Red Eyed Crocodile Skink Tank

[jpstod]

Get a small tropical gecko


A Question about the glass cut for the Pond. Did you smooth the cut edges some how? If not do it sometime before you put an inhaditant in there....were high risk of getting cut...I cut my arm on my cut glass the other day simply by scraping my arm...I cam imagine that a critter is softer than my skin and more prone to getting cut eveyytime they come into contact with it.

[Hiide]

Originally Posted by froggsong

I have to go get started on my chores, so I don't have alot of time to post.

I will say that making the canopy removable is definitely a good idea. If you wanted to go with an animal that you need a topper for, you can even use that screen to your advantage and make a second land area (put a piece of eggcrate underneath to help it support the weight of substrate). I didn't realize that that was actually built in.

I certainly don't mind helping with the planning. It's my favorite part of the process.

First a few questions.

1. Is that an aquarium or a terrarium (as in, is the glass thick enough to hold water)?
2. Are you willing to remove and redo your "pond"?
3.How much space do you have available for the tank (up, down, and front to back)?
4. Do you have access to tools?

I have to run for now, but if you can answer those questions, I'll be able to help you out when i get back on.

Well, I got a lot of time to plan since I'm in school, so I'm in no hurry for crazy decisions.

I believe the "glass box" (Haha) was made as a terrarium, because it has the screen part as a top; can't say for sure, but I never keep fish so I'm guessing I bought it as a terrarium. I did re-silicone the sides of the aquarium that will be in contact with water.

I don't really want to redo the pond area, as the running water is perfect for an animal such as a Horned Mountain Dragon. I could redo it... but I'm lazy, so I'd have to see depending on layouts for the tank. I think the area that the pond and PVC stream are at are fine.. I put them under the removable glass top for easy maintance, and if a canopy was added, it would be added on the other end of the aquarium. Just assuming from the short research I have done on these animals, I think that the water area could generally provide a cooler side to the aquarium for the lizard to regulate his/her temperatures.

I'd like to just add a canopy on the top, which could easily be 32"-40" (Thus making half of the aquarium 4+ feet easily. I don't want to go over 5 feet total, because that is crazy to me). I don't want to silicone anymore glass really, expanding the terrarium size lengths and widths would be a pain and I don't have any experience in making aquariums. I can always find somewhere to put the aquarium itself.

My dad has a full back garage of tools (Lazer saw, etc.) and my girlfriend's mom is a stained glass artist, which is how I got my glass cut in the first place. Tools and being able to construct anything should not be a problem. Hooray for Home Depot down the road!


And yes (To Jpstod's question), I did smooth out the glass tops of the pond enclosure. As an extra precaution though, I'm going to cut small aquarium filter tubing in half and put it over the top of the exposed glass. I never cut myself on the glass, but I've heard it can be painful. I can only imagine it would be twice as worse for a poor animal that slides across it on their belly!
Also, a small tropical gecko is not a bad idea. I looked over Madagascar Ground Geckos for a bit, but I've never been too fond of geckos because of bad experiences. I'll have to wait and see. I've got plently of time and hopefully I'll find an answer at the next Reptile Expos I go to.


As for making an extra substrate layer below the canopy, where the screen is, that would be an awesome idea. It would require careful planning, but I think I could pull it off somehow. The area could not be too big, so the lizard could actually climb up into the area, but the substrate area could supply extra support to any limbs in the canopy.

[froggsong]

Well, I got a lot of time to plan since I'm in school, so I'm in no hurry for crazy decisions.

I believe the "glass box" (Haha) was made as a terrarium, because it has the screen part as a top; can't say for sure, but I never keep fish so I'm guessing I bought it as a terrarium. I did re-silicone the sides of the aquarium that will be in contact with water.

You can generally tell by the thickness of the glass. I was just asking in case you wanted to do water across more of the bottom.

