New cage ( Work in progress )

[Darkmind]

Well now that I've said hi to everyone I thought I would share with you on how I'm coming with Gizmo's new cage.

About two weeks ago I found a guy in my area selling a very large cage for only 50 bones, come to find out the cage he is selling is the kind that I've been wanting to get but they retail for over 300 bones in my local area. It was a little beat up and needed lots of TLC, the inside was torn up pretty bad and looked like he had kept an iguana in it. I had that thing loaded in my truck and was half way home before he could even say "Wow thanks for the 50 man" :twisted: :wink: . Hears what it looked like when I first brought it home.

Not that bad but not all that great either, it's hard to tell by the pic but whatever he had in there had lots of really long claws and it had shredded the inside really good. I got started by taking apart all of the lights, wiring, side windows, and the door. After that I started working on sanding every thing down to get rid of any sharp edges, splinters, scuffs, marks and so on. I sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded and sanded for what seemed like days, got everything nice an smooth and then dusted and cleaned everything off. Then I started sealing every inch of wood, four coats later and hear it is now.

I also picked up a matching base to go with it, got that all sanded down and sealed.

Now that thats done I can start working on getting all of the wiring and, lights back in, and put screen in the side windows and door. After thats all said and done I'll start building up Gizmo's habitat, only problem is that it's not going to be easy finding the live plants that I want this time of year in Michigan. :roll:

I still need to come up with some kind of drain system for the bottom and a misting system for the top. Anybody have any suggestions?

 

[Mr Green]

:shock:
Nice project you have there. Looks very nice after you cleaned it up. How tall is that? Hard to tell in the pic.

Not sure about the drainage system. I will have to think about it. If you use crickets you might have to be a little more careful designing it. Ive really never used anything more than a couple drip cups, but am interested in what you decide on.

 

[Darkmind]

It's 4 feet tall :shock: about another 2 feet for the base, overall 6 feet tall. 8)

As far as the draining system goes, A friend of mine had a really really good idea but it's really hard to explain. I'll put up pics of it as I'm working on it.

I think I've made up my mind on a misting deal.

http://www.reptilesupply.com/product.php?products_id=320

I think I mite give this a try and see how it works. But from what I'm reading it does not have as fine a mist as what I'm looking for. The unit itself is just what I'm looking for but i want a fine mist.

I still have a lot of work to do, I'll update with more pics as I get further on the setup.

 

[joecham]

Awesome!! I want one.

What kind of lighting would you need to keep a plant alive? I have tried live plants before, but the plant would slowly die and lose all its leaves. I assumed my lighting wasnt good enoght.

Also curious what you plan to do for the bottom of the cage. I guess that might involve the drainage system you mentioned. Look forward to seeing the finished caged

 

[Darkmind]

What kind of lighting would you need to keep a plant alive?

I really have no idea, I'm planing on talking to local plant person about how the recommended plants for chams will do indoors with little or no sunlight but lots of light from UV bulbs and heat lamps.

Also curious what you plan to do for the bottom of the cage.

I really have no clue on where to start explaining what I'm going to do, I can say that it will involve Plexiglas, screen, stilts for the Plexiglas, industrial plastic sheets, a bucket, and lots O staples.

I'll be adding another pic or two later on tonight after I get a little more work done.

 

[Darkmind]

I got lots of work done tonight, I just kinda slapped everything together for a few pics. Tomorrow I’ll pull off the side windows and the door and start working on the drain system for the bottom. Wow I’m kinda surprised that you can barely see the screen I put in.

 

[Brad]

:shock: :shock:

Wow! Sweet cage. I like everything about it. Did you do that light switch yourself? Wish I were more skilled in that area. The solid backing, instead of full screening, might help increase humidity. I was on a reptile breeder website the other day, and they were selling clean chameleon plants. I do not recall the url at the moment. When I get home from work, I will see if I can find it.

 

[Darkmind]

Did you do that light switch yourself?

Nope, these cages come like that new.

Well no new work done today, I ended up working a double today at work and was just too tired to do anything else when I got home. As for a draining system goes I have a very very very good idea, some thing that I've never seen before so I kind of what to keep it hush hush for now. I'll post pics of it as I'm working on it and keep everybody up too date. There are a few other things I need to pick up yet before I can start working on it so I prob wont get to work on it tell sometime this weekend.

As far as a misting system goes, I found a Hubba mist for a really good price new in box. But from what I've herd its a little loud and does not have a fine mist. I do like the fact that its very simple to set up the timers and its in the price range that I'm looking for, I really what to keep the misting setup less than 50 bucks, money is a little short this month. I'm wondering if I should take a chance and pick it up and try to do some tinkering to get it to produce a finer mist.
__________________

 

[Mr Green]

I'm wondering if I should take a chance and pick it up and try to do some tinkering to get it to produce a finer mist.

