Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well after i get back from vacation i am starting on my iggs cage.. i got the closet all cleaned out now i have to start with the Demolition stuff ie. ripping down teh inside walls and im making a space that i am going to put a window but it will hang outside of the cege about 1.5' so he can sit in there and see what is going on it will be about 4 feet long and it will have a heat light and a uvb light.. which i think he will enjoy.. should be fun..lol

Just wondering what people used on teh inside walls of there cage...

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1.0.0 adopted iguana
0.0.2 Hedgehogs

My Email

YOU DONT OWN YOUR IGUANA, YOUR IGUANA OWNS YOU

HAPPINESS IS LIKE PEEING ON YOURSELF, EVERYONE CAN SEE IT BUT ONLY YOU CAN FEEL THE WARMTH

indoor/outdoor carpet works and looks great.
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brandy

Yes, indoor/outdoor carpet works great. My husband is finishing Tiny's cage now and we put that i there. Pictures to follow when completed. Tiny loves it too
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The addiction can be dangerous. 1 Uro named Buddy aka Big Boy & 1 Ig named Tiny

I'd really hate to contradict you all, but indoor/outdoor carpeting is going to be impossible to keep clean and will be a potential bacterial breeding ground.

The best sealer we've found so far for iggy terrarium walls is marine epoxy. It's a little pricy (especially for sealing such a big terrarium), but well worth the cost. Once it cures, it has no odor and is extremely resiliant. No other finish has stood up to our iguana's claws and the habitat's hot, humid environment. I've noticed that Home Depot sells small kits for $15; it comes in two parts that you have to mix and you have 30 minutes or less to apply it before it hardens. You'll probably need 2 or 3 of those kits to seal an iguana terrarium.

The nice thing about the epoxy is that you can decorate the walls the way you want, then seal it all. So you could put some sort of jungle-like texture or something. If esthetics isn't as much of an issue, you can laminate the walls with tile board. It's cheap ($10 for a 4x8 board) and pretty resiliant as well.

Hope this helps!

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Julie Williams
www.baskingwonders.com

We just sealed the wood, too. We used a good primer and then a good acrylic paint. We did it more to protect against humidity than anything else...

We laid linoleum (vinyl flooring) as a substrate, and I've been told you can put it on the walls, too. But I don't see why sealing the wood wouldn't work just as well, and even remant linoleum isn't cheap!

Alika

Hi Alika,

For the first terrarium we built for an iguana, we also went with the primer and acrylic paint approach; after just one year, though, the paint already started to deteriorate because of the heat and humidity, plus wiping the walls clean regularly. We applied about 6 coats of finish and it still didn't hold up, yet we used the highest-quality "scrubbable" paint designed for kitchens and bathrooms.

Maybe we just had an unsually messy iguana living in there, but paint never did hold up well in any of our iguana terrariums. LOL How long has the finish lasted for you so far?

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Julie Williams
www.baskingwonders.com

Julie,

That's troublesome... it's held up well, but then we've just built it! Xander hasn't actually been moved into it yet, but it's spent the last few weeks curing outside exposed to elements (partially sheltered, but not really protected) and outside of being a bit dirty, it seems to be doing well...

How long does the paint usually hold up? Within the next two years we're hoping to buy a house, and then he's getting an even bigger new cage that will be permanent (this one is designed to come apart for transport, since we live in an apartment and are moving into another in less than 2 weeks!)

Can the apoxy you were describing be applied over our paint job, or should we even bother since it's not a completely permanent fixture?

Thanks for the tip,

Alika

Hi Alika,

How long your paint will last will depend a lot on the wear-and-tear your iguana will put it through. Like I said, we had an unusually destructive iguana living in there. He wasn't toilet-trained and has a bit of a psychotic personality. LOL So he would often end up smearing feces all over his walls and shelves, which meant a lot of scrubbing.

Also, when the iguana scratches to get out, painted surfaces get torn apart in no time. This doesn't necessarily mean that your entire cage will be trashed within a year or two, though. It just means you will end up with some problem areas that will either end up looking ugly and/or harder to clean and, depending on where the exposed area is, the wood will end up rotting over time from exposure to water/humidity.

So since this is a somewhat temporary enclosure, then the paint will probably hold up just fine. For a more permanent enclosure, though, you might want something with a little more oomph.

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Julie Williams
www.baskingwonders.com

Thanks Julie,

Xander is still pretty small - only 7in SVL. We're expecting a growth spurt during this next year, but in the meantime he hasn't been too destructive. Of course, that could be because he's not really big enough to do any real damage. He's never poop painted (he hardly ever goes in his cage) but hopefully he has many many more years to try pulling that one on us!

I guess we'll just see how well the cage holds up and go from there Thanks!

Alika