I don't really want to redo the pond area, as the running water is perfect for an animal such as a Horned Mountain Dragon. I could redo it... but I'm lazy, so I'd have to see depending on layouts for the tank. I think the area that the pond and PVC stream are at are fine.. I put them under the removable glass top for easy maintance, and if a canopy was added, it would be added on the other end of the aquarium. Just assuming from the short research I have done on these animals, I think that the water area could generally provide a cooler side to the aquarium for the lizard to regulate his/her temperatures.

I was just concerned that the water area wouldn't be large enough for one to get all the way into. It's hard to tell how big it is in the pics.

I'd like to just add a canopy on the top, which could easily be 32"-40" (Thus making half of the aquarium 4+ feet easily. I don't want to go over 5 feet total, because that is crazy to me). I don't want to silicone anymore glass really, expanding the terrarium size lengths and widths would be a pain and I don't have any experience in making aquariums. I can always find somewhere to put the aquarium itself.

You don't have to do it over just half of the tank, you can do it over the whole thing. You'd just have any branches and whatnot coming out of the open area and extending over the screen. I didn't mean for you to expand the length of the tank, I was just asking about the space you had for it to see how high you could make it, as well as whether you wanted the topper to give you a little more front to back room.

For example, my CWD tank is a 40G. The dimensions are 36"x17"x18" (or maybe the 17 and 18 are switched...). The crate I am using for the bones of the topper is deeper from front to back that the tank, but that's ok. The topper will just sit on top of the tank (and be held on with some tight fitting pieces of wood around the bottom), with the extra from front to back hanging over the back side a bit. I think this will allow me to keep the same finished space from front to back and still allow for an elaborate BG. I will probably do an extra shelf of land, similar to what I was envisioning for your tank where the screen is. I am going to staple window screen around the inside of the crate, then I am going to lay my GS on the screen. This will save time and money trying to make walls out of wood and worrying about sealing it, etc. To finish the outside, I'll probably use some thin MDF to hide the frame and paint it black.

My dad has a full back garage of tools (Lazer saw, etc.) and my girlfriend's mom is a stained glass artist, which is how I got my glass cut in the first place. Tools and being able to construct anything should not be a problem. Hooray for Home Depot down the road!

That's great. You aren't limited like some of us (mostly me with the no tools here, I think, lol...)

As for making an extra substrate layer below the canopy, where the screen is, that would be an awesome idea. It would require careful planning, but I think I could pull it off somehow. The area could not be too big, so the lizard could actually climb up into the area, but the substrate area could supply extra support to any limbs in the canopy.

What I was thinking you could do with the screen is actually use some GS or whatever to attach a piece of eggcrate underneath it to make it stronger, and then set up some land like it was part of a FB. Then, you not only add height to the tank, you also add more land space. You could even have a waterfall and/or a pond up there.

I hope that has given you some ideas. I will see about drawing up a bit of a sketch tomorrow. I have to run to bed now, I'm getting tired...

[Hiide]

So, expanding on your idea Froggsong... You're a genius


I came up with a few sketches, and they are very rough, but you can all get the idea. I will need quite abit of plywood.

Basically I will be building a "canopy" ontop of my existing aquarium. It will measure approximately 36"H x 14"W x 36"L. That will add an extra 3 feet to my existing aquarium.

As you can see in the pictures, I will build pillars of wood coming up from a wooden base under my aquarium. From there I will create a small frame of wood around my aquarium (for extra support of the canopy) and set the canopy ontop of that. Weight wise, who knows what will happen...

I will use Froggsong's idea and create an extra false bottom ontop of the my aquarium's top . I won't put eggcrate under the wiremesh on the right side of the aquarium, as you said Froggsong, but ontop of it (Because the wiremesh is alittle lower than the wooden trim around the tank). I believe the eggcrate would match up nicely in the wooden trim, as it is angled.

