Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am building a cage this weekend for my mali and I have a couple question.

I want to build the cage 72"w x 36"h x 24"d. I am going to build it out of mdf and the front I am going to use 2 pieces of 1/4" tempered glass. I am going to go get enough sand to fill the bottom 3-4" and get him more rocks. The lights are my biggest worry. Because my cage is so big I was thinking of putting in 2 seperate 48" strip light fixtures in the top, one for day and one for night. For the lights what would you guys reccomend? Should there be 3 fixtures 2 for day and 1 for night and what kind of bulbs would you use?

Thanks,
Romeo

Wow, your Uro will be living large!

Out of curiosity, why did you choose these dimenions? Particularly the height?

The mali itself only needs a low cage, if you want to add decorations, and be able to see him well, I recommend a viewing area of at least 15in (glass height for bypass doors), but if you get much taller than 20in or so from lights to substrate it gets a lot harder to heat. I recently built a cage and the interior is 24in tall, 21in after I added substrate, and I am already up to 2 150w lights, 1 150w heat emitter, and 2 UVA/UVB strip lights. Now I am not comfortable using the mercury vapor bulbs, but it is possible they may heat that size tank more effectively, if you decide you are comfortable using them.

I am not sure how you will get a good basking spot using only strip lighting. Due to the bulbs that they hold they would be good for ambient heat I think, but getting that one spot up to 120 or 125 degrees without raising the entire tank end to that temp would be very hard. A mixture of strip lighting and dome lights may work well though. I may also be misunderstanding what you mean by strip lighting.

I applaud your desire to make a great home for your friend! Sounds like a fun project.

Elizabeth
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~echarris/archcage/

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1.0 Mali Uro Archimedes
0.0.1 Egyptian Uro Zuberi Mosca Khu (Mosca)
0.0 Fish
0.1 Sulcata Minnie
1.1 Iguanas Flik and Loki
0.1 Newfoundland Jasmine
0.1 Feline Winter
Indiana & Wisconsin

I chose the height because of the lights I didn't want them close enough to the bottom to burn him. I can put a basking light in there for his basking spot. All that advice and questions is why I wrote this. I want to find out what I need instead of just jumping into it. I have a basking lamp now so I can use that and then my stip lights will heat the cage itself. What temp should the overall cage be? Anymore suggestions I am open to them.

Thanks,
Romeo

>>I chose the height because of the lights I didn't want them close enough to the bottom to burn him. I can put a basking light in there for his basking spot. All that advice and questions is why I wrote this. I want to find out what I need instead of just jumping into it. I have a basking lamp now so I can use that and then my stip lights will heat the cage itself. What temp should the overall cage be? Anymore suggestions I am open to them.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Romeo

Suggestions? Well at 72x36x24 you could go with 2 hot ends and a cool middle. Your cage temps should be roughly an air temp of 80-85 degrees wherever you designate the cool zone to be and an air temp of around 100 in the hot area. Basking of course should be around 120-130. For more of my ramblings on heat gradients and basking temps go here.

I agree with Elizabeth that it is going to take a lot of lights to get that tanker up to a rolling boil. If that were my cage I probably would start with 2 4 foot long shop light fixtures (2 bulbs each) and put 2 reptisun 5.0 and 2 reptisun 2.0 in there for UV and ambient lighting. I use shop lights because I can pick them up for 10-15 bucks each and they work just as good as expensive reptile strip light fixtures. Don't forget you have to get your uro within 12 inches of the tubes to get any benfit from them, so you will either need to build basking shelves within 12 inches from the top of the cage (and ramps to get up to them) or mount the fixtures inside the cage. The other option is to go with the new Megaray light which will throw UVB 36 inches no problem.

If you were going to do 2 hot ends and a cool middle I would start with 4 dome lights with 90 watt halogens in two and 45 watt in the other two. If that did not get air temp up I would start adding more flood halogen lights. You probably won't have a problem getting basking spots to 120-130 with the halogens even at 36 inches but that is a ton of air to heat to 100 degrees.

As for nightime I never use anything as I have enough thermal mass and insulation to carry a comfortable temp until morning. If your room gets cold at night then I would go with a pair of CHE's which you could also use to provide supplementary heat during the day.

