JustineNYC
New member
Ok, here is my project. Most of you know I got sick of the fish tanks, my cats sit up there on the screen tops and the last straw was my little one puking on top of one of my vivs, as you can imagine with a screen top, it ended up in the vivarium. Not very fair to my corns.
I was looking for a way to 'display' all 4 corns together. I like the 'make a viv from a bookcase' design, unfortunately I have adults who are cramped in 20 longs, so I purchased a laminate kitchen pantry (on ebay) to go bigger and be able to use the same idea.
It 4 shelves, 66 inches high, 32 inches long, and 16 inches deep.
This is the finished product....
Two shelves are built in, and two were adjustable, meaning they sat on plastic pins. I placed them where I wanted, and drilled them all in from the sides for added stability.
The lighting is under cabinet lighting from Lowes, its rather inexpensive (10$) and drills right up into the ceiling of each viv. The downside is they get hot very quickly, not relevant in my case cause I wont have them on. I just think they look nice when you are showing off your snakes. I did run a test session out of curiosity where I hooked the cabinet up to probes and left the light on. It never went over 85 degrees in the half hour I had the light on, but if a snake crawls up there as they tend to do, and touches the light, they are going to get burned no doubt about it.
The front is acrylic, and the back I used pegboard. Luckily, Lowes was great, they cut everything for me. The ledges, the acrylic and the pegboard. All I had to do was take measurements.
Items used were:
Drill (Black and Decker, simple drill, $17 in Walmart)
Drill bits (Black and Decker accessories pack, $9)
pegboard
caulk
silicone
metal hinges
screen clips
3 inch by 30 3/4 oak strips (for ledge)
Krylon paint sealer
4 ceramic tiles
pack of rubber spacers
4 under cabinets lights
Heat tape
For heating, I stuck UTH's (new ones obviously, my old ones are stuck to tanks) to the grooved side of tiles, and created a "cavity" for the heater with rubber spacers, aluminum foil and silicone. The aluminum foil covers the floor of the cabinet, then spacers, then tile with UTH, and silicone all around. I also used heat tape for around the tile, this probably isnt needed, as they tile is siliconed. Ive read a few people on the forum have used it inside the vivs. I think Nanci said the tape is unsticky enough that if dislodged, it won't stick to the snake. The heat pad doesnt touch the shelf because the tile is elevated, and my temp/thermostat probes sit right to the tile.
I did a test session the night before the acrylic and pegboard went on and plugged in the UTH's and attached them all to probes. They distrubute heat pretty well, and hold it too...........Nonetheless, all the UTH's are connected to thermostats, I was just curious with how long theyd take to heat up and how hot theyd get if they werent shut off.
The pegboard, and ledges I used Krylons primer on to make them white, just so I could keep with the theme, and then their "moisture resistant" sealer.
Heres where I ran into problems.....The hinges drill into the front of my acrylic on one side and attach to UNDER my ledge on the other....
I purchase the tiniest bolts and nuts I could find, because the screws included with the hinges, if I would have used them, they would have been too long to be able to close the acylic door. The other thing I did was move the ledge back a smidge so there wasnt any added pressure on the acrylic, and the door felt like it sat well in that space when closed.
The problem I ran into with them was there was a space where the snake may be able to crawl down to in front of the ledge and push on the acylic and maybe manage to get their head stuck. I fixed this with weather strips. Lowes sells them for doorways. There was perfect for filling that little gap and making the acrylic door sit tight to the ledge, I added extra screen clips there too for a tight fit...This is the bottom of the acrylic doors
See photo...
When used with the clips, I cant pry the acrylic away from the Viv, so if I can't Im content the snakes cant.
As you can tell by how many screen clips I used, I am escape paranoid! Last thing I want to do is built something someone gets out of and gets eaten by a cat in the process.
The pegboard was probably the easiest part. Because I had a light and heat pad (2 cords) coming out of each viv, it was easier to do the pegboard in 4 separate pieces. So I measured each self individually, and marked off on the ledge where one piece of pegboard started and the next began. Make sure you allow each piece of pegboard room to be drilled into the ledges, because they all need to be drilled on each side. Before drilling each piece onto the back of the cabinet, I used wire cutters to snip a gap in the pegboard for the cords coming out. Once everything was on nice and tight, all corners of the vivs got siliconed and the holes in the pegboard, although tiny were filled with silicone too.