The canopy should sit ontop of the wooden frame and aquarium perfectly, but out of extra precaution, I'll have the wooden frame be alittle wider than the aquarium frame, so that I can add some sort of pegs in various spots around the Wooden frame to stabilize the canopy better (In the sense that some one can't knock it over as easy). I will obtain two huges pieces of glass (Or Plexi) and just create a sliding door. The glass will be added in before I add the top pieces of wood and wooden top, of course. I will saw out hole in the top of the canopy for a UVB light source, and cover the hole with wiremesh window screening, placing the light ontop of that. I'm lazy and don't feel like adding great stuff backgrounds, etc... (Cleaning is always a big issue for me), so I'm thinking of not painting the inside of the aquarium, but instead adding some adhesive contact paper to the insides (They are water resistant, etc... Non-toxic and used for most kitchen tables, etc.).

I will add in maybe 1-2 small ledges within the canopy (Shelve like structures), by supporting the underside of the wood with a metal brace bolted into the wooden sides. These will not be used as extra land sources, but for the support of wooden branches that will be added to the enclosure.


If anything, these plans will be subject to change. I did not add in exact measurements, pieces of wood needed, and what other materials I will use, because I'm not constructing it yet (Always room for improvement). I did, however, call my local Exotic Pet Stores and they will get prices for me on Horned Mountain Dragons and ask me to finalize ordering in a shipment.


Besides any comments on the enclosure itself or it's structure, I have a specific question. From my pictures, I added two circles to the top of the canopy for air flow... (Just going to saw a hole in the wood and add wiremesh to it). I need the lizards to have 70%+ Humidity... Is that too much airflow, and if so, where and how should I go about ventilation?


Thanks in advance. And just to avoid confusion, the build is how it is so I can easily remove the canopy from my aquarium for cleaning purposes. Another thing is that with this build, I will not have to tear up my aquarium up in anyway.

[froggsong]

For the "pegs" to be sure the enclosure is held in place, you could use some bolt style locks, latches, or hasps (either a regular one, or the ones with the flat hooks, which I think might be best if you go with a hasp). That way it would hold it securely, and you would be able to just unlock it when you need to move it.

Here's some links for what I'm talking about:
Bolt
Latch
Hasp

You might not need quite so much ventilation, but that's a good place for it. You wont lose as much humidity from the front as you will from the top. I would recommend that you go with a square opening rather than round. Reason being, it will be easier to cover it if you are getting too much ventilation. Since you are building it yourself, you're only limited by your imagination. You could even build a sliding cover into the design in case you need to cover the vents, that way you can easily do it with a slide of the wrist, and you can control how much you cover.

I LOVE your idea of supports around the tank to keep the weight off the glass. Great idea. You may have saved me some heartache there. Mine wont be all wood since I'm doing GS on screen in a frame, but it will still get heavy with the branches and stuff going into the background.

Rather than cutting a hole in the top and covering it with screen for the UV, you should just mount a UV strip inside the top. The bulb doesn't get hot enough to burn, they are safer than the CFL type, and you wont be blocking a great deal of your UV with screen (the finer the screen, the more UV it blocks, a fine mesh, like we commonly use for screen tops, actually blocks most of the UV). If you are worried about the moisture messing up the strip, you could probably waterproof it somehow (I haven't thought that one through yet, but I suppose you could coat the assembly in silicone... You could even probably cover it with peat moss if you wanted too, I don't think they get hot enough to catch it on fire). With a tank that tall, it will be very important that your UV source isn't diminished by screen. Once the dragon was 6 inches away from the top of the tank, he'd never get any UV. Mounting it inside, you can control placement and avoid having to attach it to the top. Using a silver reflector (like foil tape or even aluminum foil) will help the UV penetrate farther. Make sure you have at least one basking spot where the top of the branch is no less that 10" from the bulb (8 is best, they say the dragon should be able to get within 6 inches of the bulb to get the best UV exposure with a tube bulb, 8" allows for the height of the dragon on top of the branch).