I would also suggest insulating the sides and bottom of the cage with at least 1/2 to one inch of rigid foam board. You could probably reduce your heating requirements by half by doing that. If you wanted natural wood on the inside you could sandwich it between the cage and a piece of 1/4 inch plywood.

The size of cage you are planning would not be a problem for a snake or other lizard which needs lower ambient temps but for uros you will really need to think out your heating plan.

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Mike Wilson
mwilson@fuu.net

I want to say up front I think giving your Uro that big of a cage is AWESOME, and I wish I had the space to do it as well.

With that said, If the cost of all the lighting, insulation, etc. is getting prohibitive for you, you may want to scale down to a 2ft by 4ft footprint. That would still give the mali plenty of run to run around, and should be considerably less expensive to heat and light. Particularly if you are more tolerant than I am of the use of halogens and mercury vapor bulbs. I am just overly paranoid, so use only the incandescent and flourescent bulbs, and ceramic heat emitters.

If you decide to build the 6 ft cage (so cool!), I would design it in such a way that the lighting can be moved around while you play with the temp gradients. I have not used the "2 hot ends and a cool middle" setup, though I would trust MIke's ideas, I would think it would require more playing around with light locations to achieve the proper gradient than a "hot end, cool end" set up. That is just my initial impression though.

Is there a reason you chose to use MDF? I am just curious. There has been some debate on the cage building forum regarding its uses versus other materials, so I am interested on your point of view. The debate has not revolved around whether it is suitable, there seems to be consensus on that, just on its weight & cost in relationship to other materials.

Elizabeth

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1.0 Mali Uro Archimedes
0.0.1 Egyptian Uro Zuberi Mosca Khu (Mosca)
0.0 Fish
0.1 Sulcata Minnie
1.1 Iguanas Flik and Loki
0.1 Newfoundland Jasmine
0.1 Feline Winter
Indiana & Wisconsin

When I went to ask at my local glass shop about getting some sliding doors for the cage I'm building, they said not to use tempered glass if you're not enclosing the edges in something.

I don't know if you were installing the glass into a wooden frame or not, but if you are just using glass to slide, then ask about the tempered. He told me that if you knock something into the edge of the tempered glass it will explode.

If you're making framed glass, then never mind!
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Torey
Eugene, Oregon, USA
1.1 Uromastyx Geyri (Joe and Arthur)
2.0.1 Uromastyx Dispar Maliensis (Tank, Turtle, and new neighbor Spike)
1.2 Anolis Carolinensis (Bowser, Leeloo, and Sprocket)
1.1 African Dwarf Frogs (Bruce and Sheila)
1.0 Betta Splendens (Mr. Miagi)
1.1 Felis Domesticus (Roscolux and Jenny)
And several miscellaneous community fish

I am planning on routing out the back of the wood to fit the glass into the front. Also if I keep the cage at ambient temp and have a basking spot, can I since my cage is going to be so big to build him a cave of rocks at one end for a hide and a cool down spot?

Thanks,
Romeo

As long as you use aquarium silicone to secure all the rocks together (no shifting and crushing of your uro), then a rock cave sounds like a great idea!
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Torey
Eugene, Oregon, USA
1.1 Uromastyx Geyri (Joe and Arthur)
2.0.1 Uromastyx Dispar Maliensis (Tank, Turtle, and new neighbor Spike)
1.2 Anolis Carolinensis (Bowser, Leeloo, and Sprocket)
1.1 African Dwarf Frogs (Bruce and Sheila)
1.0 Betta Splendens (Mr. Miagi)
1.1 Felis Domesticus (Roscolux and Jenny)
And several miscellaneous community fish

I chose to use mdf because I was a stereo installer for four years and we made all of our boxes out of it so I know it's quality wood. I guess if it holds up to all the pressure a subwoofer puts out it will be good enough to house my mali. The answer is the quality!

I was also wondering I know every forum and care sheet says playsand but is there any playsand or other sand that is white thats acceptable for substrate?

The rock cave has to be siliconed but does it have to be aquarium silicone?

Thanks,
Romeo