55 gallon vivarium for baby corn snake to much?

okay, so i plan on gettin a baby corn snake. i have a 55 gallon tank already and want to set it up for my new snake. now i have a couple of questions. i have heard to put lots of substrates down so it can bed if it feels "to in the open". and to put lots of "hides" and spots for it to crawl into so it doesnt get scared. cuz i have heard that a little snake in a big tank can get....agoraphobic. i dont want that cuz then it wont want to eat or get easily stressed. so any help on how to make this tank work or to reassure me that it will work as long as i ____. any help is well appreciated. it will have a heating pad on the bottom to create the difference in temperature for it but will it be afraid to travel from one side to the other side since its so big? thanks in advance. Tyler.

Maybe you can split the tank until he gets bigger...
http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25043&highlight=gallon+tank+divider

i could.........but what i really want to know is, is 55 gal to much or will it really not matter. will my snake be all crazied and confused if the tank is to big?

It might be a little too big, but who can tell? Security is going to be different from snake to snake. Some find big areas difficult to adjust to and intimidating. Others might not. Could a big tank adversely affect the health of the little snake. I couldn't say for sure.

What I suggest is if you are going to use it, then the advice from Josh is good. Divide it up. I would also add a lot of extra small hides and maybe even a few extra water dishes near them. That way if the snake does feel a little insecure, it doesn't have to go far from the hide to find water.

Also, make sure you are using a good thermostat to regulate that heating pad. The size of heating pad to cover 1/4 - 1/3 of the bottom of a 55gal tank will be huge and could burn or kill a baby snake.

I hope that helps!

Wayne

Personally I think it would be a pain in the rear to try and find a baby corn in a 55 gallon. It's hard enough in a 10 gallon... they are very small. If your bedding is deep, this will make it even more problematic. Every time you want to hold the snake, or have to feed it, you'll have to dig through 4 square feet of aspen bedding... needle in a haystack starts to make sense....

Hypancistrus said:

Personally I think it would be a pain in the rear to try and find a baby corn in a 55 gallon. It's hard enough in a 10 gallon... they are very small. If your bedding is deep, this will make it even more problematic. Every time you want to hold the snake, or have to feed it, you'll have to dig through 4 square feet of aspen bedding... needle in a haystack starts to make sense....

Click to expand...

Lol, I was thinking the same thing! I had one set up in a 20 gallon long and she did just fine with lots of hides and branches but trying to find her was a pain. I ended up putting her on a higher shelf so I could look up through the bottom to see where she was buried. The problem is, if she didn't bury down to the bottom glass I'd have to search the whole tank for her... Now imagine doing that in a 55 and not stressing a hatchling out while the big monster tears up it's home looking for it....

thank you all so much for the information. this will help tremendously! i agree with everything you are saying from finding it, to making it comfortable in its surrounding. my last question is feeding. now........do you feed in the tank or out of the tank? and if you feed outside of the tank, how do you know when the right time is to pick it up and put it back in the tank without bothering him? and if you feed outside the tank, doesnt it need the hot and cold areas as well to make the digestion process easier for him?

I feed in a separate container. It is very handy for weighing and cleaning out their tubs. I generally wait 30-45 minutes before putting the snake back. No need for heat, since this is such a short period of time.

I feed in a feeding tub. Little tubs for little hatelings, big tubs for adults (I have only 1 of each kind of tub at present but will be putting holes in more rubbermaid this weekend). I wait until they are done swallowing, then I put the whole rubbermaid back in the viv & take the lid off so they can get out of the rubbermaid & back into the viv at their own speed so they can go digest.

wstphal..........thats a perfect idea. thanks

Unless you get lots and lots of fake plants to make the 55 gal tank look like a jungle, and even with lots of aspen, I wouldn't put a little corn in it (or an adult, probably). I generally have 3-4 fake plants, 2-3 inches of aspen, and two hides for my corn, and even in a 20gal tank she's hard to find.

I would invest in getting a smaller tank (10-20 gal) and raising the corn in that. Once s/he is probably around 1-2 years old, then I'd put her/him in a big tank, still with lots of plants (but not a whole lot of aspen, it would be very hard to find it in there).


Also, for feeding, I feed my corn in a shoe box with a paper towel lining the bottom.