Vivarium Design

Ok so recently I've got a WC corn. It's a girl, and it's about 3 feet long. Right now I have it in a 10 gallon tank which I hate because it seems way to small. Well I am building a vivarium for it and I need your guys opinions. The tank is going to be constructed of plywood, fiberglass, and screen. It will be 5 feet long, 2 feet tall, and 2 feet deep. The back, bottom, and both sides will be plywood(very securely nailed and glued), the front will be fiberglass(so I can see the snake, also very securely glued), and the top will have some sort of lid made from steel screen with wooden trim that will fit securely onto the top, along with a hatch lock. I've decided to go with aspen as my substrate, 3 hides, a silk plant, a bask-n-bath(wich is also a hide), and a water bowl. The water bowl and 1 hide will be kept on the cool side of the viv, the bask-n-bath and other hide(which is like a stump) will be kept on the warm side of the viv, and the silk plant will be kept in the middle. Below I have uploaded a pic of what my final product should look like. ANY suggestions or ideas/opinions would be VERY helpful as this is my first corn snake, and I don't know alot about these vivs(but I do woodwork..). So please, feel free to say anything because I look forward to all of your opinions/suggestions. The picture is the design I made with adobe photoshop cs2 using pictures of items I found on petsmart.com.

http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/1848/snakevivst1.gif

All in all, sounds like a nice set-up. The size is fine for a full grown adult corn.

The one thing you didn't mention, is sealing the wood. You'll need to use something to make it waterproof. Varnish, laminate, vinyl .... something along those lines. You'll also need to silicone up the joints in the wood.

One thing that does occur (I don't use screen lids so maybe someone else can chip in here) .... if you plan to use a screen, I *think* you'd be better with plastic coated if you're using a lamp as a heat source. Reason being, I assume the bare steel would get pretty hot with a lamp on it. Not sure what most mesh screens are made of as, like I say, I don't use 'em ....

That aughta make for a happy snake... I would suggest something she can climb and perch on... I have two snakes that hardly ever come down and another that never goes up... I just cut 1" to 1.5" diameter limbs and trim them to fit nicely in the viv... If not, what you got looks like it should work fine...