Howdy,
To get straight to the point, I never really housed a chameleon before except an inherited one in a glass vivarium 6years ago, which was sick and got sicker.
Anyway, the past is the past, I have spent a couple of years on and off documenting myself, building other terraria for geckos and turtles mostly, and I came up with this design today.
I intend to acquire a panther male specimen in a couple of months, or in a year. Never too soon for preparation, I studied most of the recent topics here, and came up with a design convenient for my purposes.
So here are the homemade blueprints - they are in perspective-pseudo-3D cuz I hate having 5 different plans for one single object
The pics are bad for my scanner is out of order, so I took my camera
Here are the photos - sorry for the high size but I needed resolution to compensate for bad lights.
The thumbnails are linked to the full picture on imageshack.us
Same color means same length - or same overall length for the cross bar parts.
Lengths are given as Inside lengths for easy adaptation to any type and size of wood available.
Of course the wooden parts will be coated with non-toxic paint and, probably, black silicone, for the obvious reasons.
Forgive poor quality and bad coloring, but I prefer drawing myself to computerized gibberish, so it is not that beatiful
So basically the idea was to build a square-shaped base for the cage, as many of you do or did, and to have sufficient height to put the UVB tube inside the cage, with a gross mesh protection under it (some sort of a box I'll MacGuyver out of the reflector and some 1-2cm mesh screen, to have sufficient UVB throughput without having either danger for the panther nor escape risks of the free bugs. ) Though I wish to use anodized aluminum as screen, I may opt for nylon-based light screens, and plastic doesn't really like being overexposed to UV over the years. So the inner UV tube sounds better in both cases, given proper protection around it.
The little PVC support thingy I planned to hold the whole cage is just an insurance policy to be able to put a tray under it should the chosen misting system and misting schedules produce excessive water. It also enables to hide other stuff under it. The cage bottom being also screen, to allow for drainage into the tray without loss of feeders, I preferred this structure in PVC to avoid wood damage.
Another solution if the canopy is fairly good and no soaking is persistent, is to put an Exo-Terra flextray and skip the little support furniture thingy.
The cross bars on the bottom of the cage will probably be wood, though plastic or metal can be an option. Their role is mainly to provide sufficient support to the plant pots. They are affixed inside the main frame so position is adjustable to number and size of plants. A small plastic square can be nailed on a bar crossing to provide extra stability - didn't put it in the blueprint, it is already overloaded.
I pondered a lot about putting a smaller door above the main door too, to have access to the lamp without opening the whole thing, but I decided against it. The wood structure is not that lightweight, and it would have been quite a useless door in my opinion.
The small bottom door seemed more useful for bottom cleaning, but it was mainly an idea to not just put a transversal structure bar under the main door. I don't really like full-length doors so that's why
An option I am thinking of is putting office-furniture wheels (the ones with a "break" on them) on the support thingy in PVC. Though in Paris the only sunbathing I would allow would be through an open window in the summer, as my balcony is too small, the wheels would allow easy turning of the cage for proper cleaning or moving around to a better place.
Technologies are not really discussed here, but the main systems would comprise of:
-an inner UV tube, reptisun 5.0 with proper protection as it will be inside;
-a basking spot-lamp that will be outside for fear of overheating, burns and other nice things such as misting water on the bulb Hence the aluminum screen, so as not to melt the cage on the first day
-Misting system is not chosen yet, but I already know which to avoid thanks to some...lively posts around here
-Temp and humidity control will be set with a 4way thermo-hygrometer of multiple 2way ones for monitoring "low-altitude", "high-altitude", basking and room temperature and moisture.
-I don't believe any extra heating will be necessary on top of the basking lamp given the temps in the apartment - my sister hates the cold
-My Good'Ol' Big Drippa' is also ready for complementary water source purposes - the geckos just hated the black pipe and kept biting at it whenever they were nearby (bites of anger, not of thirst, as there is also a dish and a waterfall in their enclosure)
SO here it is, and I wanted to ask you your ideas, tips, hints, remarks and observations about this little plan of mine that will slowly take form when the plans are finished.