If you want to save on weight and wood and having to worry about waterproofing it, you can do what I'm planning and build a frame to attach screen to and then lay GS on the screen. you can then cover the outside with thin MDF or anything else you want to. That will make the enclosure much less heavy, plus you can play with the design a little and make places to plant plants in the BG and all of that. The thing that takes the longest is planning it and covering it (and waiting for it to cure, lol). Anywhere you want to mount a heavier branch, you can add a cross piece to your frame and screw the branch into the frame for added stability. As for easy cleaning, one of the points about having a vive is that you don't have to clean it constantly. You are trying to build an ecosystem, animal creates waste, plants use waste, etc. It was a little weird for me at first, but I got used to it. I love not having to clean my vives very often. Maintenance involves changing water (I don't have a FB in the CWD tank), pulling out excess leaf litter, and trimming plants. The animal will be happier if you don't have to disturb their environment to clean it all the time ( I usually do mine once a month or so, other than water changes).

I was thinking that you could also just set the eggcrate on top of the screen. It will make it easier to use as a regular tank again in the future as well. Are you going to cover the eggcrate in additional screening?

For the doors, if you have trouble finding hardware to make sliding doors (I haven't found anything yet, but I may not be looking for the right thing), you can make hinged doors fairly easily. Take a look at a wooden picture frame to see how to make the frame and install the glass. Heck, if you've got some extra picture frames that are the right size, you can go ahead and just hinge those, lol. It's really pretty easy and the finished product looks better, IMO, and makes it easier to get into the tank (you can open the whole front, instead of having a piece of glass in the way). I don't think you'll like having that piece of wood in the middle of the tank, so I'd just go ahead and do the doors all the way down to the frame around the glass tank, or put in a pane of glass there instead (you can use the same picture frame type deal if you want to). I'd personally go with between 8 and 10" for the piece of wood across the top of the front, so it doesn't cut down on viewing too much.

You can line any wood you use on the inside with pond liner to waterproof it (I'd use an adhesive to attach it, maybe a spray adhesive? anyone have any better ideas on that one?).

lol, that's about all I have for now!

[Hiide]

Well, the main problem with a little ecosystem in my opinion, is that I kill plants .


I experimented with the idea of a hinged door, but the glass sliding doors seem easier to me, in my opinion, but that will probably change when I construct the canopy.

The eggcrate ontop of my bottom aquarium will have screen over it as well (So the eggcrate will be surrounded with screen basically). I'll probably just be using that extra land mass for feeding and extra support of branches.

The top of the canopy is still a concern, debating on how to set up the lighting fixture. You said that mesh will obstruct the UVB rays and a lighting fixture within the enclosure will be suitable. I'm on a limited budget, and I wouldn't know how to rig some long lighting fixture at the top of the aquarium, considering that humidity and moisture would be a great concern. I already have three heating lamps, or whatever you want to call them, so I'm hoping to use just one of those. I would place one of those into the aquarium, but that would have deadly results most likely... Do you think that I could just put some normal glass on the top of the canopy (Sky roof idea), and set the lamp ontop of that?

The latches and hasps idea is awesome. Though the size of the latches would be a concern for particular purposes, it requires less wood to be cut for building the canopy and supporting it. I'll be sure to look into that.

Also, for the wooden supports around the bottom aquarium, they will all be angled around the corners of the aquarium (So 4 L's, so 8 pieces of wood total). However, for easy clean up, and so I can actually remove the aquarium from the bottom frame of wood, the 2 elbows in the back of the frame will just be single pieces of wood, so I can slide the aquarium out of the frame when needed.

Your screen idea is cool, but I don't want to go through the effort of the construction and time that would take. It is an awesome idea, for mounting purposes, etc., but I'd probably end up spending more money in trial and error. I have never done GS backgrounds and plants in aquariums, but I will attempt to someday (When I have my house/apartment). However, I think the wood would make the whole enclosure look rather nice, something that I can use for quite some time. I am debating on perhaps adding some ferns or something to the aquarium, but if I did they would be added in the bottom aquarium, where there is probably going to be little light... The bottom of the aquarium has a false bottom and thick soil layer, only down side is that it will probably be too far from the light source and be covered in shade (If not dark completely, from where the extra land mass will be on the right side of the enclosure).

