Sounds like he was looking for something visually attractive though.

I kinda like natural looking bark substrate/forest terrariums with a water feature. Wouldn't do that for my snakes necessarily though. A large terrarium with perhaps one small garter or live plants and a few frogs/salamanders, but not for keeping snakes. I choose practical, cheap, clean, safe, and healthy over "pretty" any day when it comes to my "babies"!

I was just offering a suggestion.