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...
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)
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
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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.
