Reptile & Amphibian Forums

have seen alot of cool cage designs with lexan tops up to 3-4 feet tall on top of trough wondering the effisency ( I know thats not spelled right ) of keeping heat and humidity as I live the north east room temp is usualy between 68-74 (heat/airconditioning) leaning towards that would not work here without exesive heating elements on all the time would appresiate any thoughts or ideas also were do you live with those kind of tops? thanks for readng and any responces.

Hi Nick,

I live in the northeast too. I also have a some similarly designed enclosures. My winter room temps are about 67 to 72, usually two bulbs (a 50watt and 40watt) on my cages producing two hotspots keeps the temps very good. My hot spots reach as high as 160 or so and my ambient temps range from mid seventies to about 80'ishs.

Humidity is maintained by dumping a gallon of water into the dirt every one to two months. This leaves high humidity in burrows (60 to 100ish%) and lower humidity in the air (0 to 50ish%).

So it is easily attainable where we live. In the summer I reduce the bulb wattages to two 30 watt units, or run only a single 30 watt bulb depending on weather.

Hope this has been helpful,
Cheers,
Mike.

thanks for the info having no real expirence or experimenting been done I thought it would have been more dificult than that to keep proper temps im glad to hear it as I would like to have enclosure like that thanks for the response P.S. my name is Derek not to computer savy had my friend set this up for me like a dope he put all his info in have to get to come back and change it.

Hello,
No need for lexan, Its more then double the price of regular plexiglass or acrylic, which is expensive enough!
1/4 inch regular acrylic screw down properly,will house just about anything safely.

Yes but you can fold lexan in half and it doesn't crack!! You tap acrylic wrong and it's in pieces, lexan on the other hand is nearly indestructible.

thanks for info plan on using lexan