Reptile & Amphibian Forums

tons of pix but here it is

1st coat of grout

Last coat of grout

Painted Grout

ALL DONE!!!!

thats badass. i tried making cage furniture using the styrofoam and grout before but it didnt work too well. i think i tried to rush it too much.

what all material did u use for the cage? i saw a caulking gun and white dry?
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Judson
Beach Beardies

0.1. bearded dragon
1.1. Sugar Gliders
0.2. Felines *queen athena and missy*

the things i used were:
* liquid nails caulking gun (obviously lol)
* tile grout ( i applied 5 layers of grout starting out extremely watery and working its way to very thick)
* great stuff foam in a can for gaps and cracks
* 2 giant sheets of 1/2" thick styrofoam
* acrylic paint burnt umber was the color i used
* textured ceramic tiles that i smashed up cuz i didnt have a tool to cut them and i live too far from lowes
* and mod podge to seal it all

ACE cage man!
Iv used grout/styro before but not in my cages. I made an entire collosium out of it!
3 ft by 3ft
I feed my dragons in it.
Nice cage!
I have tried to get my hands on an old chest liek that too.
My idea was to knock out the insides of all the doors to the chest, and installing plexiglass windows in them all.

that is very impressive, i hope someday i can come across a cabinet like that!

what was the cost of building the entire thing? the dragon looks happy. nice setup
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Jeff Kearney
Orlando, FL

1.0.0 Egyptian Uromastyx (Dino)
2.7.0 Bearded Dragons (Too many to name)
1.0.0 Mali Uromastyx (Rex)
0.1.0 Ball Python (Ali)
0.1.0 Leopard Gecko (Layla)
1.0.0 Panther Gecko (Melman)
0.0.1 Corn Snake (Not sure yet)
0.0.2 Blue Phase Dumpys Tree Frog (Sticky, Squishy)

the cost was not alot believe it or not...the furniture was a piece of my dining room set that we had no room for in our dining room so that cost me nothing...the glass doors and tracks cost me nothing as well because a friend of mine who does custom glass cutting owed me a favor so he gave em to me for free...the tiles cost me 5$ at lowes...mod podge was 12$ at ac moore...liquid nails was 15$ i think idr that one...the styrofoam was 10$ for hugeeeee sheets...the paint was 99 cents umm a few cents for brushes i mean it probably cost me under 100$...im in the process of building a huge enclosure for my frilled dragon in a few weeks too

Whoa! That cage looks amazing! I wished I can do something like that! Great job! He looks very happy in it.

Thanks alot! I'm actually impressed with how nice it came out...my creativity isnt all that great lol I wanna eventually build a whole multi-unit thing for my other dragons and babies when my eggs hatch that way it looks nice for the dragons...but now my current project is my frilled dragon's enclosure which ill probably start this weekend after i pick up a few things at the reptile expo in hamburg, pa
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1.0.0 Frilled Dragon - Frank
2.1.0 Bearded Dragons - Magellan, Galileo, Lizzy
Plus babies on the way! =]

I hate to be the negative one but I see a few flaws with that cage..the ramp is rather steep and the back ledge wastes quite a bit of space and you have about half your cage in shadow. It looks like the only basking area is right in front. The 'cave' is too large, since it runs the entire length of the cage and a second cave is at the end..which basically means about half your cage is a cave. Though you do have a higher 'ledge' but I just don't think the dragon will use that much, as it looks rather narrow for a dragon to run along.

To be honest I haven't seen many of these sculptured backgrounds that are effective and aesthetically pleasing. Most I find are wasted effort with little to no real benefit for the animal that is going to live inside.

What would have worked better is actually building solid wide 'rock formations' from about one third of the length of the cage and raise it up so you have a wide high basking area and several lower wide basing areas but no real cave. On the back wall low 'tier' like ledges could have been worked to gave shady areas (about 3-5" of clearance which is all the height a dragon needs their cave to be).
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PHLdyPayne

thanx for your constructive criticism but my dragon does use every bit of his cage and i the ledge is wide enough for him to walk across with no problem he also has no problem climbing the ramp...magellan gets full use of his actual cave in the corner of the enclosure its where he goes to sleep every night...underneath the ledge is not a cave at all but more of a spot magellan can go to cool down without being in his cave all the timei wasnt expecting this enclosure to be perfect since this was my first one but as long as his temp gradients work out and he can get within a good distance from the uvb light it serves its purpose...i had to make that wall because the backing of the original piece of furniture was too flimsy so i reinforced it with the fake wall...as far as half of my cage in a shadow the pictures do not do the cage justice...those pictures were taken at night and since the only lights i have in my room are my reptile lights it looked rather dark...and even then if it was in fact too dark its nothing a few small lights cant fix
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1.0.0 Frilled Dragon - Frank
2.1.0 Bearded Dragons - Magellan, Galileo, Lizzy
Plus babies on the way! =]