ALBINO CORN WONT SHED OR E lAT

So I recently transferred my 8 year old albino corn snake from a 20 gallon long to a 55 gallon with aspen bedding and he acquired some sort of sickness which i treated with an injectable antibiotic(from a vet) and he still hasnt shed (in about 3 months). hes flaky and hasnt eaten in about 3 weeks. just tried and he wouldnt eat. i have two 75 watt lamps on one side (over a big water bowl he never soaks in) and nothing on the other side. the temps at 83 and humidity is at 35. HELP PLEASE!!! oh and i soak him nightly for 20 minutes and this doesnt help!

Well, your humidity is pretty low. I'd suggest misting to bring it up to at least 50% (probably higher if his skin is flaking), and covering at least half of the screen top with plastic wrap to help hold it in.

He sounds almost like he hasn't quite recovered from the stress of being moved... Maybe his new enclosure is simply to large or too open...

Hope the more experienced members will chime in.

I was thinking the same thing as Emily. Usually an adult Corn doesn't need much more than a 20L unless they're an unusually large Corn.
I'm just curious - why did you decide to move up to a new viv size?

my snake looks exactly like yours suzy, except with blood red eyes. i moved him because a bunch of people told me that full grown corn snakes (mines about 4 1/2 to 5 feet) need big tanks, at least bigger than my 20 long. i will try what you said about covering half the tank. I think spraying is a good idea. My only reservation is the mold my vet said might grow if i spray the bedding. any thoughts?

If it's moldy, you're probably spraying it too much, too wet, and leaving it for too long. I mist my tanks when my snakes shed, and I clean them out ~monthly. No mold issues.

Try making him some extra hides, lots of them, all over the tank. And trying adding plastic plants for cover. That might help him feel more secure.

The main reason your humidity is so low is because of the heat lamps. They're just "cooking" the moisture out of the air. To help keep that level up you'll want to get an under-tank heater regulated with a thermostat or a rheostat.

They can do fine in very large tanks - I have a couple that are three and four feet long and three feet high with different levels. However some of them absolutely hate change. My old guy went on a 7 month hunger strike the last time I moved house. He was even in the same vivarium at the end of the process!

I think the initial root cause is the stess of the move. If the vet then diagnosed an infection, it's possible that the stress lowered his immune system and made him more vulnerable.

My first move would be to stop the nightly soaking as this could be adding to the stress and making him even less likely to eat.

As Emily suggested, I'd steer away from misting the entire tank and give him a couple of humid hides instead. I'd agree with the vet that mould growth is a risk if you make his entire environment damp - you don't want to add scale rot to his problems.

Then make sure that he has LOTS of ordinary hides as well. He'll be feeling very insecure and needs to be able to move between warm and cool areas without being seen. Cover the floor with old cereal boxes, kitchen paper tubes, plastic foliage, even crumpled newspaper. Just get anything in there that he can hide under so he can feel safe as he moves around.

Then I'd do the basic husbandry checks. Your temp is 83 desgrees - is that the warm or cool side? The warm side ideally needs to be a few degrees higher, between 85-88 degrees. Make sure you're measuring the temperature at floor level, as that's where he is. Having a thermometer stuck to the side even a couple of inches above the floor, can give a misleading reading.

Then (and I suspect this will be the hardest bit) leave him completely alone for a week. You need to treat him as though he's a new hatchling that you've just bought home, as he gets used to his new environment. No handling, no feeding attempts and minimal checking up on him.

Just a thought as I type though - is there any way you could post a photo so that we could see the flaking skin? It's possible that you could be looking at scale rot already and that needs a different approach (including a very dry environment, newspaper substrate that gets changed daily, wipe the snake with an anti-fungal every other day).

...and just something a bit left-field - is the new tank custom-built or an off-the-shelf aquarium? Just wondered if there might have been something used in the construction (glue, paint, varnish etc) that might be proving toxic to your fella?

Albino snakes are sensitive to light. You did not mention if your heat lamps are emitting white light, but if they are, they are stressing the heck out of your snake. They are also causing a lack of humidity.

If your snake is having trouble shedding, I'd put a humidity hidebox in the cage.

I have had a number of snakes stop eating when moved to a larger enclosure and then resume eating almost immediately when returned to their original smaller cage. It seems to me that sometimes snakes feel more secure and eat better when kept in smaller cages.

thats interesting. if this continues I might have to move him back, but i tried what you said about the thermometer and it is at 87 right now so thats ok. the humidity is 35. is that alright? thats the hot side. im also going to put some other hiding places in there for him. what is a humidity hide box? Thanks for all the help guys1

flakey? Like lifted scales...looks like dry shed, but it wont come off?

Screams bacterial or fungal infection to me if thats the case.

do you have a photo? what are you using for bedding?

A humid hide is a container with a hole they can get into and a lid on it, filled with either paper towel or sphagnum moss, that has been moistened but with out water sitting in the bottom of the container. Leave this in the tank and if the snake feels that they need to be in a more damp environment they will curl up in there.

What was the antibiotic? There are some medicines that when injected can have adverse side effects. I would also raise the humidity drastically. To at least 50% as mentioned before.