Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This is for our Argentine Red Tegu, "Maggie". It measures 7-1/2 feet wide, 2-1/2 feet deep and stands about 5 feet tall, including the cabinets and drawers underneath. Hope you like it....Maggie seems to.

Here is the left side - The Tegu Spa. There is a two tiered waterfall, and the pool, with a large hide under the pool.

Great job on the cage! It is very obvious that a lot of hard work went in to that. I'm sure your tegus appreciate it!

On a side note, you may want to add more mulch to your substrate to make it deeper. Red tegus love to burrow in their substrate. Of course, it may be deeper than it looks in the picture.

I'm in the process of building my reds an outdoor enclosure (I'm in FL)
Chris

Thanks.
The dam in front which holds the track for the glass doors, is almost 8 inches, but the substrate builds up to at least 12 in the back and under the two hides on the sides. She spends most of her time burrowed under there where its nice and moist and dark.
MAP

Great looking cage! I think a lot of people would be interested in a detailed set of plans. Might even make a little money to help fund the next cage!

This is the other side. There are UVA/UVB lamps above the basking shelf, and of course a large hide unerneath. I did the doors on sliding tracks and made them out of 1/4 inch tempered glass (the doors are remove for these pictures.)

Living the good life. We named it "Tegu Heaven" However, the 2 corn snakes got a look at this and have been pretty wrestless lately. I guess I better get started on project number 2.
Hope you like it.....MAP

Wow...did you do those shelves yourself? That is a real nice cage...Can you possibly email me the plans for the waterfall and the shelves? I could definitely use those for my cage I'm building...athos_76@hotmail.com

I didn't draw plans, but I gave "some" details in a reply to Brandon, below. If you want more let me know. I would be glad to guide you through, but I kind of made it up as I went along. But over-all, it came out nicely, works great, and Maggie (and I) are pretty happy with the results.

MAP

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Life is what happens when you are making other plans.......

Hw did you make 'em? I would also love some plans if you got em, i plan on moving my beardie into a new cage soon--i'm sure he would love those, they are amazing.

Thanks,
Brandon
IwIn13@comcast.net

Thanks for the nice comments. The shelves (and the pool) are all made of plywood initially, and then covered with plaster lath (the metal wire used by plasterers - cheap at Home Depot).
The "Rock" is a mixture of thinset tile mortar (for texture) and Fix-All (for strength and quick hardening). I mixed it with Ad-Mix to increase adhesive ability. Then just painted it and finally coated it all with acrylic resin. In fact everything from the pool & shelves down to the floor, is coated with resin in order to make it water tight, able to withstand high humidity and easy maintenance. Everything else is water based lacquer. (I left the heat on and allowed it to outgas for 2 weeks before moving it in.)

The pool has a PVC drain in the bottom with a hose valve underneath which is accessible in the cabinet just below it.
I just hook up the hose and drain it outside - makes for easy cleaning.

I don't have any plans because I just designed it and constructed it as I went along. The whole thing is made of 3/4 inch birch plywood (except the back which is 1/2 inch. The cabinet doors and drawer fronts are birch, and most of the mouldings are maple.
There are 1/4 inch tempered glass sliding doors on the front (removed for the photos) which slide on rollers and tracks.

The doors sit on an 8 inch dam to allow the substrate to be deep enough without spilling into the tracks. There is also a 6 inch header which hides the plug strip and switches for the waterfall pump, flourescent light, and UVA/UVB bulb. (I also have a fixture for a ceramic heat element but found I achieved high enough temps without it - 110 degrees on the basking shelf and 78-80 ambient.)

One thing I would do differently is icrease the upper header in order to hide the bulb better. Other than that, it pretty much came out the way I planned, and it works great.

Hope that helps.
MAP

Very nice work. How did you attach the shelves to the wall?
The Herp Journal

Mounted them on a wood ledger. Cut a piece of 3/4 inch plywood about 2-3 inches wide and glued and screwed it flat against the back and side walls, then just glued and screwed the self down into it. Then wrapped the whole thing with lath to cover it. (You can see this best under the center shelf where it's exposed. On this one, since you can see it, I gave the ledger a random shape added some wood plant-on pieces to give it more definition before wrapping it with lath.)

Make sure its pretty secure becuase it will be carrying a lot of weight once the "plaster" is added. (Especially true of the pool, with all of the weight of the plaster, rocks, and the water I made sure this was quite strong.) In fact, while it was being constructed my 3 kids loved to climb inside and sit on the shelves while they "helped me" work on it. Its pretty strong.

MAP

OMG that is AMAZING!!!!!!! You did a wonderful job!

I am seriously lacking room to do anything of the sort but i love woodworking and building stuff, so a project like that would make me so happy to do.
You've answered alot of the design questions but i would like to know what kind of *resin* did you use? Is it non toxic and heat resistant?

I would like to create a solid background and substrate landscape in my gecko tanks with built in caves, ledges etc. and i'd like to cover it in something thats easy to clean and won't soak up smells.

Thanks
Red

Thanks. I used acrylic resin. I was advised not to use polyester resin (which is what you will find in Lowes & Home Depot) because of toxicity. The acrylic is harder and won't chip like the polyester. They are toxic if ingested (so don't feed it to your reptiles) but once cured (which takes 7 days) it is safe. This is often used on boats therefore it is designed to be submerged for long periods and withstand the moisture and heat. It works great. But it is expensive. I used a quart (plus a pint of hardener) to give 2 coats to all the shelves, rocks, water pond and water fall, and the entire lower portion of the walls and floor. That was about $20.00. But now I can just about hose it down without any worry of damage. I keep the substrate damp for our Tegu so this was designed with that in mind. It is also the only thing which would hold the water in the pool without breaking down and leaking. Thanks for asking. Hope this helps.

MAP

Thankyou, yes that helps alot I am going to have fun creating lol.

Red

Awesome cage! where is the door/entry? I now have major cage envy