Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am considering either a cage from Customcages.com or
Showcasecages.com.

The latter look more attractive but more restrictive in terms of lighting and heating bulbs.

Anyone have experience with these cages?

Thanks

The disadvantage with showcase cages is that the basking light is inset so that the cages will stack. This leaves very little space under it for a raised basking spot. They are really designed for pet stores that don't have cage furniture.

I don't own either. I decided the only way to get what I wanted was to build my own.

wowiewewa

Have you seen a cage from customcages.com?
What is your opinion on these?

Now I have a cage by glasscages.com. It has front sliding glass doors and plexiglass/lucite for the remainder of the cage. The top is screened in.

do you sell these cages. can i get some dimensions. i have a handy man waiting for my ideas and your set up is very nice. thanks. yossi

Yes I've seen the customcages. They are melamine cages like mine.

No, I don't sell cages. Sorry. But here are instructions for making mine I wrote a while back.

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

Roughly, how much does it cost to make one of these cages? What type of basking lights and temp. gauges are you using?

Thanks,

Khando

I'm not cost conscious but I think about $350 but you could cheapen it up some. I use Par 20 spots in different wattages, etc. depending on the time of year. I get them from 1000bulbs.com. I use individual Helix Thermostats to control the temps. (not included in my cost est.)

I bow down to you cage master. I want to model my new cages after yours Thanks for sharing all the info

This is my brood at bath time

-----
Corinne & Jess

1.0.0 Green Iguana, Dante
2.4.0 Bearded Dragons, Lily, Mango, OC, Izzy, Warwick, Little Rhody
0.0.1 Uromastyx, Shemsy
1.2.0 Cats, Little Guy, Mattie, evielee

I have to give a lot of credit to the Dachiu's (Dachiu.com) for some of the ideas.

thank you soo much. yossi
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