Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well....I have been working on my v. storri trio cage upgrade for about a month now....and I think it is finally ready for dirt. I just wanted to put it past everyone before I load it up, just incase anyone can remind me of something that I forgot or provide any improvement suggestions.

The cage is 48" x 24" x 24". It has a 12" opening with removable sliding 1/4" glass doors. The bottom will hold 9-10" of dirt and is lined with 1/8" black PVC and sealed on the inside and outside of each joint. There is a 1"x6" board running down the middle of the top to keep the light from shining in everyone's eyes as the look in and there is a 3"x 36" vent in the back located 2" from the top. It has two ceramic sockets wired into the enclosure for heating and light. The stand was made just high enough to slide my substrate and insect tubs underneath.

Let me know what you think of the design. I am also planning on an identical one (12" soil bed instead of 10" for my ackies, what do you think about using it for those?

Well I would say " Damn good job ". Looks like a sweet home for your monitors. If they dont like it maybe I will move in.

Here is my two cents:

One reason for using top-opening, trough type cages, is that the whole top can be removed for digging up eggs.

Another reason would be that those type of sliding glass doors are not really ideal for animals that throw dirt everywhere.

My small monitor setups are top opening and yet sometimes one of the storri will jump straight up and out of the cage, when they think I have food.

The vent is way too big and should not be located right next to the lights. I'm sure that the cage is not airtight, so I would not have included a vent at all.

10" of dirt will work, but more would be better. You might want to consider more dirt for you ackies too, since ackies are about twice the size of Storr's monitors.

One more thing, I would have some extra cages ready in case you need to separate them at some point.

Actually that is not the last thing, from the way it looks in the pic, that window AC unit would be blowing almost directly into the vent of your storri setup.

Cheers

Thanks for the input Neal. Thats what I was looking for.

I thought of several of the issues that you brought up and these are the reasons or ways I was dealing with them.

Since the front opening is 12" high and the two pieces of glass are removable(providing a 12" x 44" opening), I really did not think that it would be much of a problem for me getting in there to dig in the substrate.

The glass door are removable and the track will be cleaned each week when the cage is cleaned. I have tracks on a few of my other setups that get clutterd with substrate so I wanted to make maintainance on this one as easy as possible. I really think with a little extra work tracks will do fine.

The vent was placed in the back to allow air exchange......The room is a constant 78-80 degs, so with no venting the enclosure was hitting over 110 deg air temps with two 30 watt flood bulbs. I could not think any other way to deal with that issue.

The soil will slope upward from 10" in the front to 12" in the back for this cage. I really did not think more was necessary...live and learn i guess. If this enclosure does not work out or people can point out issues, I will build another.....I have 3-4 enclosures just sitting around that are not being used because I did not like their performance. I like to fiddle with things so I am just giving a bunch of new things a try from my reptiles....and myself (since some of the enclosures that I am building have 'human features' that serve no purpose for the animals).

Keep up the input. If the approach that I am taking is wrong in someway.....let me know.

Oh ya....the A/C unit does not blow into the vent. It blows up into a ceiling fan that circulates the air in the room. Since the room is run off an individual thermostat, I have found that is the best way to get an even temp distribution throughout the room when the a/c trys to cool things off.

Thanks,
Daniel

I reckon you will probably understand why it is a good idea to make it easier on yourself, after you actually have some experience digging up eggs.

You might be able to get viable eggs nested in 2" of dirt, but that doesn't mean that is the best way to go, in the long run. The deeper the better. You may think the dirt should be 12" in the back and 10" the front, but your monitors may think differently and rearrange it however they please.

I find that my monitors seem to do well with cages that have very little air flow and humidity levels higher than normal indoor humidity levels. But maybe you keep the whole room quite humid.

Cheers

Also the room is tooooooo hot, no reptile wants to stay that hot. They all need a range to pick from. I don't care what kind of reptile, of course there are indeed different ranges.

Monitors much like snakes, tend to fail reproductively, once they cannot get to lower temps, say 80F. If they can get to lower temps all the time. Then they are very reproductively reliable. Cheers

Don't forget to mention the lites are too high. Being that high will increase the air movement with that hugh vent area(that can be fixed easily). Also the way the lites are situated, they will heat the whole cage and not offer a heat range.

And that sliders will always be full of dirt, if you use the track type sliders, your in for a lot of grief. If you use rail sliders your in for less grief.

I would use metal corner straps on the outside joints that will be supporting the weight and moisture of the dirt.

But please do not feel bad. We had to learn all that stuff the hard way. Your(Not Neal, the builder) advantage is the grief we all went throught. I know, I did not build a good monitor cage the first time, or the second, or the third or the fourth. Hmmmmmmmmmm I am still working on it.

Your design pretty much sucks, but its nice looking. And lastly it will work, just not very well, and take lots of tinkering. Then you will learn why Neal and I said what we said, then the next cage you will fix some things and learn again.