Could be a gamble. Might be better to hold out until you can get what you want. What is the humidity without any plants or manual misting?

 

[Darkmind]

Could be a gamble. Might be better to hold out until you can get what you want. What is the humidity without any plants or manual misting?

Well the humidity in my house can be anywhere between 30% and 60% it all depends on what time of the year it is. There are times when it can get very dry up hear in Michigan. And having a heat lamp in any cage can suck the moisture out in a heart beat. So some type of misting must be done during the day time when the heat lamp is on. When I have it off in the night time it's easy to keep the humidity up around 70% to 80%, but once that heat / basking lamp comes on in the morning . . . . . . ZAP say bye bye moisture unless your doing something to keep it in there.


First cut for the draining system. It does not need to be clean per say, you wont be able to see any of it later on.

And the second cut, once again it does not need to be clean. It’ll be too hard to see when it’s finished.

Now I just need to finish water proofing all of the wiring and electric boxes. Still need to pick up a bunch of pond liner for water direction. Busy busy weekend with the holiday and all so I did not get very much done.

 

[Darkmind]

You guys ever have one of those weeks were nothing goes the way it’s supposed to? Well that’s what this week has been like for me and it’s only Tuesday. Found out that the pond liner that I wanted to use was way more money than I wanted to spend so I went back to the drawing board and ended up finding some industrial plastic liner that was almost the same thickness but a lot cheaper. Fixed that to the base and put in a 5 gallon bucket and now I can count the base a finished.

I also finished the draining system for the bottom of the cage. All wiring and electric boxes have also been water proofed.

Not really what I had in mind but I ended up saving a lot of cash and it should work just fine.

Not that far from being done now. It still needs one more coat of Helmsman spar polyurethane. Some aluminum backing for the UV lights. Then it will get moved up into my office so I can start building Gizmo’s new home. Man I can’t Waite.

 

[Brad]

Looks great! It has really turned into an attractive chameleon cage. I think Gizmo will be very happy. Could just be the picture, but you might have to be careful with the wired flooring. Looks kind of wide. Baby chameleons might fall though Im interested to know how that automatic mister works out for you too. This is a great thread, keep us updated.

 

[Darkmind]

Looks great! It has really turned into an attractive chameleon cage. I think Gizmo will be very happy. Could just be the picture, but you might have to be careful with the wired flooring. Looks kind of wide. Baby chameleons might fall though Im interested to know how that automatic mister works out for you too. This is a great thread, keep us updated.

Trust me, he aint no baby anymore LOL. I'll put up a new pic of him tonight after I get out of work ( 12pm ). He's a monster now, he eats about a dozen M sized cricks a day now and could prob take more. I've only had him for a little over a month now and would put his age close to three months old, he's just getting so big so damn fast.

 

[Darkmind]

I had to do a lot of rearranging to get the cage where I wanted in my office. Also had to put Gizmo in a new place on top of the gun cabinet while I’m working on his new habitat. Only got one vine up and I did not get a chance to make it to the greenhouse so no plants as of yet. O well I hope to have it finished by the end of this next week.

 

[Darkmind]

Well went out and got some plants today. The Molesta plant place I went to had all of their non flowering plants on sale for 50% off. I ended up going a little over board LOL. Plus this location is one of the few that does not use any chemicals or pesticides, deff a plus. Got them repoted and then tried them all for fit in the cage. I ended up getting dracaena fragrans, croton, and a schefflera umbrella. Still waiting on some other stuff to come in the mail that I ordered off of the net before I finish it off and move Gizmo in.

 

[Brad]

Looks great! Should be a lot of basking options for Gizmo. What kind of light are you going to be using, and will it be strong enough to keep those plants alive? I have used live plants before without much luck. The best option I found was to have a rotation of a few plants; One plant in the cage while the others were outdoors.

 

[neil nosy be]

cant see pics

Hi brad

Would like to view darkminds new cage, but pics are just a little white square with a red cross in it,is this something to do with my pc?? as its only these pics and no others

 

[Brad]

Hi neil,

Nothing wrong with your computer. There are two main methods of posting pictures in the forums. You can either upload them to the forum server, or provide a link to them. Darkmind chose the later. Unfortunately, it looks like he has deleted his pictures. Your browser looks to the link he provided in his post, but there is no longer an image there . Darkmind used an image hosting company, and probably ran out of disk space and had to delete some older images.

Allowing image links is something I have struggled with for a while now. I have no control over linked images. On the other hand, I want to promote the posting of images and some people prefer to use their own source. I think I will probably change it soon to not allow linked images.