dshuld
Chameleon Enthusiast
I adopted Lola on June 28th from @curtm1985 with some help from @jannb (thank you both of you) and this has been a longer process then I originally planned on it being. Weekend weather held me up for the first couple of weeks and some spar urethane issues held me up for another week of this process. I'm hoping to have her setup and back in her home this coming weekend if everything goes well. I moved her out of her home this past Sunday to work on the cage portion after finally getting the base and stand set in place and planted that morning.I didn't take many pictures for most of this process so I apologize for that. The stand is made of 2x4 and I have the height at 31.75". I made it the same way I've made my diy fish tank stands for years so it is more then capable of supporting the weight it is carrying. It is a design I think I found on "king of diy" way back when with a support piece between the upper and lower plates screwed to the backer that the top and bottom plates are screwed to. That way rather then the screws carrying the load the wood structure does all of the carrying.
The plant box is 1x12 boards and 23/32 plywood cut to fit the outside dimensions of the 30x18x30 exo terra she came with. Though I probably went way overboard on this step, it is sealed with three layers of epoxy paint, three layers of spar urethane inside and out and two layers of liquid flex seal inside. I drilled the hole for the 1/2" bulkhead being used for the drain before putting the epoxy paint and urethane on and then sealed every thing. Once those coats were on I sealed the bulkhead in with silicone and followed that up with the two coats of liquid flex seal. The outside of the box was then painted flat black.
This brings me to something that is still semi controversial, naturalistic hydration. I've had several pm's with @JacksJill bouncing ideas off her wonderful brain on how I wanted to do my entry point into all of my cages as I go along setting them all up this way. I don't recall if I brought up the low profile strainer to her but that is what I decided to go with. I went with 1.5" low profile strainers that will be mounted towards the top center of the enclosures. I plan on using ocean mist maker foggers in the long run but haven't gotten them in yet so for now it will be temporarily plumbed 1" at the cool mist humidifier side going into the 1.5" that will run up and into the enclosure since I do have a spare cool mist humidifier atm.
This past Sunday I took apart her exo terra and cut plastex panels to mount inside of the enclosure and then reassembled it. I cut the hole for the low profile strainer and siliconed the seams on the back wall and lower sides. Though I have read that krylon quit making fusion, Lowes still carries it in several colors so I grabbed some blue for the white walls/ black strainer.
I still have a lot of work to try and get through this week but I'm hopeful lol. I still have to put leaf litter in the box, assemble the fogger plumbing after sitting the cage on the plant box, run my rope/ vines, adjust the pothos that is on the bottom for ground cover once the cage is on top, get the lighting set up on the timers and probably some other miscellaneous stuff I'm forgetting about atm. I will be grabbing some willow branches from probably hobby lobby to add in with everything else. I may try some of the parks around but of the parks around me are mostly pine trees so not hopeful there lol. Here are some pics of the progress so far though I don't have one with the blue paint sprayed in though.
