Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am planning to build a cage for my ball and have a few questions about it. I was at the home store and wondering what type of sealant I shoud use. Is there a special brand for use around animals or should I just use 100 percent silicon? What kind of polyurethane should I use? I have found a water-based finish from Minwax called Polycrylic and wonder if it will be ok. I know that with whatever I select I will have to let it air out completly before the snake moves in.

thanks
Kevin

Polycrylic, actually, I have used and liked for furniture. Ultimately, I found cleaning things to be far simpler when we bought a triple-decker (three terraria) built by a breeder. His design was painfully heavy, so, that part could be improved upon, but, he glassed the inside of the terraria. I.e. wooden shell, lined with glass, siliconed into place.

The glass is heavy, though. If just for snakes, acrylic panels could work better. Certainly lighter, and I find it to be less susceptible to craking. We used some of Big Apple's heat rope under a terrarium, with a rheostat and plenty of ventilation. We let it get too warm (not warm enough to harm the snake inside, but...) and the glass split. Now, we're replacing the glass, bit by bit, with acrylic panels... Cleanup is a breeze... Snake poops, quick wipe with paper towel, spritz of desinfectant, water, squeegee, and the snake goes back in.
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Justin, Julie and the menagerie...
(Bobbing igs, snapping macklots, exploring ball, hungry kings, hyper grey rat, quacking tribs, hissing roaches, wriggling worms & chirping crickets)
Vermont Herpetological Society Online
www.vermontherps.org

Polycrylic is a nice product but is not very durable. It will not hold up well to Ball Python urates nor the moisture it will see on those occasions your snake crawls in and out of it's water bowl.

It will work okay for the walls of the cage provided you cover the floor are first couple of inches of the walls with something else.

You could use oil-based poly for the entire project but even that will have to be touched up every couple of years, at least on the floor. With it's incredibly long drying time I don't think it's worth using unless you can use it once and forget about it.

If there is a chance that you'll ever put a species in this cage with higher humidity requirements, then consider using Envirotex Epoxy for the cage. I'll post a picture of a cage below I coated with this product. Expensive, but I love it.

If this will be used for a BP and only a BP, stick with the Polycrylic and cover the floor with something else. Anything from vinyl floor or a sheet of expanded PVC from a sign shop.

The nice thing about the PVCX is that it conducts heat well and has anti-flame properties. If you were to cut a square out of the wooden cage floor and then cover the entire floor with PVCX, you could place a heat pad in the cut out area and the PVCX, besides being easy to clean and durable, would conduct the heat from the pad.

To save weight you could even not have a wooden floor at all but just attach a thicker sheet of PVCX to the bottom of the cage.

Here's the cage I mentioned. The interior is coated with Envirotex. The exterior with Polycrylic. It's built for the cheaper quality oak-laminated plywood available from Home Depot and other home improvement stores.