Louie got a new cage! Have Dialup? You've been warned...

[CruiserMaiden]

Ok so he wasnt as active as I thought he should be in his other cage, and I thought he needed more room. My brilliant idea? Get two 46" kiddie pools, cut the bottom off of one and fasten them together. Since the top is sloped inwards he cant get out, but I had an old collapsable rabbit cage that unfolds perfectly to fit the top so the cat cant get in, and the wire spacing on it was 1" by like 5" or 6" so I figure his UV can get thru no problem. Temps seem to be doing great and he has a ton of places to hide now! He's been running around and digging in the substrate and having a great time. Total cost (including additional furnishings required to make more hides and basking places, but not including the rabbit cage cause I had that) $30. Total time for assembly: 1 hour (including going to two different Wal-Marts looking for the kiddie pools. It took like 15 minutes to assemble once I got home). Any comments welcome

*edit* one of the two clamp lamps is a MVB and the other is just for extra heat. the small UV tube lamp on the other side is just what I had on hand until my larger UVB strip comes in...

















And of course some of HIM in there...

	Ultra Violet Radiation B Ultra Violet Radiation B

[amercnwmn]

Pretty inventive..Another suggestion Lowes and Home Depot have the wider set mesh...That and a staple gun or Gorilla Glue will cover the hole if you dont want to leave the cage on top..Unless thats how you get him out.. LOL
I think its great! Did he seem happy?
Will it be hard to heat that much space?

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[CruiserMaiden]

I actually just had to turn off one of his lamps cause it was TOO hot in there. So no its not too hard to heat. The cage bends in three places so thats how I get him out. I may make a lid out of mesh and wood later tho if this doesnt work out.

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[amercnwmn]

Thats cool
I had a hard time heating the larger tanks, but I was also NOT using the high watt bulbs.. Looks pretty good..Love the way the yellow goes with his colors LOL

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[Pork Chops N' Corn Bread]

Very nice. About how big do those thinks measure? Would probably be good for beardies too

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[amercnwmn]

pssst Pork, LOOK UP hehehehe

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[Pork Chops N' Corn Bread]

Originally Posted by amercnwmn

pssst Pork, LOOK UP hehehehe

????

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[YetiBoy]

LOL Pork he said the pools are 46"

Crusier that is a great setup I love it!

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[Pork Chops N' Corn Bread]

Originally Posted by YetiBoy

LOL Pork he said the pools are 46"
Crusier that is a great setup I love it!

I bet a beardie or 2 would love that

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[amercnwmn]

Originally Posted by YetiBoy

LOL Pork he said the pools are 46"
Crusier that is a great setup I love it!

*ahem MAIDEN...Cruiser MAIDEN...Mary is a GIRL *

OOOonnnly here to help!

LOL

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[YetiBoy]

Eesh my bad now don't I look like a real ahole :S

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[amercnwmn]

Originally Posted by Pork Chops N' Corn Bread

I bet a beardie or 2 would love that

a full grown beardie would do great in there...frilled lizard...small Sav, turtles..Small of course, but it would be a great home for them and not horribly expensive to set up

I used my wading pools for feeding the large boas, and letting my snakes swim around in it on really hot days

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[CruiserMaiden]

Pork may have been referring to the size of the uro, not the pool. Louie should get about 18" he's 11.5" right now. They make much larger wading pools (they had a 5.5 ft one like this one only with little fishy patterns and one bigger than that that had a slide I think would make a great turtle home cause they could get up on top of the slide for a basking area but anyhow...) However I drive a Scion xA and it was tough fitting this size pool in there, so the larger pool was just not going to happen... I'm using a 100W mvb and its hot in my house so the heat is holding fine plus I have a 75W incandecent bulb for just heat if he needs it (but its not turned on cause I was cooking him with it on...) I figure he has plenty of room to move around (he's been running laps) and can thermoregulate however he wants cause of the temperature gradient all over the place... As far as the yellow: It comes in blue, pink and yellow. I didn't like the blue, and Will said he refuses to have a giant pink bubble in the office where Louie is, so yellow it is!

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[JMReptiles]

I wouldnt have thought to use the kidie pools. Thats a great idea. Setup looks good...makes me think now about going and getting them for my beardie so he can run laps too...then get a friend for "him". Looks great!

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[CruiserMaiden]

I like to modify existing things rather than build new things... I'm weird like that. So I wanted to find something that I could use to make him a bigger cage, cause aquariums big enough to make Louie happy are too big for me to move around to clean out. I was originally looking at using a bookshelf, lining it with linoleum tiles and sealing it off and then putting a cover on it, but I couldnt find anything that would end up being more than 12" high, and I didnt think that was enough height for him. So I was thinking and this came up. My major concern was that the plastic was going to be really hard to cut, but I was able to cut the whole bottom off the pool with a cheap box cutter in under a minute (and I bought jigsaw blades and everything!) For putting holes in plastic I normally use an old soldering iron rather than a drill because a lot of times plastic can be brittle and chip or crack so I just positioned the "ring" around the top and melted holes in it. You cant see them but the whole thing is held together with plastic zip ties about every six inches all the way around. My only problem now is that he has so many places to run and hide that if he doesn't want to come to me (and he normally doesnt) its a pain to get him out (I can do it, but he keeps running to new hides and since the hides have to be on the bottom of the cage and not sitting on substrate, I cant move them to get him out)!