Does anyone have any experience with the fabric/pvc framed reptarium habitat. I saw one at Petsmart over the weekend. It was a 65 gal long shape. I have a bearded dragon that needs a bigger house. This seems more economical, but my husband says it would hard to hold the heat in for her. Any ideas or thoughts would be appreciated.
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Reptarium Fabric Habitat?
dannygirl8
Apr 14, 2008 01:36 PM
Replies (3)
BDlvr
Apr 14, 2008 02:15 PM
BD's need a warm side and a cool side to their enclosure. The ambient (air) temp on tthe warm side should be in the mid to upper 80's and the cool side ambient should be room temperature.
If you use a screen cage then the ambient is always room temp. except maybe right under the heat lamp.
PHLdyPayne
Apr 14, 2008 07:50 PM
The all screen cages are great for temporary housing outside so dragons can get natural sunlight, but for a permanent residence, they are no good at all.
Because of the screen being all 6 sides of the cage, its very difficult to heat, unless you like to keep the room at 75-80F. Also, you have to be very careful with the heat lamp as it can melt the screen or the PCV frame. The screen will also block about half the UVB trying to get through it. The design of the cage makes it impossible to hang lights inside.
The weave of the screen can damage dragon toes and they will end up climbing around it and this will eventually rip the screen. The setup of these cages I have seen in stores always look very dark inside, so I don't think light can get through well (then again they were never in brightly light areas either, so that may be why the cages seem dark inside, despite having a spot light and florescent light ontop of the cage)
Because of the screen you are very limited on what sort of substrate to use (sand will run right through, though the clean plastic tray you can buy separate to put on the bottom, will trap the sand.)
Crickets can chew through it and escape into your home as well, not to mention climbing all over on the screen. A lazy dragon may not want to bother chasing crickets up the walls of his cage.
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PHLdyPayne
GoodSmeagol
Apr 15, 2008 10:38 PM
total off topic,
as to the comment about maybe the dragon will be lazy, yes indeed maybem
one of my girls, loves waiting for them to go on the screen and jumping at them, like sport!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bheQGDQyhnE
first time pinkies, delicious
