Critique my cricket enclosure!! *PIC HEAVY*

Hey guys! So I only own 1 chameleon and i found its best to buy in bulk and let the crickets grow while feeding them off. The first thing i used were those commercial cricket keepers


and purchased all my crickets from petsmart....boy was that a disaster. Out of the 100 crickets I'd get, maybe 30 died in less then a week. crickets escaped like CRAZY and the thing smelt of death.

My next step was making my own enclosure, which i made out of those large rupper ware containers, i cut a huge portion of the lid and replaced it with meshing for air ventilation. It was a great improvement, but i still got a few escapes, and it didn't stay warm enough.

So finnaly i found one of my old aquariums, bought it a mesh lid, added 2 heat sources and ended up with this. Please let me know if there is anything you would change/improve and why. Thanks for your time guys!

You might find cleaning a pain, no? Love the cricket ramps!

jojackson said:

You might find cleaning a pain, no? Love the cricket ramps!

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lol ironiclly i just cleaned it before take those shots. Bassicly i use the old enclosure (the large tub) and just move the crates to it, move all the crickets that fell off during the transfer then vacuum the bottom, and just put them back in. It takes about 10min.

The ramps are funny, sometimes I'd see smaller crickets with a missing leg so I thought I'd add a "wheel chair" friendly ramp, Its a by law : P

Whatever works for you. My only concern would be the close proximity of those eggcrates to the lamp. id be rigging the lamp outside if possible, crix are pretty hardy, a few degrees either way, not much difference.

Ooo its so fancy.

There nasty little things though..

I think you did well so don't take my criticisms the wrong way.... If I were a cricket I would live in your keeper lol


But it'll be a pain to clean and maintain.

Remember crickets are dirty little terds and need to be cleaned... so.. making your life easier is making your cricket keeper simple.

Things to remember with crickets... they need heat, they like it dark, they don't like their own smell... so you want ventilation, and a lot of it.

To follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Silly) rule.....

a rubbermaid with just some food/water dishes and a fan at one end, and a vent on the other end with egg crates by the vent, food by the fan.... you can toss the egg crates when you clean and you can easily wash out and not brake a rubbermaid container.

yOU SHOULD HAVE LIVE PLANTS AND GET RID OF THAT COMPACT UV BULB GET A TUBE AND RAISE IT UP HIGH CRIX LIKE TO BE AT EYE LEVEL OH AND BE SURE THE PLANTS ARE WASHED TEN TIMES AND USE ORGANIC DIRT AND MAKE SURE THEY'RE SAFE PLANTS HAHAHAHAHAHA OH AND BAKE THE WHOLE CONTAINER BEFORE YOU PUT THEM IN

ciafardo 4 said:

yOU SHOULD HAVE LIVE PLANTS AND GET RID OF THAT COMPACT UV BULB GET A TUBE AND RAISE IT UP HIGH CRIX LIKE TO BE AT EYE LEVEL OH AND BE SURE THE PLANTS ARE WASHED TEN TIMES AND USE ORGANIC DIRT AND MAKE SURE THEY'RE SAFE PLANTS HAHAHAHAHAHA OH AND BAKE THE WHOLE CONTAINER BEFORE YOU PUT THEM IN

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WTH are you talking about?

That setup looks very nice.

In the past I have liked the 38 gallon rubbermaid/tupperware type setups. You can use a box cutter to cut out the middle and a wood burner or hot glue gun to add some mesh for ventilation. They are also very easy to take out and clean and or replace.

I think he's joking...

summoner12 said:

WTH are you talking about?

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luevelvet said:

I think he's joking...

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ooooooooooooh