Clay's Giant Enclosure Build!

[etclement]

Hello! In this thread I am going to be logging anything to do with the cage build for my young Veiled, Clay. I will be logging my progress, purchases, and milestones for the cage, similar to the Epic Parsonii Build (which was the inspiration for this cage). You can find the basic overview of the cage in this thread. However, I have changed a few things since that thread was posted. The cage will possibly 6" to 1' taller, I have bought the mistking, the substrate will be a few inches of hydroponic clay balls or something similar, screen, then 12-18" of Sunshine mix 4. The lighting will be a 1 100w MegaRay UVB/Heat bulb, a few Jungle Dawns, and a few t5s.

 

[serenaj25]

awesome! hope everything works out for you

 

[etclement]

Sunday, May 21st
The first Jungle Dawn is on its way, along with a socket cord to attach it to. I will use this one to grow plants for the enclosure. Plants that are being grown for the new enclosure and not in the current enclosure include: 100 Passiflora seeds, 3 Pothos cuttings, 1 Nepenthes pitcher plant, 1 Orange leaf Coleus. I am also growing Goji berries from seed, but those are more for fun and not the cage. I am also colonizing WC Armidillium Vulgare (isopod) and springtails from Josh's frogs for use later. No WC isopods will be used, as I am scouring their container almost daily for babies, and transplanting them to another container for the f1 isopods.

 

[etclement]

awesome! hope everything works out for you

Thanks! This will be a summer long project.

 

[etclement]

On another note, Clay has started showing his oranges nearly all the time now. For those of you who are wondering, 3.5 m/o veiled from Flcham's Naval Bloodline. You can see them a little bit in this photo, he was getting ready for sleep though. https://gyazo.com/2ab251a3b3c57048e3a0a64476669e79

 

[jamest0o0]

excited to see this come along. Love the bioactives. Good luck

 

[etclement]

Wednesday, May 24th
Clay hand fed on Monday for the first time. He also got to free range a bit in my room. I also got a Jungle Dawn LED today, so my plants can have plenty of light!

 

[etclement]

Monday, May 29th
Clay was handled for the first time today, I decided to take him out after he had already gotten out of his cage for his mini free range. I took him out in the sun and he turned an interesting shade of blueish that I had never seen on him before, as he usually stays orange with neon green. In other news, he shed for the third time today, the passiflora plants started coming up, and I'm going to my local botanical gardens tomorrow!

 

[etclement]

Friday, June 2nd
I hate not having anything to log in this thread. I made a couple of microfauna terrariums out of boredom. I also ordered about 60$ worth of plants, which includes a jeweled orchid, which I am very excited about. I also go shopping for the materials tomorrow, so hopefully things will start moving a lot faster! All my current plants are doing well, including two passiflora seedlings, a Nepenthes, a Celosia (Is this safe? It is safe for most pets), and multiple pothos and ficus cuttings. Springtail and isopod colonies are also doing well, and so is Clay! ("Greenhouse", Celosia, Terrarium1, Terrarium2)

 

[etclement]

Sunday, June 4th
I'm drawing out the cage and getting the materials today! The two passiflora seeds that did sprout are doing well, as is everything else. I made two cuttings of my kiwi fern coleus to propagate into two more beautiful plants to use in the enclosure.

 

[Redpen621]

I also have a naval bloodline from flchams. He's about 5.5 months

 

[etclement]

I also have a naval bloodline from flchams. He's about 5.5 months

Cool!

 

[etclement]

Sunday, June 4th
The cage blueprints and dimensions were finalized today. All in all, it's going to cost about $650. Whew

 

[broderp]

Pics?

 

[etclement]

Pics?

Cage has only been drawn out yet. I ordered a bunch of live plants that come Wednesday, I'll get pics of those

 

[etclement]

Tuesday, June 6th
No news on the new cage yet . Clay is still doing well, and both my isopod and springtail cultures are booming! I spent a good 15
minutes picking baby isopods out of the dirt and putting them in another container! The isopods are wc so I have to always take out the babies. On a worse note, my GBR colony got overrun by the darklink beetles I had in there. I'm down to about 5 adults and one nymph that I separated into a new bin. Hopefully I can get that going again. One last weird thing, I seem to have accidentally created a dubia morph. There is both a male and female with very clear side exoskeletons. More clear than what normal dubia have on their sides. One of them has bred at least once because I found some clear sided babies. Has anyone else had these happen, is it normal?

 

[etclement]

Friday, July 9th
Not a lot of news today. I've gotten clay to stop hissing so much when my hand is near him. Also, I ordered about 65 dollars worth of plants last Sunday. After the company not having part of the order, the package still hasn't even shipped yet! Seriously. Other than that, the existing plants are growing well, including the nepenthes and the three passiflora seedlings, which have started to grow true leaves. The celosia is also peeking up.

 

[jamest0o0]

Where do you order plants from

 

[etclement]

Where do you order plants from

Black Jungle Exotics... They had a great selection, if only it would ship!

 

[jamest0o0]

Me too, I just got an order from them. Bought stupid almond leaf litter. Said a 10 pack. Thought it meant 10 bags of leaves... it was literally 10 leaves lol.. They are huge though. They do have great stuff though