Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i'm building a large enclosure for my two argus monitors, i planned on using wood, but is there anything else that would be able to handle the moisture, and still be easily workable and safe for the animals, any help appreciated.

You actually need to worry more about resistance to scratching rather than water proofing. Fortunately taking care of the former usually takes care of the latter as well.

If you're wood is attractive and you want a clear coat you could use a clear epoxy or fiberglass resin. They will be more expensive and difficult to work with, though. I've used a product called Envirotex that is very easy to work with and it's water resistant but I do not know how well it holds up to scratching.

Junglehabitats has some excellent posts on an Argus setup he built and talks about a plasticized sealer in one of his posts. You might read that and see what you think. Once again, your primary concern is scratch resistance.

It sounds easy enough to work with that you could possible touch up the cage every several months if scratching is a problem. That would not be so easy with epoxy.

Another option is fiberglass reinforced panel, or FRP board. I know this is very popular over on the monitor forum.

In fact if you got to the Monitor forum archives and type in "resin" or "epoxy" or "fiberglass" or "FRP" you'd probably get a lot of very useful information. There are some experienced cage builders over there. I often read their archives for ideas even though I do not keep Varanids.

Hope this helps.

First the sides were overlapped so that the glass covered all but just the minimum in the corners to keep the argus from clawing & digging in the wood. You might also want to look into using a Laminate on the floor such as Formica /Wilsonart. this is a very durable material its used on countertops and is very resiliant(sp) . the Sealer i used chris spoke of is a Plastisized sealer used in my cabinet buis. I havent seen anything like it at lowes / home depot its sold in 5 gallon buckets and is rather expensive ( $80 a bucket) so that may be not worth it for you and is available at major suppliers for woodworking .i would say that a laminate on the interior would be the best bet . Argus monitors are almost a FULL time foreger (sp again lol ) the love to dig on a constant and never seem to stop at least the one i built the cage for doesnt he walks and digs walks and digs all the time if you goto my website click on the Habitats link thats the one i built , and if you click on the "laminate sample" link you can read about the laminates . if i can be of any help feel fre to drop me a email
Alan
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