Hey! Sorry to hear about your strikey python. I do have some tips for you though
I've had this problem with a wild caught adult male BHP who had shattered the glass from his enclosure THREE times at the pet shop before i bought him...needless to say he was there a long time. I also keep large predatory aquarium fish and they will often have a go at their own reflection, especially males. I would, however agree with other replies that the python is striking at movement near the enclosure, although it could still be its reflection.
There are a couple of things you can do.
For aquarium fish, we painted both ends of the tank with black matt paint on the outsides and ensured there was a background fastened to the back of the glass and added complex rockwork for them to retreat to and that stopped the problem for them.
For the BHP we tried a number of things- we kept him in the loungeroom (mid traffic area) and yes, he would S bend up at his reflection when we were sitting on the couch out of view, so i know it happens- he couldnt see any movement so he was definitely bothered by his own reflection. He also behaved the same when someone walked past his tank if he was awake. We did the same as we did for the fish- we bought him a wooden enclosure with just glass at the front (effectively painting the sides). We also faced his reptile hide so the hole faced diagonally onto a back corner of the tank- we could just see in on an angle from the front, but he couldnt see us while he was curled in there- this meant he didn't see flashes of light while he was in the hide, awake, while people walked past.
The other thing we did was go to a fake plant shop (people order silk flowers and fake aquarium plants from these sorts of places) and we constructed a bit of a screen i guess you would call it, in between his hide and the glass. Basically what this did was reduce the reflection and reduce his field of vision from what he could see of the room. Firstly we started with a dense cover of fake plants for the length of 2/3 of his enclosure(they were about 5" back from the glass). This settled him dramatically and we actually found that he would adventure out from his hide for longer periods of the afternoon instead of striking from his hide like used to- he would lie behind or in the plants. I believe the extra cover made him feel more secure and he had better hiding spots as well. We left him like this for a good few weeks and then slowly (gradually!) began to reduce the plant cover. It worked a treat, and whilst he stayed slightly cage defensive, you could walk past the enclosure while he was out and about with no problems and he never shattered any glass while he was with me
In the end his enclosure still had a fair few plants in it, but they were sparsely spread at different intervals around his tank.
I never found the sheet idea to work well, as you have to lift it off at some stage and that seemed to freak him out (we tried that too.) We also tried placing his enclosure in the study where there was very little traffic (actually none at all really) but that didnt fix the problem either. I believe some snakes that aren't so 'damaged' as in.. the problem is just defensive and they havent been doing it that long, the sheet idea and low traffic areas can work until the snake is settled in. Our BHP was 6 years old and who knows how long he'd been striking at the glass in that pet shop with little kids rapping their fingers on his enclosure trying to make him move, but i think his problem was a bit more extensive and he just couldnt feel secure.
We sold our BHP to a breeder who wanted to breed from him and he has told us since that he never had any problems with him (except the cage defensiveness- but that's what hooks are for!)- and now uses him as part of an education program and says he is a calm, happy boy now
Good luck, i hope you like the above ideas
