Professor Booty
New Member
Note: this is probably overly verbose for most people on here, so skip my ramblings if you want 
My ~1 year old veiled has outgrown the Reptarium he came with. I jumped on the LLL Reptile.com 24"^2 x 48" cage deal then set about collecting goodies for it.
This cage wouldn't fit in or on anything I currently own, and presentation is kinda important to me. I settled on Ikea's "build your own table," thing. The top is a basic 29.5" square piece of the cheapest stuff they had, the legs (just black metal poles) were $5 each. It was about $40 for the whole table- way cheaper than anything else with similar functionality and looks that I'd found.
For drainage I took the largest drill bit I could find and drilled a hole through the table. I cut up a $0.99 funnel so that just the spout and a tiny bit of the top part were left. This allows the water to flow through the hole without getting the cheapo pressed cardboard/fiberboard wet. I might use epoxy or something else to seal off the hole properly sometime in the future, I'm not sure. I also want to attach a hanging tray to the bottom so I can put my drainage tub a few inches under the table and out of sight- currently the funnel just drips into a big plastic utility tub sitting on the floor.
The plastic bottom tray of the cage has 3 small holes drilled into it so that water can drain but crickets can't escape.
To get a little extra clearance I cut and double-stacked cheap coasters (also found at Ikea) at all 4 corners. They're the black things on the table in the picture. This allows the outer edges of the plastic tray to sit higher than the middle where the drain holes are. They also allow a tiny bit of airflow under the plastic to keep moisture from building up, and they prevent the cage from scratching the table. Not that I think that'll happen- the corners of the cage are soft plastic - but now there's no way it can happen.
The live plant is a dwarf umbrella. It has all-organic potting soil and a layer of large, black river rocks on both the top and bottom. The former prevents the chameleon from ingesting any of the soil, the latter prevents root rot from any water caught in the bottom of the pot (though it has holes to drain out) and helps keep the soil from getting washed out.
The dripper setup is pretty slick. One of the reptile guys at Preuss Pets - http://www.preusspets.com/ - in Lansing, MI suggested this to me. Awesome, awesome pet store for anyone in the area, btw. I bought a package of small plastic plants meant for an aquarium. The bottom of each strand has a round "socket" where a "ball" goes in to hold it. The base has a bunch of those ball-ends, and the top of each strand has one that is used to hold on a white flower-looking piece. I just chained the strands end-to-end, carefully put in a dab of superglue, WASHED THOROUGHLY, then pushed the top ball-end through the cage and snapped one of the flowers back on to hold it all in place.
The dripper just drips right onto that top flower and drips the entire way down, works great. Here's a video. Sorry it looks all distorted; youtube didn't like the aspect ratio of the camera i used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf1fWSGrUK8
I might get a stand so that I can raise the live plant up higher until it grows some more, it's currently too low IMO. Another 10-15 feet of vine would be good too, he needs more climbing areas around the middle.
Questions, comments, concerns?
My ~1 year old veiled has outgrown the Reptarium he came with. I jumped on the LLL Reptile.com 24"^2 x 48" cage deal then set about collecting goodies for it.
This cage wouldn't fit in or on anything I currently own, and presentation is kinda important to me. I settled on Ikea's "build your own table," thing. The top is a basic 29.5" square piece of the cheapest stuff they had, the legs (just black metal poles) were $5 each. It was about $40 for the whole table- way cheaper than anything else with similar functionality and looks that I'd found.
For drainage I took the largest drill bit I could find and drilled a hole through the table. I cut up a $0.99 funnel so that just the spout and a tiny bit of the top part were left. This allows the water to flow through the hole without getting the cheapo pressed cardboard/fiberboard wet. I might use epoxy or something else to seal off the hole properly sometime in the future, I'm not sure. I also want to attach a hanging tray to the bottom so I can put my drainage tub a few inches under the table and out of sight- currently the funnel just drips into a big plastic utility tub sitting on the floor.
The plastic bottom tray of the cage has 3 small holes drilled into it so that water can drain but crickets can't escape.
To get a little extra clearance I cut and double-stacked cheap coasters (also found at Ikea) at all 4 corners. They're the black things on the table in the picture. This allows the outer edges of the plastic tray to sit higher than the middle where the drain holes are. They also allow a tiny bit of airflow under the plastic to keep moisture from building up, and they prevent the cage from scratching the table. Not that I think that'll happen- the corners of the cage are soft plastic - but now there's no way it can happen.
The live plant is a dwarf umbrella. It has all-organic potting soil and a layer of large, black river rocks on both the top and bottom. The former prevents the chameleon from ingesting any of the soil, the latter prevents root rot from any water caught in the bottom of the pot (though it has holes to drain out) and helps keep the soil from getting washed out.
The dripper setup is pretty slick. One of the reptile guys at Preuss Pets - http://www.preusspets.com/ - in Lansing, MI suggested this to me. Awesome, awesome pet store for anyone in the area, btw. I bought a package of small plastic plants meant for an aquarium. The bottom of each strand has a round "socket" where a "ball" goes in to hold it. The base has a bunch of those ball-ends, and the top of each strand has one that is used to hold on a white flower-looking piece. I just chained the strands end-to-end, carefully put in a dab of superglue, WASHED THOROUGHLY, then pushed the top ball-end through the cage and snapped one of the flowers back on to hold it all in place.
The dripper just drips right onto that top flower and drips the entire way down, works great. Here's a video. Sorry it looks all distorted; youtube didn't like the aspect ratio of the camera i used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yf1fWSGrUK8
I might get a stand so that I can raise the live plant up higher until it grows some more, it's currently too low IMO. Another 10-15 feet of vine would be good too, he needs more climbing areas around the middle.
Questions, comments, concerns?
