My new viv - ventilation question *pics*

Hi, I am getting my first snake soon and just built my first viv. I set it all up with the heat mat controlled by a thermostat and a water bowl in the middle. The hot side was 87 fahrenheit and the cool side 75, the humidity was around 60% (measured at the cool side)
Now I have to make some ventilation. I was thinking of drilling some small holes on each side, so small that the hatchling can not escape (i dont want to put screening over the holes) How much ventilation is actually needed? How big should the holes be?

With kind regards,
Brutus

I've got a viv similar to that (If larger), and mine has four air vents in it. They're about 7 centimeters in diameter, and covered. I'd do something similar if I were you. But if you just want to drill holes in the sides, for a hatchling they'd have to be VERY small. They can get out of miniscule gaps. I'd guess 3-4 mm maximum... :shrugs:

Plastic vent caps

If you look at the thread with all the viv pics, you'll see a few that have round white plastic vent caps in the walls of their vivs. These would eliminate the worry of drilling too large of holes and probably provide better ventilation than a few drilled holes...just a thought.

you would most likely have to drill many, many 1/8" holes, too many to make it worth while, and it would most likely detract from a very good looking vivarium. I would do as some others have suggested and put in 4 or so larger holes and cover them on the inside with hardware cloth.

Here is the link to the pic of the viv with the vent caps:
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showpost.php?p=347210&postcount=27

Those vent caps are very "neat Looking". I don't think they would take away from the asthetics of this nicely built cage at all and would provide better air flow as well.

I need to build my own too! But my question is where is your heatmat or UTH. I need to figure out how to do mine.

Thanks

Hi, thanks for the replies.

So I think I wont be drilling all the small holes. I have not found the air vents anywhere I live. So I guess I will make a hole in each side and put the hardware cloth from the inside. Do you think it will be OK to silicone the cloth to the viv or do I have to staple it? Should the hole be a circle or retancular (spelling)? I used my photoshop skills to see how it would look
All comments appreciated.

Thanks again

I, too, couldn't find those round air vents anywhere. But I did find these one day at Lowe's (maybe Home Depot, I'd imagine both carry them). They're similar to the vents coming out of air ducting but they are thin and have screen mounted on the inside of them (2nd pic); this is good because you can house smaller snakes and it keeps the snakes from possibly cutting themselves on the metal edge. They were mega cheap (maybe $1.50?) and come in assorted sizes so you could pic a size that suited your needs. Hope this helps.

First pic is from the outside of the viv and the 2nd one is inside and you can see the screen mesh that comes mounted.

Edit: saw you were in Iceland, I'm sure you could find these there though.