Ikea enclosure

[Serpico]

Hoping to make something welcomed, I am posting specs and pics of my enclosure, reserved for my new couple of garters, bought one week ago (btw, they just had their first meal, salmon chunks, and that is why they are not showing in the pics).

The idea is not mine, but rather from a fellow countryman who posted somewhere else his own enclosure project, taken from the Ikea furniture shop.

Basically you buy something from Ikea and apply some glass, or in my case, plexiglass (more expensive, but safer to handle), modify the structure a bit, and off you go.

The structure is this one here:
EXPEDIT Scaffale - bianco - IKEA (http://www.ikea.com/it/it/catalog/products/20135300)

of course I have removed the inside shelves, added plexiglass back and front, with the necessary air vents.

What can't be seen in the pics is the top opening, with plexi cover, which allows a movable UV lamp to shine inside the cage.

Bottom is covered with expanded clay (not sure how to translate that, it goes under the namebrand of "vermiculite") moderately absorbant, very light, non dusty small spheres....snakes like it because they can burrow, and move it a bit if they apply to it, and I like it because I can remove excreta with a spoon, and the results are tidy and hodourless. A bit expensive, tho.

The plant is a pothos....the water container is from the same snake fair I attended and got the snakes from. Expensive, but good looking and efficient.

The enclosure totals about 170 liters, more or less 42 gallons, and the temp. gradient is from 24 C bottom front to 28-30 C top back, where the basking spot is. So far, the couple have explored it and pronounced of their liking.

Structure costs about 20 euro plus the plexiglass 50 euro (yes I know, here is expensive), fittings and stuff some 10 euro more.

In my country you get a 150 liters terrarium for about 200 euro, if you research diligently....

Comments are very welcome!
Best Regards
Pg

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/9882/terr2.th.jpg

http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/8779/terr1.th.jpg


Apologies for these images quality, I need to work on that still, please bear with me!

[guidofatherof5]

You did a great job converting that into an enclosure.

My only concern would be with the vermiculite as a substrate.
Do you feed your snakes in the enclosure? My concern is with ingesting that material.

[Serpico]

You did a great job converting that into an enclosure.

My only concern would be with the vermiculite as a substrate.
Do you feed your snakes in the enclosure? My concern is with ingesting that material.

Well, Steve, the pellets are big enough to present a problem biting them, and to avoid even the smallest trouble, I have given the food on the tree bark, in chunks small enough not to drag around.

Pg

[Mommy2many]

Welcome! I like the idea with the cubes. I just wish the picture was bigger so I could see it more clearly. Looks like a great job.

[Serpico]

I am a stubborn guy, and I am going now to try until the pictures which I have done 800x600 will show right.
Hope that now they are visible....please let me know if they aren't.
Thanks!

Pg

[Mommy2many]

Much better!

[guidofatherof5]

Well, Steve, the pellets are big enough to present a problem biting them, and to avoid even the smallest trouble, I have given the food on the tree bark, in chunks small enough not to drag around.

Pg

I can see in your most recent photos the size of the substrate and I can see it shouldn't be a problem.
It's looking good.;)

[katach]

Il tuo armadio sembra meraviglioso. Mi piacciono le palline di argilla, sono abbastanza.

[brain]

There might be a problem with the sliding doors whcih can be used to escape ... depending on the size of the snake.

[Serpico]

Thanks for the appreciative comments. And regarding the sliding doors, it has been a concern for me, therefore I have strenghtened the rigidity of the two pieces so neither the smaller male nor the bigger female can slide in between the two doors. Or at least, it is what I hope.
Nevertheless any advice would be of course very much appreciated.

Regarding the expanded clay pellet's size, I have been using them for all the time the old garters couple lived with me, and I fed them fish, frogs, stripes of meat, earthworms, nightcrawlers, and they never ever had problems with the clay.

Hugs all!

Pg

[brain]

At the Reptile show last year, this guy made his viv with sliding doors and between the doors, he placed a strip of door weather stripping made of foam rubber with a sticky backing. I’m sure it made a deterrent.

As for the flexibility of the door “if”, it becomes and issues try gluing a strip of hardwood on the outside of the most outer door.

I do like the configuration access from the front. I keep reading that the ppl on here with viv that open to the front, seems to make the snake more at ease. Something I need to look at when building my next unit with a water feather for the Puget’s.

[chris-uk]

We have a lot of Ikea bookshelves (mostly containing our books). We don't have the Expedit units but I'm inspired by this project to try a modification to our shelves to move Binky into the living room or office when she needs a bigger viv.

[kibakiba]

Don't let her talk you into transforming your office into a snake room, like mine did. I barely have room to exercise now.:rolleyes::D

[BLUESIRTALIS]

You did a great job converting that into an enclosure.

My only concern would be with the vermiculite as a substrate.
Do you feed your snakes in the enclosure? My concern is with ingesting that material.

Im with you on this one Steve i would be scared to use vermiculite as a substrate too. Vermiculite holds humidity so that may be an issue in it's self. I also read somewhere that vermiculite has asbestos in it which could effect the snakes long term. I would try to use something else.

[Serpico]

Im with you on this one Steve i would be scared to use vermiculite as a substrate too. Vermiculite holds humidity so that may be an issue in it's self. I also read somewhere that vermiculite has asbestos in it which could effect the snakes long term. I would try to use something else.

Well, not that I hold Vermiculite shares...but I have sort of field tested it for some years, and my thoughts are that:

in regard of humidity, it is true to an extent, I am actually thinking that the viv is too dry (hence Mila's bad shed, see the related thread), and if I do not add water to the substratum, it remains pretty dry;
the size of the pellets is too big to be ingested. I have seen both garters drag stuff while inside, and no pellet is likely to end up inside their mouths:
for the asbestos..with the current laws in Italy, there is NO possibility that something is produced and sold with even a 0,1% of asbestos in it. And whatever contains asbestos has to be replaced or sanitized ASAP.

My only concern regarding vermiculite is that out of the shelf, the vermiculite bag can't be used into a viv, it needs to be washed and dried (and I dry it into a oven at at least 100 C°, better safe than sorry)...

/me waves cheerfully

Pg

[BLUESIRTALIS]

Well, not that I hold Vermiculite shares...but I have sort of field tested it for some years, and my thoughts are that:

in regard of humidity, it is true to an extent, I am actually thinking that the viv is too dry (hence Mila's bad shed, see the related thread), and if I do not add water to the substratum, it remains pretty dry;
the size of the pellets is too big to be ingested. I have seen both garters drag stuff while inside, and no pellet is likely to end up inside their mouths:
for the asbestos..with the current laws in Italy, there is NO possibility that something is produced and sold with even a 0,1% of asbestos in it. And whatever contains asbestos has to be replaced or sanitized ASAP.

My only concern regarding vermiculite is that out of the shelf, the vermiculite bag can't be used into a viv, it needs to be washed and dried (and I dry it into a oven at at least 100 C°, better safe than sorry)...

/me waves cheerfully

Pg

Do you think the vermiculite could be drying mila out because it seems to draw moisture and you can only use very little for plants because it will take all the moisture away and soak it up like a sponge.