Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Duffy,
Back in Dec 28 post you talked about 50 gal sterilite totes used as cages for ratsnakes. What are these "totes"? Are they clear or opaque? Do you have dimensions? Have you built them into a rack system?

Thanks for your help.

They are just the biggest version of the plastic box with lid that I have found so far. They are about 3 feet long, 17 inches deep, and 17 inches wide. These are rough dimensions. The boxes are opaque, but I find that I can observe my snakes just fine through them. You can certainly find clearer boxes, but I have not found any so big. And the price floored me! $10 for a great big snake cage! I have 5 of them now. I stack them. Have not considered a rack system of any kind. I really like the room they provide for my growing ratsnakes. They just don't look crowded in there at all. And I just loved the price! Did I mention that? I have seen them twice in the past 8 or 9 months at Super*Wal*Mart. A day or two after I saw them, they were all sold both times. Hey, meretseger....Did you manage to snag any last time? Anyone else using these? Good luck. Duffy

I had my Carpet Python in one for ~9 months. I had it resting on top of my little rack system, made good use of space being just a few inches under the ceiling. I think I paid ~$12 for it at Target if I recall correctly. Mine was slightly opaque, mostly on the ends, and the same dimesions as you recall. He grew though, I built a nice 3x2x2 for him, hopefully enough to last for good.

Later

Jon

Hi,

Sterilite makes two different 50 gallon totes. One is the 1849 which is pictured in the post with the Carpet Python. This product comes in clear (actually, semi-clear as in previous post), tan, and green.

They also make another 50 gallon tote that has a lot more height instead of length. I can't recall the product number but I have a picture of one. I found it at a "Do It Best Hardware" store.

I guess I should explain the picture. This is a 50 gallon tote mounted onto an epoxy sealed wood frame.

In case you're interested, here is the front view of the same cage. It's a bit trashed as a friend had just borrowed it for a female Corucia zebrata and it's newborn baby. They trashed the cage pretty good with their initial explorations.

At any rate, I only posted the picture to give you an idea of what Sterilite's other 50 gallon tote looked like in case that fit your needs better.

That is a great idea for an arboreal setup, for a really good price. You could get that whole cage setup for ~$40.

Do you have any weight in the bottom, and if so what? I can see only one drawback in design, top-heaviness.

Later

Jon

Hi Jon,

That is clearly a potential problem and one that I've given a lot of thought too. Thanks for your comment, though.

I've built a few prototypes of this basic design and when I built them I was not worried about that in particular. I knew I could deal with that once I knew the design would be strong, easy to clean, etc.

My ultimate plan is to build a modular, studded wall in my herp room. The wall will be sheathed with oak plywood rather than drywall. Then I'll route openings out of the plywood and attach the boxes from the back (after epoxying the wall, of course).

Then the only problem is the totes sagging or problems with the joint between the tote and the wall.

Neither of those have been a problem. I was even able to carry my 40 lb. nephew around in this cage while holding it by the face frame. Try that with any of the other plastic cages on the market - make sure you use your own nephew, too

But back to your concerns, there are other options. One is to attach sides to the face frame so the cages can be stacked. Another is to build a face frame with several openings and then build that face frame into a cabinet. In fact I've already done that with my first prototype of this design. The totes on that cabinet are much smaller.

Pictures of my other prototypes and a more thorough discuss is over on the caging forum. You might have to go back a month or so.

I like your innovation with economic caging.

What have you kept in cages similar to that?

Are their drawbacks with proximity with any particular (mostly hots or aggresive types) animal when cleaning or feeding? I can have problems with my Carpet when cleaning if he is hungry, just a little too close at all times, the front access has some dissadvantages to the top access for me, all though it makes a much better display.

What type of animals did run in those?

Thanks for responding,

Jon

Hi Jon,

Thanks. I've been toying around with this basic idea for a while. I've not built as many prototypes as I would have liked but have been able to give the cages to friends who keep a variety of herps so they can test them out.

I'll post a picture of what first prompted me to go with this design. I orginally started this with the intention of making cages for a group of Wagler's Vipers that I kept. I no longer keep venomous but was able to keep 2.1 in this setup for a while. For many reasons I had to rush through this cage and it's not up to my normal quality standards.

What you see here is a piece of oak-laminated plywood that is approximately 2'x 3'. As you can see I cut 3 rectangles into the piece for the tubs I was using. The top two tubs are 8 gallon trash cans. The bottom tub is a 20 gallon storage tote.

The back and exposed edge of the cage opening was sealed with epoxy paint. You can see the orange-ish colored paint on the openings into the tub.

The totes were attached with polyurethane caulk and as many 3/4" sheet metal screws as I could fit. The tops of the totes had been routed out and screens were attached with rivets and hotglue.

The joint between the tote and face is incredibly strong, stronger than the totes themselves. I was able to do pushups off the the garbage cans after they had been attached. I even left a 45 lb. tool box on top of them one night and they were fine the next morning when I realized my mistake.

For the fronts I attached strips of 1/4" thick oak and the acrylic doors fit inbetween. The hinges were screwed into the wood and attached to the acrylic with a solvent weld.

As you can see I used cam locks to keep the doors shut since they were to house venomous.

In the next picture you'll be able to see some mist heads when you look through the screen tops. I had floor drains on the bottom. I don't have any pictures of those but it was a very simple and very effective design.

The face frame you see in this picture is now enclosed in a cabinet. So it now has two sides and a top but no back or bottom. It is free standing. The sides are longer than the face frame so my friend can slide a tray underneath to catch water from the floor drains. Without the back lights, etc. are easily accessed.

As far as what my friends and I have kept in these cages, I'll write as many species as I can remember being in there:

Wagler's Vipers
Juvenile ratsnakes
Gonyosoma
Thamnophis
Red Eyed Tree Frogs
Veiled Chameleons
various tarantulas
Uroplatus henkeli
Corucia zebrata
probably many others...

My friend also used a lot of rocks and heavy water bowls and the cages have held up great.

Regarding tradeoffs between different types of cage access, that's a comprimise with any caging system as you already mentioned.

I now exclusively keep Gonyosoma which are pretty fast and agressive. I'll build cages similar to these (I found a perfect 55 gallon tote for them) but go with double sliding doors. I like sliding doors because you can open them just far enough to introduce prey items or chase a snake out of a water bowl so you can clean it. When you build them yourself you can make them so they slide open very easily (unlike visions, neodeshas, etc.). In fact some of my sliding door cages open too easily.

I do not like to use a hinged door, although I know many do.

But with this design you basically have any option you want for a door. Double sliding, hinged sideways or hinged down. Sliding doors are a bit tricky with the smaller cages but one can always build the track off the face of the cage so one double slider acts as the door for two cages side by side.

Technically you could set my large cage on it's back and have the back be the bottom and the door be the top of the cage. But you're right, there would be a comprimise with display and stacking.

Regarding cleaning, it's best to find totes without a lot of interior ridges, especially on what will be the bottom of the cage. If you search enough you can find the right tote for many different species.

Here's the pic.

Here you can see the 8 gallon garbage cans sticking off of the face frame. Also shows the screen tops and mist heads if you look closely.

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