The wood of the canopy, and maybe 1-2 small shelves on the walls, and glass should be the only weight issues on the frame around my bottom aquarium. All the branches will mostly likely come up from the bottom aquarium and be sitting on parts of the top of the aquarium and shelves. I'm trying to think of the construction in specifics, so that glass doesn't shatter a couple days after adding everything into the whole enclosure. The only down side that I've found with this build so far, is that I'm going to have to find and buy a lot of branches... I have really nice pieces of driftwood, but I'll have to see how they line up. Any reccommendations of where to find or buy nice pieces of sturdy wooden branches? Could be artifical as well, but they all look rather whimpy..


Thanks again Froggsong, as I said, I'll probably start this project in May, but it's nice to plan and elimate any flaws.

And repeating what Froggsong said, does anyone know what products will help "waterproof" wood? I decided not to use the adhesive contact paper people use for countertops, because it'll probably be more expensive.

[Hiide]

So, besides the other recent updates, I bought a ficus tree today.

I know, it sounds weird, but I bought a fake tree from Michaels. It is four feet tall, has the branches and then fake leaves on it. It looks good and my girlfriend got it for 20 bucks, so it will definately look awesome in the tank.

And I also found someone that breeds Horned Mountain Dragons in Texas, so he contacted me and I may be able to pick up one in May!

[froggsong]

That's so cool! I'm glad you found a breeder. An artificial tree will look good in the tank if you use it as the basis for the rest of the decor. I've thought of getting one myself, but I don't know if they would be sturdy enough for my CWD. I can't believe you got it for only 20 bucks. That's an awesome price. I paid almost that much for a length of fake ivy from there.

[Hiide]

Ya, I couldn't pass it up either. The tree was on discount because there was glitter on one leaf (So I just cut it off LoL).


Anyways, I'm just figuring wood dimensions for now, and talking to the breeder on more specific specs and care for the MHD, besides the usual caresheets.


I do have a question though. Froggsong, you said that wiremesh would cut back on the UVB explosure from a heat lamp above it. What if I just got normal glass cut (From the extra pieces), and have it as a skyroof on the top of the canopy? Could I just place the lamp directly ontop of that, or would if reflect and blind the poor inhabitant? And from the breeders setup, I may have two lights set up... One for UVB, and another for bright light (Since there will be so much folliage in the tank, and it's 4 feet tall).

[froggsong]

Glass will block ALL UV.

UVB explosure from a heat lamp above it

UVB bulbs don't generally produce heat (or not enough to even factor into your heating). The only ones that do are mercury vapor bulbs (MVBs).

It is safe to mount a strip inside the enclosure. It will not get hot enough to burn the animal. I have the UV light mounted inside my beardie tank about 6 inches (could be less) from his basking site. He could easily touch it, but I know it wont hurt him because I can touch it and it is only a little warm.

Heat lamps will have to be mounted outside (or you could use heat mats, which will also have to be mounted outside). Don't set them on top of glass, it can be disastrous (check the thread "I am so pissed." in Off-Topic). I'm not sure how much ventilation would be needed to keep it from cracking the glass, and I doubt I'll experiment with it again, lol. Heating your water will help heat the enclosure as well, so a small fish tank heater will be a good addition (I recently bought one for a 10-15G that is actually adjustable for about 15 bucks). If you use heat mats instead of heat bulbs (where they wont come in contact with any water and aren't mounted on wood) you can just use fluorescents for you lighting, which can all be mounted inside. One for UV and two regular ones for brighter light would work well, and the fixture would be cheaper if you build it yourself (not very difficult to wire a ballast, from what I understand). Then you can just make the top out of wood. The more of your tank that is made out of wood, the better you will be able to maintain your temps. If you want to use heat mats and you don't have anywhere to mount them that isn't on wood, you can attach them to the back of a tile and mount the tile inside the enclosure. The ceramic will disperse the heat throughout the tile, heating the enclosure without creating a hot spot where the animal will be burned. You can also buy some flexwatt, which is cheaper and easier to customize. I'd go with two or three smaller heat mats over one larger one and space them throughout the vive to get your temp gradient (warmer at the top near the UV basking spot and cooler near the water).