

On October 29th, we began putting the expanding foam on the back wall of the terrarium. Putting the expanding foam was fairly quick, and it only took around 2 hours, but most of that was us planning what the design would be. Moreover, a lot of time was wasted because we actually ran out of expanding foam and we had to get more which for some reason was difficult, difficult, lemon difficult. We had to go to three different places since the first two didn't have any in stock, which was annoying, but I did get a plant while I was out ehhe. By the time we got back, it was around 6 pm and I finished adding the rest of the expanding foam around 7 pm and let it sit there for the night.

On October 30th, we began carving the background into the shape we wanted. This actually took a very long time as there was a lot of foam to carve. In total, it took around 3 hours. After carving everything, I vacuumed the area and cleared out any loose expanding foam, and then proceeded to place the silicone along with the eco earth. The good thing was that I had enough of both materials, the bad thing was that the silicone was more difficult to place than I thought it would be and the eco earth didn't actually stick properly. I ended up having to add more in some spots the next day since it didn't cover properly.

Another unfortunate event occurred on November 3rd, where the large branch broke off of the wall and had to be replaced. However, after this last event, on November 5th around 12 pm, I was finally able to put the 60 quartz of soil in, as well as the pothos, spider plant, Boston fern, and ZZ plant that I got early on, as well as the isopods and springtails. The 60 quartz of soil I got was actually not enough in the end as there was a bit of space left between the bottom and the base of the background, but there was enough space for him to dig if he wanted to.

As you can see, the eco earth failed to stay onto the expanded foam background, causing there to be white patches. If I were to redo this again, I would paint the silicone on instead of applying it with a caulk gun, that way it would be more of an even spread. Moreover, there is the casually dying pothos plant which wasn't doing too well, but I brought it back to life and it was doing great but then I accidentally let the soil dry out too much causing it to "die" again, but it is on the road to recovery!! It was also one plant rather than multiple plants, so it kind of ruined my idea of putting them into the pots above.

Aside from that, I needed to figure out what to do with the missing sliding glass doors. Initially, I called a pet store and asked if they had sliding glass doors for the terrarium that I had, based on measurements I took, but the doors they had were way too big, so I didn't end up getting them. I then thought of using plexiglass and just cutting it myself to save money, but buying the plexiglass would end up costing the same amount as just custom ordering glass pieces. Therefore, instead of the plexiglass, I got custom-cut glass pieces from a nearby glass cutting company. They finished cutting the glass pretty quickly, and I was able to get them on November 10th (I placed the order on November 8th).

After finally getting the glass pieces, I went to install them. Unfortunately, I gave the wrong measurements and the glass pieces were too big. However, because I am lazy and impatient, I didn't want to drive there again and return it and go through a bunch of hassle (as they did a great job, it was purely my mistake). Instead, I cut the absurdly long door lip that holds the sliding doors in place. This way I was able to shimmy the door pieces into the proper place without returning them while also removing the need for a door lock since they fit super tightly, making it impossible for him to move the glass pieces by himself. So, in the end, everything turned out great :D.

Of course, this isn't the end, before adding Monty to the terrarium, I needed to make sure the plants and isopods were fully acclimated to the environment and properly established, and therefore, I left the terrarium alone for a week. During this period of time, I got 2 under-tank heaters (UTH), one was used while the other was bought new. Finally, after a week of eagerly waiting, I finally let Monty go inside the terrarium (vivarium). At this point in time, I already had the UVB lamp plugged into a timer for the day/night cycle and the ceramic heat emitter and UTHs plugged into the power bar which was, in turn, plugged into a thermostat to regulate the temperature safely. Moreover, after a good while, not sure how long, I got two metal cabinet knobs and some JB weld epoxy and glued them to the glass sliding doors on either side, making it much easier to slide the doors open.

All in all, this project was super fun and very informative. It did take a very long time 5 months (July to November) and a lot of things didn't go as planned, such as the glass doors, expanding foam, silicone, eco earth, plants... Well actually everything went wrong, but in the end, I made it work because I'm smurt! Anyways, despite everything going wrong, it was still super fun and things still seem to be doing well, I did fill up the two upper pots with spider plants, but one of them wasn't doing well so I removed it to let it grow more before replanting it in the terrarium. The ZZ plant is doing quite well, but as I mentioned before, the pothos went through some trauma and is currently recovering. Moreover, the fern and the snake plant are doing well. The snake plant is growing still and Monty loves sitting on top of it, I'm surprised it isn't destroyed, to be honest. Lastly, one thing I didn't mention, I got around 25 isopods in total and 9 of them escaped and died to a spider which was very sad! But there seems to be a good amount left inside, and I think they finally started reproducing. I did buy 25 more isopods recently as well, so the isopod population should be booming! Another thing, on January 6th, 2022, I finally added some pothos, from another pothos plant I had elsewhere in the apartment, to the empty pot above the cold hide, so hopefully, they root and develop well, filling in that empty void. On this same day (January 6th, 2022) the existing pothos has fully recovered and it's doing well :).

Anyways, thanks for reading my journey with Monty, and I hope you found it entertaining :)