Open front panther enclosure

[Kerickson978]

Hey all, I am new here so i thought i would introduce myself briefly and post a pic or two of the enclosure i am building in my room. my name is Keith, and i am a student studying Biology, specifically evolutionary biology. for the past two years in summer i have gone down to panama to spend two months in the field studying dart frogs in the wild. the ones we are looking at are Dendrobates pumilio. they used to be called Oophaga pumilio but that got changed just recently. the two years before that in summer/fall i was working with Alameda east's vet and a good friend of mine Dr. Kevin fitzgerald. i was helping out with a radio telemetry project for crotalus viridis (prairie rattlesnake) where we would go out and track 25 rattlesnakes each day/ or in my case often at night. Also i am an Intern at the Denver zoo working inside Tropical discovery as a zoo keeper in training. basically i love anything tropical, and will spend days and years learning about it...

anyhoo the enclosure i am building is 7 feet tall nearly three feet wide and nearly three feet deep. it will be for a panther that i do not have yet. i want the enclosure to grow in first...
this enclosure is no where near done yet ive still got a lot of work to do on it,(like closing off the bottom) i still need to center the main light pendant, and put a screen on it so the chameleon cant get up in the lights and burn itself. that is bothering me every time i look at it...
I need more of that white PVC edging to finish the uh, well edges with. i am pretty sure its wide enough and slick enough that an adult panther wont be able to grip it. those clamps are holding two T-5 strips that are hidden by the plastic edging, just until i figure out how i am going to attach them.

i still think i need to wrap some vines on the "trunk" for the cham to have something it can hold on to.. those branches are around 4 inches in diameter and the trunk is around 6-7 maybe more in spots. and I plan on adding a bunch more plants yet, maybe making a cork wall to stick in the back corner to attach plants to.

i am going to add a Mistking system on here, which is why the enclosure is up on bricks. its got a false bottom design and there is a container under to catch water. oh by the way.. those orchids in the right hand corner on the cage floor... they arent staying there i just forgot to pull them out before taking the picture.


wanna know the interesting thing about this build? the only thing ive bought so far has been the PVC edging thats on the glass... everything else ive had laying around... and alot of the plants are clippings from my dart frog tanks.. creativity rocks.

 

[Dupontman2]

I personally think that is going to be awesome!

 

[Lil nasty]

thats awesome never seen anything like that, is that tree real? howd u find that thing

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Wow! That is an amazing enclosure that's going to look so awesome when it's done!! I wish I could have something like that, you did a great job with it so far!

 

[Kerickson978]

Thanks guys, I will update this thread once the enclosure is complete and all planted up


yeah its a real tree. well three of them bolted together. my friend has several acres of land on which a small forest of scrub oak grows. he basically told me i can take whatever i want from there so whenever i need to build a new enclosure i go find and get some scrub oak. i have never used it in a humid environment though so i don't know how well it will hold up but i am hoping a couple of years at least.

 

[carol5208]

just curious...who makes the T5 strips and how old are they?

 

[Kerickson978]

Here ya go, i don't remember the brand, but this is them. the writing on the box is to small to read but this is it.

http://www.grow-light.com/Single-T5-Fluorescent-Fixture-with-Tube-24-inches_p_48.html

 

[Action Jackson]

Nice thinking outside the box. Cool ideas there. I like the flouresents around the bottom. Is that to promote growth in plants planted in the bottom?

 

[carol5208]

Here ya go, i don't remember the brand, but this is them. the writing on the box is to small to read but this is it.

http://www.grow-light.com/Single-T5-Fluorescent-Fixture-with-Tube-24-inches_p_48.html

Do those provide adequate UVB or are they just grow lights? At first I thought they could be these lights mfgd by Zilla that had caused some severe problems with reptiles in the past. They improved them but there was still some old stock on the market being sold. anyways, most of all of use the Reptisun 5.0 UVB tube light. they have posed no issues or problems for our chameleons. You should only need one of those. You have to a have good UVB light, that is crucial for your chameleons health.

 

[Olimpia]

That is a fantastic idea, I absolutely love it. When the plants grow in and give a bit of cover it will be fantastic. Are you keeping it an open front? I think that's great, I free range my guys and this seems like a fantastic idea for an open "cage."

I think plants along the back would be great. I think that perhaps cork would mold over too quickly (I've never had success even keeping cork in with my insects without it molding), but there are definitely tricks to doing plant walls.

 

[pssh]

Watch out for mold and the animal eating any dirt. If you were to connect some pothos on the tree it would grow in very quickly and give it a vine-y feel. Dif you just use plexiglass? If you want a fake background wall, I used great stuff (thats the brand name) to give it texture and also stuck in some branches and pots so plants could hang down. I covered it with silicone and then covered the wet silicone with moss and coco fiber/husk/etc. Turned out really nice, but it is much smaller than yours would be. Just scrape off any loose stuff so that the chameleon can't eat it. the crickets would hide in it though if you free range the food.