Heres the back...
And inside...
I think that's it.
Im anticipating it will be airing out for about a week. So Ill post more pics when I get my guys settled in!
I was looking for a way to 'display' all 4 corns together. I like the 'make a viv from a bookcase' design, unfortunately I have adults who are cramped in 20 longs, so I purchased a laminate kitchen pantry (on ebay) to go bigger and be able to use the same idea.
It 4 shelves, 66 inches high, 32 inches long, and 16 inches deep.
This is the finished product....
Two shelves are built in, and two were adjustable, meaning they sat on plastic pins. I placed them where I wanted, and drilled them all in from the sides for added stability.
The lighting is under cabinet lighting from Lowes, its rather inexpensive (10$) and drills right up into the ceiling of each viv. The downside is they get hot very quickly, not relevant in my case cause I wont have them on. I just think they look nice when you are showing off your snakes. I did run a test session out of curiosity where I hooked the cabinet up to probes and left the light on. It never went over 85 degrees in the half hour I had the light on, but if a snake crawls up there as they tend to do, and touches the light, they are going to get burned no doubt about it.
The front is acrylic, and the back I used pegboard. Luckily, Lowes was great, they cut everything for me. The ledges, the acrylic and the pegboard. All I had to do was take measurements.
Items used were:
Drill (Black and Decker, simple drill, $17 in Walmart)
Drill bits (Black and Decker accessories pack, $9)
pegboard
caulk
silicone
metal hinges
screen clips
3 inch by 30 3/4 oak strips (for ledge)
Krylon paint sealer
4 ceramic tiles
pack of rubber spacers
4 under cabinets lights
Heat tape
For heating, I stuck UTH's (new ones obviously, my old ones are stuck to tanks) to the grooved side of tiles, and created a "cavity" for the heater with rubber spacers, aluminum foil and silicone. The aluminum foil covers the floor of the cabinet, then spacers, then tile with UTH, and silicone all around. I also used heat tape for around the tile, this probably isnt needed, as they tile is siliconed. Ive read a few people on the forum have used it inside the vivs. I think Nanci said the tape is unsticky enough that if dislodged, it won't stick to the snake. The heat pad doesnt touch the shelf because the tile is elevated, and my temp/thermostat probes sit right to the tile.
I did a test session the night before the acrylic and pegboard went on and plugged in the UTH's and attached them all to probes. They distrubute heat pretty well, and hold it too...........Nonetheless, all the UTH's are connected to thermostats, I was just curious with how long theyd take to heat up and how hot theyd get if they werent shut off.
The pegboard, and ledges I used Krylons primer on to make them white, just so I could keep with the theme, and then their "moisture resistant" sealer.
Heres where I ran into problems.....The hinges drill into the front of my acrylic on one side and attach to UNDER my ledge on the other....
I purchase the tiniest bolts and nuts I could find, because the screws included with the hinges, if I would have used them, they would have been too long to be able to close the acylic door. The other thing I did was move the ledge back a smidge so there wasnt any added pressure on the acrylic, and the door felt like it sat well in that space when closed.
The problem I ran into with them was there was a space where the snake may be able to crawl down to in front of the ledge and push on the acylic and maybe manage to get their head stuck. I fixed this with weather strips. Lowes sells them for doorways. There was perfect for filling that little gap and making the acrylic door sit tight to the ledge, I added extra screen clips there too for a tight fit...This is the bottom of the acrylic doors
See photo...
When used with the clips, I cant pry the acrylic away from the Viv, so if I can't Im content the snakes cant.
As you can tell by how many screen clips I used, I am escape paranoid! Last thing I want to do is built something someone gets out of and gets eaten by a cat in the process.
The pegboard was probably the easiest part. Because I had a light and heat pad (2 cords) coming out of each viv, it was easier to do the pegboard in 4 separate pieces. So I measured each self individually, and marked off on the ledge where one piece of pegboard started and the next began. Make sure you allow each piece of pegboard room to be drilled into the ledges, because they all need to be drilled on each side. Before drilling each piece onto the back of the cabinet, I used wire cutters to snip a gap in the pegboard for the cords coming out. Once everything was on nice and tight, all corners of the vivs got siliconed and the holes in the pegboard, although tiny were filled with silicone too.
Heres the back...
And inside...
I think that's it.
Im anticipating it will be airing out for about a week. So Ill post more pics when I get my guys settled in!
