Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i know that tons of people use plastic cages (vision, neodesha, boaphile), but does anybody with a descent size collection stack melamine cages? I am considering building 12 4' melamine cages and stacking 3 high. Any input would be greatly appeciated.

I actually made and used for quite awhile 3 cage stacks out of melamine, I used plexi as the front and had it routered into the wood instead of using runners, and they worked great... If you can get access to large sheets this way works quite well. As far as stacking individual enclosures I would make sure and have a support midway in the front and the back to help avoid sagging from the weight of the stack.

Also you can find many great pointers on the caging forum here on ks, alot of people even post entire walkthroughs on the building process.

Good luck

Later
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Randall L Turner Jr.
www.aircapitalconstrictors.com

You never experience life until you have kids..then you realize what you should have done rather then what you did do

I reread what I posted and I think I might have come off confusing.. I used what would look like a tub rack design, all three levels combined into one on castors. Just wanted to clarify that incase it came off confusing.

(sorry tired, just got home from work..lol)

later
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Randall L Turner Jr.
www.aircapitalconstrictors.com

You never experience life until you have kids..then you realize what you should have done rather then what you did do

I have been building with glass instead of plexi. I know that it is much heavier, i am not sure about how expansive plexi is, but how well does it slide?

The plexi slides extremely well, not a bit of binding (in the properly gapped stack..lol) a couple of the first go around built stacks I made I didn't quite get the gap right and it would bind at times, but with a bit of wax from a candle it started working without any issues.

Later
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Randall L Turner Jr.
www.aircapitalconstrictors.com

You never experience life until you have kids..then you realize what you should have done rather then what you did do

As soon as my aluminum tracks come in, I plan on building a 4 cage stack (one unit) out of melamine to replace some glass tanks I'm using now. Each cage will measure 4'L X 2'D X 10-11"H with an overall height of 4'. This will be the first multi-unit cage I've built, but I also have an adult burmese who happily resides in a melamine cage I built for her. FWIW, I prefer the Vision cages I already have, but don't have the $$$ to spring for more of them (or any other manufactured cage) right now. I think as long as the construction is tight and the seams are sealed well, they should last for several years...at least, that's what I'm counting on.

Raven

i use both melamine cages and boaphile plastic cages..one thing ive found with melamine cages is they dont tolerate a lot of moisture..i formica the bottom of the cages and caulk all inside seams to waterproof them, and build a 3 inch litter dam at the front of the cage to control water spills..the cages last for quite a long time,but you have to make sure to mop up any water spills to keep them from soaking into the sides of the cages..mealmine is water resistant, but not water proof...a more expensive solution is to formica the inside walls along with the floor, but at that point its cheaper to buy plastic cages...melamine insulates better than the plastic cages in my opinion, but that depends on how cold your boa room is..as long as you dont plan on moving the cages too much, melamine is fine, but for cleaning nothing beats a garden hose and a wet dry vac in the plastic cages..it costs me $150 to build my melamine cages, versus the $200 each i spent on plastic cages...

I've seen some pics in this forum of custom made cages stacked up that blow away any manufactured plastic cage stack. I believe Greg Maxwell builds his chondro cages out of melamine. I haven't looked at the site in quite a while, but I think it's chondroweb.com and somewhere in there is a link to his cages. He uses oak fronts, and his set up is incredible. Building his own cages, he was able to incorporate corner cages so he loses a lot less floor space than what you can do with manufactured plastic cages. Boaphile offers a corner attachment, but it is different than what Greg built entirely. Gregs' corner is an actually cage, not just an invisible connection. Check it out, and I'm sure you'll get some great ideas. The only down fall to melamine cages is the weight. If you don't plan on moving them though, that shouldn't present a problem. There's pros and cons to all cages, just be sure you seal a melamine cage VERY good or it will swell from water spills, high humidity, etc. Take care!

Paul