Reptile & Amphibian Forums

1.) Linda and Julie:
Did you two build your enclosures? Both, from what I saw, are amazing. I will eventually (meaning anywhere from one year to three years) get an iguana - and I would like information on how to construct an equally beautiful and sizeable enclosure. Or, maybe I will just have to get the lasest version of "Construction for Dummies."

2.) Gender
I am, the wife, the one primarily performing all tasks related to the household reptiles (currently have 5 leopard geckos and 1 bearded dragon). So, would a female or a male iguana work better? I've heard some horror stories about both: female iguanas attacking their female owners and male iguanas getting aggressive when he can sense his female owner on her period. Thoughts?

3.) Iguanas and space
The house I currently live in has three bedrooms: master bedroom, the man room (where all of my husband's computer junk and video game junk is) and the guest room. If I were to eventually get an iguana, I would build the setup in the guest room. Would occasional guests frighten the iguana? Or, would the occasional stay over in the "iguana room" be acceptable? The guest room is the girl hide out - where I do all my studying, have plants, my computer, a guest bed, etc.

4.) Additional resources
From the posts that I have read, it seems the the book Iguana for Dummies would be a great place to start. Any others up for recommendation?

5.) Adopting
I have already made up my mind that I would want to adopt. I've already started doing research - Green Iguana Society and some others. I have also tried to locate a rescue organization close by. I live in Austin, Tx. If anyone could possibly point out other places - I would be interested.

Thanks.
- D
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2.0 Dogs (Dante the 110 lb. drooling lab & Amos the mutt)
0.1 Bearded Dragon (Lazlo - the pickiest lizard every met)
1.4 Leopard Geckos (Randall, Dagny, Kira, Dominique and Ayn)
1.0 Husband (the most obnoxious and yet rewarding pet of all!)
dacia2002@yahoo.com

Hi 'D',

Thanks for the compliments, but you may want to reconsider on that design, for several reasons.

It's great for young iguanas, but as your iguana gets older -- and bigger -- it will be a nightmare to keep clean and you will have to build a new terrarium within a year or less because of material failure.

Suggestion #1: forget wood. It looks great, it's cheap, and it's a great insulator, but no matter what you do with it to try and seal it, it *will* rot from the moisture and from your iguana's very big and frequent messes. This applies to melamine, too -- your iguana's claws will make little holes in the surface in no time and this will allow moisture to seep in.

We ended up having to gut out and refinish Cujo's terrarium 3 times in the past 6 years. This last time, we went with tileboard and wire shelving:

It isn't pretty to look at, but very functional and comfortable for the iggy. This is actually a temp solution (meaning it only has to last 1 year) until we move into our house and we're able to build him a larger enclosure. This one is too small for him now.

Suggestion #2: make your entire floor a tub equipped with some sort of drainage. After trying to seal the floors of our iguana enclosures with every kind of flooring material, after 10 years we have concluded that no matter how resiliant the material, it *will* get destroyed in less than 2 years. Iguanas are big animals that put out an equally big enough of feces and urates; these are killer on any type of flooring material.

We converted the floor of our male iguana's enclosure by sinking a huge Rubbermaid tub into it (the kind used for underbed storage). We then drilled a big hole right in the middle of it and placed a bucket underneath. Here are some pics of that:

The entire inside of the enclosure is completely waterproof and all messes fall into the tub. We then use a garden sprayer to hose everything down and funnel it into the hole. It is a godsent.

Something else to consider is the fact that a lot of iguanas like to "poop-bomb," i.e. drop their poop from a branch or the edge of a shelf. This is something Cujo is famous for and is why we've had to redo his terrarium so many times. When we had solid shelves, he would often miss and poop on a shelf, then walk through it and drag his mess everywhere. You can imagine what it was like to clean. So you don't want to create any areas where poop can sit and stagnate, and especially not where the ig can walk through it and drag it across every square inch of the terrarium (you'd be amazed how good they are at doing this).

We also have an automated misting system for our cham, that we extended to include in Cujo's terrarium. Another nice little gadget we added was a set of computer fans that we wired to a transformer. We direct them towards the ceiling so that the hot air that accumulates there gets pushed back down. This has increased the ambient temperature inside the enclosure by 10F. Gotta love efficiency.

Finally, you have to consider ventilation. By placing a vent near the bottom and placing another vent on the opposite wall near the top, you create a nice cross-circulation. The heat at the top causes the cool air at the bottom to rise, so cool air comes up from the vent at the bottom and escapes from the vent near the top. You will want to place this vent under the basking area, so that there is a nice warm pocket of air above it.

Notice the vent under Cujo's basking spot:

When we rebuild Cujo's terrarium, we plan on using the plans on this web site: www.lizardcages.com. We bought a set of plans for the Jumbo Jungle Gym. These are the best cages I've ever seen for iguanas; not only are they beautiful, they're inexpensive to build and actually take into consideration that there is a big, living and breathing animal living in there.

Hope these suggestions help! Please keep in touch when you finally do get your iguana and let us see pics of your enclosure.

Julie

Julie -

You are amazing. Thank you so much for the tips.

I wasn't able to view any of the pictures, though - probably has something to do with my security settings or whatever - that's all my husbnad's doing...

Anyway - thanks for all of the advice - especially the idea regarding the bucket and using wood. Never would have thought of the bucket and I was planning on using wood!!

It should still be quite awhile before I actually get an iguana - but when that day comes, I will be one happy momma.

Sincerely,
D
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2.0 Dogs (Dante the 110 lb. drooling lab & Amos the mutt)
0.1 Bearded Dragon (Lazlo - the pickiest lizard every met)
1.4 Leopard Geckos (Randall, Dagny, Kira, Dominique and Ayn)
1.0 Husband (the most obnoxious and yet rewarding pet of all!)
dacia2002@yahoo.com