Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just thought I would share some pictures of a new enclosure, its not 100% complete still have to add in some plant life and hide spots, also adding a 4' ceiling strip light and a few other minor things.

Enclosure size is 15' x 10'

LIGHTING: 2 ceiling can lights, 1 150watt heat light, 1 150watt "red" heat light, will be adding the ceiling strip light in the next few days and probably wont use the 2 ceiling can lights at that point as they are on a switch rather than a timer like all the other lights.

We are using a 400 GPH pond pump/filter which so far seems to be working well and its a quit small unit.

We used a heavy duty kidie pool rather than a preformed plastic pond as the kidde pool gives more actual movement space and its not as high up as the plastic ponds, the kiddie pool gives the animals easy access and it was easy to work into the enclosure.

Pluming was done with PVC tubing, it runs out the pool and under the platform, the ramp swings up opening the platform to expose a garden hose hookup .... to drain you simply screw on the hose and loosen the ball valve.

The land area consists of about 300 LBS potting soil and 250 lbs of cypress mulch.

Actual enclosure construction consists of OSB sheet walls all the way around, 1 layer of visqune, OSB sheet flooring and then another layer of visqune.

We will also possibly add in some type of patio type blocking right around the edge of the pool to help keep some of the dirt and mulch from being drug into the pool.

we are still playing with the temps, but as of now we are getting approx 76-78 night time air temp, water temp at night is approx 76, day time air temp is approx 83-85 ... these temps I think are decent for the species being held in the enclosure, but we will still fine tune the temps over the next couple days.

Will try to post some more pictures once everything is 100%, please feel free to comment, make suggestions and so forth

(I hope the pictures show!!)

I think that looks great. Can't wait to see what it looks like planted. I do have a question for you about your substrate mix though. When I have used large quantities of potting soil mixed with other things indoors I have found that the whole room gets incredibly filthy rather quickly. Have you found that the ratio of cyprus mulch you use has cut back on that sort of thing by keeping the humidity higher? I used a 100 lb mix of potting soil, sand, and bags of perlite in a part of the country with high relative humidity and it still got really nasty. Let me know if you even have this problem and how you deal with it. Thanks
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1.1 Womas, 1.0 Centralian Carpet Python, 1.0 Jungle Carpet Python,0.1 Malaysian Blood Python, 1.0 Australian Water Python, 1.0 Albino Green Burmese, 1.1 Peruvian Red-Tail Boas, 2.1 Hog Island Boas,1.0 Salmon Boa, 0.1 Pastel Salmon Boa, 0.0.1 North American Wood Turtle, 0.0.2 European Pond Turtles, 1.0 Hypo Alligator Snapper, 0.0.1 Concentric Diamondback Terrapin, 0.1.5 Leopard Tortoises, 0.0.1 Indian Star Tortoise,1.0 Yellow Bearded Dragon,0.0.1 SpecXYacare Caiman

Thanks for the compliment! I will be sure to post more pictures once I get it finished up.

I added the 4ft stip lighting, I will be shopping around for plats and adding them in little by little, I will be cutting down some tree limbs this weekend to give them some hidding spots and to climb on.

I dont really have a answer to your question though as the enclose is new and I will have to see how it works out, I have saw that a LOT of dirt and mulch gets brought into the pool, I am going to set a log on the side of the pool running the length og the pool and then lay down some patio block in front of the log in hopes to keep most of the dirt and mulch out of the pool.

thanks for posting your setup!

im thinking ill kind of duplicate that for my male palpebrosus. i had been doing kind of the opposite- about 80% water and 20% land, and in the last month he seems to be prefering the sandbox under his fake bush. your setup seems like it would work better for both cleaning and for keeping dwarf crocs and caimans comfy. it looks like you have a nice pair of dwarf crocs, i love those mean lil buggers.

thanks again for sharing,
greg

Thanks for the compliments!

I think typical set up is about 2/3 water area and 1/3 land area.

This new enclosre does have a large land area, since this set up is holding Dwarf Croc's I figured that would work out nicely since in my experiance the Dwarf's (Croc's and Caiman's) really like to move about on land at night. Also I am planning to breed the dwarf croc's so I wanted a lot of land area for nesting.

yea my guy definatly is active on land at night, and he always craps in the same spot in the sandbox. which is easy to clean. ill definatly give him some more land area, he is still a growing boy and he likes his space.

hope your crocs make some healthy babies for you!

greg