Epic Parsonii Enclosure: Part 1

Extensionofgreen

Extensionofgreen

Chameleon Enthusiast
Today I began building my 8' Left to Right X 4' Front to Back X 6' 10" Tall on the Left and 6' Tall on the Right enclosure, for my Orange Eye parsonii pair.
The enclosure will be lined with pond liner and some trees will be planted directly in substrate, while others will be potted. I have a colorful assortment of variegated foliage and colorful blooming plants to make this a living, functional, work of art.
Here are the humble beginnings. More pics to come, including an ongoing update on the growth of the plants, using lights from our very own sponsor, Lightyourreptiles.com
Stay tuned!
 

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Phase 2 and things are moving at a snail's pace, but progress is being seen. There's a lot more behind the scenes work, such as loading and unloading 60+ bags of potting mix, finding out your help forgets or never hears half of your discussions, after things are already partially built.....the usual.
Gonna be the end of the week, I bet, before plants and lights are in place.
We are going to fix the crooked stud and put doors and a roof on, tomorrow.
 

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I'm using 1 1/2' of soil in the cage bottom. About 4" above the floor of the cage are PVC pipes that have egg crate/plastic grid, on top and on top of the lighting grid is weed block fabric, then the actual substrate. Some plants will be planted in the actual enclosure, others will be potted and/or sat atop risers.
 
Very nice, and thumbs up for the false bottom :). I am going to do the same thing with a DS laying bin for a permanent bin.
 
Extensionofgreen said:
I'm using 1 1/2' of soil in the cage bottom. About 4" above the floor of the cage are PVC pipes that have egg crate/plastic grid, on top and on top of the lighting grid is weed block fabric, then the actual substrate. Some plants will be planted in the actual enclosure, others will be potted and/or sat atop risers.
Click to expand...

You might not like my comment. Sorry.

You're overdoing this. Having a substrate with an animal big enough and powerful enough to ingest a large rock if it shoots at a prey item on the substrate and misses is a bad idea. for my .02 I'd keep it as egg crate wrapped in cloth screen. Use potted plants. Much easier to keep clean, less chance of something being ingested, easy to see any food items that got out of your feeding bin, fecal samples are easier to locate, also wet soil mixed with lizard shit tends to smell over time.

Size and ventilation look good. Your lighting will round it all out
 
Virgil1972 said:
It is looking pretty nice. What are you going to do for drainage?
Click to expand...

I'm also concerned about the drainage??
Your using a pond liner (which hold water) as your base what happens with all the water from your misting system? Outdoors all the water will just get sucked up by the ground and eventually dries up.But your about 1 1/2 ' deep.. you see where I'm going with this? Just a sign of concern...
 
I have a false bottom, which means that there is room 154 cubic" of water to collect beneath, which will then be siphoned out. As far as substrate, there will be a mixture of bark and mulch, aerated with lava rock. The rocks are too large to be swallowed, but they will be buried underneath a cap of organic soil, without any added particulates that could be ingested. In an enclosure this large and as densely planted, with an 18" deep layer of absorbative substrate, there should be very little water accumulating, that would need vacuumed out, but it has been accounted for. Also, in this size enclosure and with a live, deep substrate, there should be no odors or accumulation of waste, because it will be braking down rather quickly with so much water and plant life, as well as active soil microbes. Having a well planned substrate layer is a GOOD thing for chameleons. It holds and releases humidity and due to its depth and dense planting, there will be more places that have varying degrees of moisture, for egg laying choices. This reduces the risk of complications from laying. The soil surfaces will also be largerly covered with live foliage. Trust me, I've thought this through and have experience.
I have 2 X 20" circulating the air, at different heights and on either side to keep things from getting stagnant of foul smelling.
 
I assumed the 24/7 laying bin was part of the reason for the soil. I am doing the same exact thing for some panther cages :).

We even have very similar ideas for the drainage and stuff :) great minds and all that :).
 
I understand now and see your vision.. your floor is just going to be suspended under the cage and the pond liner just catch the leftover water..How about the plant root? Don't you think after a few years it will go out of control underneath all that?? Sorry for asking all these questions...
 
savage13 said:
I understand now and see your vision.. your floor is just going to be suspended under the cage and the pond liner just catch the leftover water..How about the plant root? Don't you think after a few years it will go out of control underneath all that?? Sorry for asking all these questions...
Click to expand...

I do not think that is what he is doing, he is just doing a False bottom. so basically.

He has a floor pan, (pond liner) that is the floor. Then he takes a big piece of eggcrate (the grid stuff). He cuts that the size of the floor. Then he takes small strips of egg crate and makes legs, this raises the egg crate off the floor by a few inches.
That will look something like this (except these guys have a small pond, his will cover the whole floor)
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Then he covers that with weed screen, that prevents the dirt from falling through. the water can however go through the weed screens micro channels. After that he covers the whole thing with soil/sand mix or whatever he uses.

He can then plant the plants directly into the soil.

You do bring up and interesting point with the roots. I may adapt my similar idea with this, extension may think about this too :).

You could put the plants pot inside the soil, with a thin layer over top, this would give the appearance of the plants being in the soil while controlling the roots.

The downside of this is if given the chance from what I have read chameleons like to lay there eggs near roots of plants.

From there he has 2 ways of drainage.

1 is he could run a tube under the soil into the bottom of the egg crate, he could then use a self priming pump to empty the water by siphoning it. I think this is the way he is going. Is using PVC to lift the legs, and putting the eggcrate at 4 inches from the bottom. That gives him 18432 Cubic inches, he can hold 79 gallons of water in the bottom.

2 is he could put a drain at the bottom of the floor that would drain in to a bucket.

This choice is limited if his bottom is on the floor (I think his is) he is stuck with 1 only, however if it is lifted (In my case it will be) he could go with 1 or 2.

sorry to speak for you extension. If this isnt your plan please tell us yours :). It just seems like you have the same plan as me so I figured I would help out, clearing it up.

Oh and the weed liner will keep the roots from going into the egg crate (thats what its actually for) the roots may try to take up the sideways though.
 
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This is the idea behind what I'm doing. Even with over an hour of misting, there will be so many plants and foliage, very little water should make its way through the deep soil and accumulate. The roots will be kept in check by the weed block and the lack of soil, under the grate, but if they do find their way into the empty space, they will do no harm, just absorb more water.
 
savage13 said:
I'm also concerned about the drainage??
Your using a pond liner (which hold water) as your base what happens with all the water from your misting system? Outdoors all the water will just get sucked up by the ground and eventually dries up.But your about 1 1/2 ' deep.. you see where I'm going with this? Just a sign of concern...
Click to expand...
The plants that he said he would plant will soakc up much of the excess water.
 
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