Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just saw the picture of BDlvr's cages. But I remember seeing the instructions to making them about 3 months ago or so. I looked and couldn't find them. Can BDlvr or someone else post the instructions again or a link to the other ones? Thnaks for any help.

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Darien Drollinger

sales@highendreptiles.com
www.highendreptiles.com

You Cry, I Cry, You Laugh, I Laugh, You Fall Off A Cliff, I Laugh Harder

Three of mine are 5’ long and the other 6 are 4’ long. I have a case of 36” Reptisun 10.0 bulbs so I wanted to use 36” fixtures in mine. That meant that it would have to be at least 36” deep to run the fixtures from front to back. If you build a 4’ cage you can just run 4’ fixtures left to right. Just make sure your inside measure is at least 4’ that means the outside measure will be at least 49 ½ wide. Melamine is ¾” thick.

Here are instructions for a 5’.

Melamine is available from Home Depot in a variety of sizes including 4 x 8 sheets. To cut melamine I use masking tape to reduce chips and you will need a circular saw blade with the most teeth possible. Home Depot sells like a 140 tooth blade for about $6 it’s marked as a plywood blade.

It’s best to start with the sides. Home Depot sells pieces of melamine that are 48” x 23 5/8. I decided that these would be my sides. I decided to play it safe (for 36” lights) and make mine 37” deep at the top. I then marked a 75 degree angle. It comes out to about 43 ¼ at the bottom. I taped where I was gonna cut and clamped the boards together, that way cutting both at the same time would make them exactly the same.

For the bottom, you will need to set the tilt on the saw at 15 degrees and cut the width to 43 ¼ on the long side. It’s easiest to just hold the sides up to it to mark it. The length of the bottom is 58 ½ to make a 5’. Melamine is ¾” thick. The sides are on the outside of the bottom, back, and top to hide the unfinished edges of the melamine. The back is 58 ½ by 22 1/8 and will sit on top of the bottom.

I bolted these pieces together with 1 5/8 course thread drywall screws every 4”. 5” is fine but I believe in overkill. Lol. You will need to drill a small pilot hole and a larger one slightly to countersink the screw heads. HD sells screw covers. I then cut the top at 58 ½ long by 37” on the short side of the 15 degree bevel. I then mounted the lights. Lot easier to do it before the top is on than working upside down in the cage later. HD sells an outside spotlight kit (white) with 2 swivel/adjustable angle sockets. I bought an extra socket to put a night bulb in too.

The top rests on the back but not the sides so you’ll need to cut some boards to hold up the front of the top while you screw the sides to it.

HD sells PVC Composite boards. On my cage the top is a 2 ½ board, the bottom is a 3 ½ board and the rest are 1 ½ boards. I attached mine using a finish nailer but you could use screws. I beveled both top and bottom boards but you don’t have to. I cut a scrap to 1 ½ and attached it to the center of my top board. This will create the space for ventilation. I then attached the 1 ½ board to this. This will hold the glass track. It’s important to attach the top glass track board to the center first because there will be some bowing of the top depending on how long the cage is. Now square up the glass opening and attached the board to the sides. Cut 1 ½ boards to fill in the remaining spaces. Then I filled the holes and painted the outside of the front boards. Then attach the glass track.

In my final product I added a 1 ¼” dowel in the center of the front to reduce stress from the weight of the cage above. A 5’ cage holds 200 lbs. of sand so the bottom cage will need to support over 500 lbs. including the weight of the cages above and sand.

The basking area is made with scrap melamine and finished with the PVC board. It has 4 built in hides. I made mine to fit 12 x 12 slate tiles. I had to cut 2. The ramp is a 16” slate tile cut to 12” wide. The “cricket corral” is 2 ½ boards screwed from the bottom up and covered with aluminum tape.

The summertime extra venting is as described below.

http://www.dachiu.com/care/venting.html

Hey BDlvr..I love that enclosure!...We're about to build my guy a new home and we are wanting to go with a 6'x2'x2'. Is that too big? I'm wanting to fill an entire space with just his enclosure..(it's about 6 1/2') should we stick to 5'? we're putting on either sliding or closing front doors, which I so desperately want...I hate reaching down to get him! thanks!

Anything bigger than 8 square feet is always better. The advantage of 5' over 4' long is better temperature separation. Since you heat the hot side to meet their needs, the temp. of the cool side is determined by how far it is away from the hot side if you know what I mean.

On a 4' the cool side is acceptable but not quite as low as I would consider ideal. 5' works great. In my opinion anything longer would only be better. Since the cool side can only drop as low as the room temp. (which it won't) it just spreads out the temp. gradiant which is better.

My cages are 3.5' deep to accomodate multiple dragons with multiple basking sites to reduce competition. If you can go a little deeper you and your dragon will be happier in the long run. Funny but I think my 4' x 2' Terrariums seems so small for an adult dragon now. lol.

lol..I imagine so! I meant to add this in to my earlier post..do you think that the same 4' shoplight that I currently have in his setup would be ok for a 6' or do you think he'd need more light? I'm going to use a 8.5" clamp...thinking about bolting the 4' shoplight to the top of the new home and maybe cutting a "hole" in the top with wire mesh for the clamp(kinda like you suggested for my 55gal setup) or just installing a new basking light all together. but anyways..thanks for the help!

The 4' should be OK if it is mounted starting at the hot side since dragons don't spend much time on the cool side anyway. Keep in mind that a Zoo Med 10.0 is good to 20" and that the dragon should'nt be able to get much closer than 12" from it. This is somewhat of a challenge in a deep enclosure with the bulb running lenghtwise. It's one of the reasons I run mine front to back. Everywhere in my cages is 20" or less from a bulb but nowhere is it less than 12".

Looks like it might be time for a career change, or at least a side job here & there.

Market those things.

Later!
HH
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Due to political correctness run amuck,
this ol' hillbilly is now referred to as an:
Appalachian American