I hope this may help. Next time write a list of what is needed in a monitor cage. Deep substrate, extreme temp range(for reptiles), the ability to move cage funiture in and out. The ability to control humidity, and more.

Oh one more, the ability to hold in crickets and other bugs. As sliders are terrible at holding in insects. Cheers

I really do appreciate it. I have the wood sitting in my shop for the next project already....and already have ideas. My wife hates the look of the stock tank that my ackies are in.....so maybe I should build her a new monitor enclosure this Valentine's Day.

Frank and Neil, Thanks. I could just go with stock tanks and be done with it for the most part....but I like to fiddle. Have you ever seen something besides a trough work well for monitors? Just wondering...thanks again.

Daniel

Below is a pic of a cage with steel on the corners. This is the end view of a 8x4x5.5' cage. The cage is designed so that it can be taken down and put back together.

Notice that round vent? It is the only vent on the entire cage. I'm not saying that is how a cage has to be built, just throwing things out there.

We have our own site, my partner on our site, Jefe, once made very nice looking troughs, He painted them with aboridginal art designs. It was very cool looking considering what is inside the cages is what the art was made from. A cool circle you know.

Or you can build a cage on top of troughs, That really needs to be done. There is no real need, for the monitors, but some folks put their needs ahead of the monitors. So it could be done in many many nice ways. I often think of nice ways to do this, but do not have a need to push me to do that.

The real problem is WOOD. it sucks for use with varanids. Moisture and heat, completely render wood useless. No matter what you do. Consider, its more then heat and humidity, its also time. If your going to keep monitors for more then a year or so, then wood will be a huge problem. If monitors are an excuse to build cages, then go for it and use the cage for something else after to trade off the monitors. Consider, I AM A BUILDER. I know what your doing. Before I switched my major to biology, I was a Mill and Cabinet major in college. It was that class that allowed me to succeed in life. hahahahahahahahaha true. Our first semester we were told to design a class project. And we did(I was the freshmen class foremen) Then the dang instructor threw us a curveball. He then told us to build the tools to make our designs. So we learned to not be restricted by exsisting tools. That one particular thought has allowed me to succeed in areas I may not have. Its like this, If something does not work, make something that does work. It really is all about that simple.

This thing we call keeping monitors is not confined to wood or glass or plastic or metal. Its not confined at all. Open up and use your imagination. I know you have one, I see your cage set up. Make it fun. But wood sucks, particularly the wood thats available now.

Consider, fridges were made of wood, then lined in metal, then the woods gone and are now metal and plastic. Wood and water only work well together for wine barrels, hahahahahahahaha Cheers

Hi Frank, I probably built my first monitor cage when I was just a kid, about 15 or so. In retrospect (isn't hindsight great), I think some of the biggest flaws were: way too much ventilation and not being able to hold enough substrate.

Cheers

First off, you've done some good handywork and I appreciate the work you put into the cage. Despite the feedback you got, that cage is still perfectly usable though as mentioned below, not nearly ideal. All you have to do is cover up the vent and lower one of the lights and take out the other. Then you have a decent enough cage, though one that will be a pain for the reasons mentioned.
What I would do is use the top as your access lid. The easiest way to do that is to mark out a large square on top (almost the entire top, minus edges and your light area on the one side - the other light should be removed) and cut it out with a jigsaw and put on hinges and a lock. You can lower your jigsaw slowly on an angle and let the blade slowly cut into the wood to get each side started. Obviously you'll also need put in a stop damn for the lid so the side without the hinges doesn't fall through. Also get another full piece of glass and secure it permanently to the front and silicone so bug proof. The remaining light should be lowered right into the cage. That's what I would do - and have done many times to fix the cages I made years ago when I made really nice but not functionally sound cages.

I am taking notes.

My main goal in this and the other projects that I have going is to attempt to create enclosure that are functional for both the reptiles and people. This was my first attempt.....I am building a snake enclosure right now.....something besides a tub for a burrow dwelling snake...imagine that!

I wish to incorporate the needed functions of enclosures for the animals with the looks and features that people like. In my opinion there is a lack of 'middle ground' enclosures out there that are great for both the animals and people.

I will probably end up spending hundreds of dollars on enclosures that will just be scrapped.....but hey, at least I might learn something along the way and eventually build a good cage.

Have a good one. Daniel

I agree with all comments on your enclosure. It will leak crickets b/c mine does also w/ the glass sliders. Very annoying at night. The back vent needs to have plexiglass over it - that will retain the humidity and still allow some extra ambient light. I don't like the A/C unit being over the cage regardless of direction of air flow. I would have both heatlights next to one another on one half of the cage, not get rid of one. Two basks are better if lizards have to compete for real estate to heat up on in a trio. Cramped Storr's can get mean to one another from what i hear. Like everyone said, it will work but is not ideal. It looks good to humans, though. Tweak it and it will work for you until egg digging when you have to stick your head and arm in there. That is going to be a [bleep] for me also.

I've dug up alot of eggs in the past (thanks FR!) and indeed, with the front opening cage it is a pain in the Bleep.