Oh and thanks for reading so far
To get straight to the point, I never really housed a chameleon before except an inherited one in a glass vivarium 6years ago, which was sick and got sicker.
Anyway, the past is the past, I have spent a couple of years on and off documenting myself, building other terraria for geckos and turtles mostly, and I came up with this design today.
I intend to acquire a panther male specimen in a couple of months, or in a year. Never too soon for preparation, I studied most of the recent topics here, and came up with a design convenient for my purposes.
So here are the homemade blueprints - they are in perspective-pseudo-3D cuz I hate having 5 different plans for one single object
The pics are bad for my scanner is out of order, so I took my camera
Here are the photos - sorry for the high size but I needed resolution to compensate for bad lights.
The thumbnails are linked to the full picture on imageshack.us
Same color means same length - or same overall length for the cross bar parts.
Lengths are given as Inside lengths for easy adaptation to any type and size of wood available.
Of course the wooden parts will be coated with non-toxic paint and, probably, black silicone, for the obvious reasons.
Forgive poor quality and bad coloring, but I prefer drawing myself to computerized gibberish, so it is not that beatiful
So basically the idea was to build a square-shaped base for the cage, as many of you do or did, and to have sufficient height to put the UVB tube inside the cage, with a gross mesh protection under it (some sort of a box I'll MacGuyver out of the reflector and some 1-2cm mesh screen, to have sufficient UVB throughput without having either danger for the panther nor escape risks of the free bugs. ) Though I wish to use anodized aluminum as screen, I may opt for nylon-based light screens, and plastic doesn't really like being overexposed to UV over the years. So the inner UV tube sounds better in both cases, given proper protection around it.
The little PVC support thingy I planned to hold the whole cage is just an insurance policy to be able to put a tray under it should the chosen misting system and misting schedules produce excessive water. It also enables to hide other stuff under it. The cage bottom being also screen, to allow for drainage into the tray without loss of feeders, I preferred this structure in PVC to avoid wood damage.
Another solution if the canopy is fairly good and no soaking is persistent, is to put an Exo-Terra flextray and skip the little support furniture thingy.
The cross bars on the bottom of the cage will probably be wood, though plastic or metal can be an option. Their role is mainly to provide sufficient support to the plant pots. They are affixed inside the main frame so position is adjustable to number and size of plants. A small plastic square can be nailed on a bar crossing to provide extra stability - didn't put it in the blueprint, it is already overloaded.
I pondered a lot about putting a smaller door above the main door too, to have access to the lamp without opening the whole thing, but I decided against it. The wood structure is not that lightweight, and it would have been quite a useless door in my opinion.
The small bottom door seemed more useful for bottom cleaning, but it was mainly an idea to not just put a transversal structure bar under the main door. I don't really like full-length doors so that's why
An option I am thinking of is putting office-furniture wheels (the ones with a "break" on them) on the support thingy in PVC. Though in Paris the only sunbathing I would allow would be through an open window in the summer, as my balcony is too small, the wheels would allow easy turning of the cage for proper cleaning or moving around to a better place.
Technologies are not really discussed here, but the main systems would comprise of:
-an inner UV tube, reptisun 5.0 with proper protection as it will be inside;
-a basking spot-lamp that will be outside for fear of overheating, burns and other nice things such as misting water on the bulb
Hence the aluminum screen, so as not to melt the cage on the first day -Misting system is not chosen yet, but I already know which to avoid thanks to some...lively posts around here
-Temp and humidity control will be set with a 4way thermo-hygrometer of multiple 2way ones for monitoring "low-altitude", "high-altitude", basking and room temperature and moisture.
-I don't believe any extra heating will be necessary on top of the basking lamp given the temps in the apartment - my sister hates the cold
-My Good'Ol' Big Drippa' is also ready for complementary water source purposes - the geckos just hated the black pipe and kept biting at it whenever they were nearby (bites of anger, not of thirst, as there is also a dish and a waterfall in their enclosure
)SO here it is, and I wanted to ask you your ideas, tips, hints, remarks and observations about this little plan of mine that will slowly take form when the plans are finished.
Oh and thanks for reading so far
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