Cage height in room
- Thread starter Hawk99TA
- Start date
SourGrape4u
Avid Member
I make mine about 7ft at highest point to account for heatlamps and all
Ramrod
Chameleon Enthusiast
Yup, higher the better
Klyde O'Scope
Chameleon Enthusiast
Mine's sitting on a standard 29" height table with 2" of drainage tray underneath it, so top of enclosure is roughly... 29+2+48=79". (~6½ ft so basking perch is just about at/above eye level.) Lights are on top of that. The room has cathedral ceilings, so if I went as high as I could, I wouldn't be able to access it! 
Hawk99TA
New Member
Mine's sitting on a standard 29" height table with 2" of drainage tray underneath it, so top of enclosure is roughly... 29+2+48=79". (~6½ ft so basking perch is just about at/above eye level.) Lights are on top of that. The room has cathedral ceilings, so if I went as high as I could, I wouldn't be able to access it!
I am interested in how your drainage tray is set up. This could prove to be valuable info during the build process. Any tips?
Klyde O'Scope
Chameleon Enthusiast
I have a commercially available setup, but it was... less thoughtfully designed than I would have thought, and required modifications that should have been designed/built into it.
That said, there are a LOT of good ideas and discussion in the archives—in particular the threads in the shaded green area at the top of this section.
Tips: (from my own experience & what I've learned)
- Decide ahead of time where you want your drain—center bottom, corner, center edge, etc.
- Anywhere but center bottom, you will likely need to provide some pitch to get the water to flow toward the drain rather than sit and get stagnant. This can be done a number of ways; consider if your method will place any undo stress on the enclosure, drain pan, or base/table. You don't need much pitch—⅛" to ¼" per foot should be sufficient.
- Make sure there are no structural components blocking the flow of water toward the drain.
- Depending on your design, you'll likely want the drainage pan/tray slightly larger (1" on all sides) than the enclosure itself. If so, the enclosure will either have to rest on the tray somehow or sit entirely inside the tray. If it sits inside the tray, the bottom frame will need to be waterproof or raised up on "feet".
- There are a godzillion different sized drain pans/trays available for less than commercial enclosure drain pans or what you could build one for. Molded plastic starting around $25 to stainless for $100 or more. These usually come with drain fittings included. For example, for a 24 x 24 enclosure, search: drain pan 26 x 26.
- Shop price. In the search above, Amazon's price was almost twice that of Ferguson's. (not an endorsement)
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