New cage: my turn

[Mesnik]

After 4 months with my first chameleon, surfing this forum and having him on a small cage, it came the time to move Izzy, a 5 month old veiled to his new digs.

Thanks for a lot of people that helped knowingly and unknowingly (thanks for the pics and posts!!!).

I went with the "great stuff" foam, covered with coconut fibers and drift wood.

I am using a www.herpmist.com mister with two nozzles, ZooMed UVB 5.0 and two basking lights (one at 85F and one at 95F). I have digital thermometers for each basking spot and digital hygrometer.

Scheflera, pothos, and ficus (the ficus pot was on the old, small cage - see pic in my gallery).

And I feed him crix + silkies.

One thing that I did a bit different than most here, I made two sides as a backgroung (as the cage is on a corner) and the other two sides, I made the doors removable. So they don't swing open, rather they have two dowels at the bottom and latches on the sides. That way, I can remove them and it looks almost like there is no cage...

Hope Izzy likes it. This is his first night there... Will see tomorrow.

Here are some pics...more in the gallery.


Roberto.

 

[AFH]

Nice job. I like the removable sides idea.

 

[Justin Carl]

Very nice!
Its good to hear that someone actually does their homework.
I like your floors too.LOL
I'm in flooring, I tend to notice it.
Dont trash it with all that water.

 

[Blue Eyes]

Hi. New to your forum and Veiled Chameleons. Just wanted to point out that you misspelled HERP in the web site? Should be www.herpmist.com I think.

Blue Eyes
Redondo Beach, CA

 

[Mesnik]

Thanks. We are all happy the way it turned out. It looks like Izzy is too.

I tossed the crickets this morning and he was after them. It will take him longer but I am sure he will have more fun.

Thanks for the floor notes! I am making sure the mist stays inside... I might have to put some sort of rugs/protection around... I am assuming you are talking about the hardwood floor and not the cage floor!! HE!HE!

Thanks Blue Eyes for the note. I have already edited.

 

[Justin Carl]

Depending if it is solid or engineered wood water will ruin it.
Yea I would definitely put down some kind of mat to protect your floors.
I have cork in several bedrooms of my house, and some of the rooms have cages in them.
Every cage has a black rubber mat around them.

 

[PardalisGirl]

Wow

Wow! That is a VERY attractive cage setup. I'm sure Izzy will be thrilled with the space and the plants. It's very attractive for people to look at too. Did you build the cage yourself? Thanks for sharing it with us. A most excellent home for a cham

 

[Mesnik]

Thanks Catherine for the kind words. I buit it myself. It took over two months working here and there... And as it sits in our living room, I thought looking good was one of the requirements.

It is really cool to look at it without the doors! I will take better pictures and add to the gallery later this weekend.

Justin - thanks for the note. I will certanly address that!! I would be worried about Izzy if the floor gets ruined...who would feed him since my wife would have me killed!!!

 

[jack frost]

wow..I was interested in what looked like the drainage system underneath and also where did you get the plans?

 

[Mesnik]

Jack Frost - take a look again at the first picture and maybe you can see the stainless steel tube coming out of the floor (if you want I can take more pics). That is a tube that came with my wife's new sink and I didn't use for that matter... I formed a piece of aluminum scree on the top, shoved it into the flor hole, and siliconed it around. It is working good so far...

As far as the plans, I create my own. I have it in a CAD system if you would like... The only thing that is not there are the dowels at the bottom of each door (2 per door) to locate them in place (I did it so I can remove them competely), and the latches. Not complicated, and it can be changed to regular hinges.

Thanks for looking!!

Roberto.

 

[Cally95]

Cage looks great, nice work!! Can you or someone explain the 2 basking spots in your original post? Isn't that to much heat even for a Veiled? What are the measurements of the cage? From the pics, it doesnt look like there is that much room for a temperature gradient with 2 heat bulbs. I am not trying to be a downer, just curious.

Thanks,

Dell

 

[Mesnik]

No problem Dell. The cage is 36" by 34" by 48" tall.

The two basking spots are at the back and the UVB in the front half. The temperature up in back is higher than up in front, and definetly lower as it goes down. The basking spots are one at 85 F and one at 90 F. Again, it drops fast as it moves away from the top branches.


Hope this helped! Let me know if you need more details.

And thanks for the kind words about the cage!!

Roberto.

 

[jack frost]

I didn't notice the drain pipe! awesome. I'm gonna wait till I have some free time before I try something like that. Running I'm business trying to assist my wife with her intro to cockatiel breeding and studying husbandry of a chameleon fro a couple hours every night is very very time consuming.

 

[Mesnik]

Any time!!!!

 

[summoner12]

Very nice cage!

My only concern was your run off cup. Is that big enough? I use a 5 Gallon bucket and its full by the end of the week. (maybe I just mist a lot?)


Again very very nice. Its cool to hear someone did their research before building!

 

[Dankmeleon]

i like this alot, good luck sorting out the final tweaks!

 

[Mesnik]

Thanks a lot for the comments!!

That bucket is long gone... replaced with the same 5 gallons that I have for the reservoir one.

So far all is looking good.

The lessons learned here is that I didn't account for the cham's growth when placing the top most branch. No biggie, I will cut it off and rework.

For sure I can tell that he is a lot happpier in there, and moving a lot!!