I was planning on building one of these for my veiled, but he leaves every chance he gets! It would be difficult for me to make a cage he could not escape from as he will jump...

 

[reptoman]

Really nice enclosure! I look forward to seeing how it turns out!

 

[SS4Luck]

Wow that is a great lookin setup!!!!

Like someone said before, pothos would grow fast and fill that with nice climbing vines! What size/locality are you looking to put in there?

 

[sdheli420]

i think its great looks like a nice setup, clean, open, and the plus is humidity should be easier to keep up since you have the back walls..my cham is three months old (male blue bar ambilobe) and has loved having the peice of mind of an open enclosure set up(he stays in his tree, but having everything he needs ive yet to see him want to venture out of his area..at most just to the tips of the branches to watch some nat geo with me, lol)..good luck with yer set up, im sure your new cham will love it!!

p.s. what version of pardalis do you have yer eye on ( they are like cars, so many styles to choose from, haha)

 

[Kerickson978]

Nice thinking outside the box. Cool ideas there. I like the flouresents around the bottom. Is that to promote growth in plants planted in the bottom?

Thanks i tend to think outside the box... a lot.... it is more interesting that way! yeah the lights are on bottom to help the plants down there, since the plants above block out a lot of light.

Do those provide adequate UVB or are they just grow lights? At first I thought they could be these lights mfgd by Zilla that had caused some severe problems with reptiles in the past. They improved them but there was still some old stock on the market being sold. anyways, most of all of use the Reptisun 5.0 UVB tube light. they have posed no issues or problems for our chameleons. You should only need one of those. You have to a have good UVB light, that is crucial for your chameleons health.

those T-5 are not any special UV bulb just a 10k reef bulb. last time i looked i couldn't find any bulbs that produced UVB that fit this fixture. not saying there isnt now, since i looked about a year ago.
I have a UVB light, in fact you can see the fixture its in sticking out from the hanging hood above the tree. its a new bulb that i got maybe a week ago.

That is a fantastic idea, I absolutely love it. When the plants grow in and give a bit of cover it will be fantastic. Are you keeping it an open front? I think that's great, I free range my guys and this seems like a fantastic idea for an open "cage."

I think plants along the back would be great. I think that perhaps cork would mold over too quickly (I've never had success even keeping cork in with my insects without it molding), but there are definitely tricks to doing plant walls.

Yep i am going to keep it open, however depending on the chameleons behavior i may build two removable screen panels for when i am out of town. cork molding? ive never had cork mold, I use it in all of my dart frog tanks, it holds up amazingly still looking pretty much new three years later...

Watch out for mold and the animal eating any dirt. If you were to connect some pothos on the tree it would grow in very quickly and give it a vine-y feel. Dif you just use plexiglass? If you want a fake background wall, I used great stuff (thats the brand name) to give it texture and also stuck in some branches and pots so plants could hang down. I covered it with silicone and then covered the wet silicone with moss and coco fiber/husk/etc. Turned out really nice, but it is much smaller than yours would be. Just scrape off any loose stuff so that the chameleon can't eat it. the crickets would hide in it though if you free range the food.

I was planning on building one of these for my veiled, but he leaves every chance he gets! It would be difficult for me to make a cage he could not escape from as he will jump...

Yeah, i am watching out for mold, the dirt is covered by a layer of sphagnum, that ive planted moss on, so in a month or so it should be a nice green lawn just like this.. in fact, this is where i pulled some of the moss from. and other plant clippings. this is one of my dart frog tanks.

 

[Kerickson978]

Oh kay.. heres one of those super awesome how the heck did you do that paint drawings... yeah.. paint.. hey it works.

this is a diagram of how i setup the substrate to prevent the tree from rotting to quickly, and so the bottom doesn't become a lake.

 

[Julio]

http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee153/link3898/IMG_3993.jpg[/IMG]

Great tank, what size is it? what darts are you keeping?

 

[PrettyInInk87]

That's an amazing planted tank.

 

[Kerickson978]

Great tank, what size is it? what darts are you keeping?

Its a 65 gal, and currently its actually empty because i am going to mod the front panel of glass to open so i dont have to go through the top every time i need to trim plants, remove spiders, or clean the glass. it used to have a group of D. leucomelas in it that i moved to another tank but i think after i am done rebuilding it i will put a group of D. imitator varadero instead. or if my friend doesnt have any of those froglets yet then i may put some of my pumilio in it.

That's an amazing planted tank.

thanks i hope the chameleon enclosure i am building looks similar a year from now.

 

[Kerickson978]

what darts are you keeping?

ooh if you mean in general not just what was in this tank, ive got D. tinctorius "patricia" D.leucomelas D. auratus D. pumilio "bastimentos" D. pumilio "colon, specifically bocas del drago"