Diy Wooden Enclosure Rainbow Boa

So I currently have a Brazilian Rainbow Boa whose last shed was about five feet. When I have her out and about if she's not climbing me but on the ground, of any sort even just the couch, you can tell she's nervous. I have her in a 40 breeder right now and I'd like to give her more space, mostly height. So clearly because I've never built anything in my life out of wood then my first project should obviously be a tank for my snake.

I've been thinking about it a lot and after measuring space in my apartment, as well as doors, I've decided on a size of...
5 feet long, 4 feet tall and about 2 feet wide. Probably need a good six inches in the top for lighting and heating and I'm thinking of a 3 inch gap on the bottom so I can put feet or something? basically so the floor of the tank isn't resting directly on the ground.

Currently all my snakes are on heat mats and I actually really like them, though admittedly I've never tried anything else, with a thermostat. Everyone seems happy with the setups.

My thought for the diy enclousure is a radiant heat panel probably mounted in the top of the tank in that six inch space. Along with just some kind of LED strip lights or something. The plan is to put a bunch of branches, be they actual branches or just dowel rods strung around then the panel above those.

I'm debating on a tote full of water in the tank for her as she's seen quite a few fish tanks and certainly likes to at least attempt to swim in them....She did it once in my 20 long shrimp tank and well I had to pull her out before she just ruined everything but she looked like she was having fun...trust me the ideal tank I envisioned involved a pond and even a turtle with her but I can't do that anytime soon. I don't even know if I could house a turtle with her the idea just sounded really cool.

Anyways I have a few questions that I need to figure out before I could try anything, well one really big one that's stopping me from even starting...
What kind of wood do I even use?! I found one really good YouTube video that I'm kind of basing a lot on and he just says he uses plywood, link below. I live in the north east US and I'm kind of concerned with warpping and stuff as it can be really humid during the spring and summer and can be really dry during the winter. I am planning on staining the outside of the tank so help with this. Or does the staining not really make a difference on what kind of plywood I use?

Is the radiant heat panel going to be enough? I was mostly considering this panel because I know her species likes a higher humidity which I know I'm not fully getting in the screen top 40 breeder, and I think with any kind of heat lamp it'll just dry everything out.

The inside I was going to use the pond liner mixture he uses in the video.

If you have any other tips or anything please let me know as my brain hurts from trying to learn all this. I'm gonna try this fail or not. Really the only down side if I do fail is she stays in the 40 breeder and my other corn snake stays in her 20 which would be unfortunate because that corn is the most active out of all my snakes and of course the boa being stuck on the ground with nothing to climb.

 

Morning, hopefully our reptile keepers can help you today.

 

I’ll have more answers for you whenever my boyfriend gets home from work, but we’ve been working on a plywood enclosure as well. We stained the outside just to make it look nice, it really won’t help with any humidity issues inside the enclosure but it will seal and protect the outside. For the inside we used pond shield epoxy, you can purchase it off of amazon. It will pretty much water proof the inside but I would also silicone the seams just to be sure. It’s a bit heavy and thick to apply, so you can thin it out with denatured alcohol and it makes it much smoother. But it’s very important that you drill any holes that you need to BEFORE you apply the pond shield! If you don’t, the pond shield will cause the wood to splinter all over the place. ... we learned the hard way

As for lighting we’ll probably use Arcadia bulbs (I’ll post a picture of them. We have them mounted in our PVC vision cages, you can mount them the same way in the wooden enclosure. They come with clips and you just have to screw them in to the enclosure and pop the light fixture in to it). But I’ll get back to you on this as well, I’m not sure what my boyfriend has planned. I’ll also get back to you on heating because I’m not entirely sure on that either. I think we were going to use heat tape but we changed plans.

 

Thanks for the info Velma I have found one video of a guy who said he uses birch for his tanks. He also mentioned something I hadn't thought of but makes sense. So I know pine and some other wood chip substrates are harmful to snakes and I think it'll be safer if I don't use those. I found another posting from a guy who said he uses Formica for the floor of the tank and this will enable you to use heat mats or tape on the bottom of the tank like you would with a glass tank I guess.

 

Thanks for the info Velma I have found one video of a guy who said he uses birch for his tanks. He also mentioned something I hadn't thought of but makes sense. So I know pine and some other wood chip substrates are harmful to snakes and I think it'll be safer if I don't use those. I found another posting from a guy who said he uses Formica for the floor of the tank and this will enable you to use heat mats or tape on the bottom of the tank like you would with a glass tank I guess.

That sounds like a good idea, but I’ve heard heat mats alone often aren’t enough to keep the temp as high as they should be. I would either use one of those heat panels or a ceramic heat emitter with a cage over it so the snake doesn’t burn itself. And I agree, I wouldn’t use “strong” woods like pine. I’ve seen some people use it for enclosures, but I really wouldn’t chance it either.

 

Yeah I almost bought pine enclosures but I don't know, I don't trust it fully or I need to do more search so I love the PVC enclosures. Or PVC racks with heat tape under them and Iris storage bins as the actually home for the snake

I do this for 6 ball pythons, but I am wanting to get a brazilian rainbow one day. So this thread is relevant to my interests...