- Joined
- Sep 11, 2010
- Messages
- 66
Hey all 
I was a bit tired of my terrarium and wanted to built a new one. My former one was built in a hurry when I received my tortoise, I had not much tools, not much time and not much money at that time, the cuts were not straight. But at least it was a confortable home for my koopa baby.
Since then I had more time and started thinking of building a better one. Here is the result, a double decker habitat, wich means twice the space she used to have. It is 60cm*120cm, so it is approx 15 squared feet to roam with the additional floor. It is not totally finished but it's allready a lot better than my former habitat
One of the priority was to have as much direct sunlight possible. So I made the top as an open table. The heigth of the tortarium was made so I can open the window, this way koopa can bask in direct and natural sun light from 9h00 to 12h30.
A ramp goes down to the main floor, where there is all the confort from the older vivarium: Uv tube, basking light, habba mist, soon I'll add a webcam
The part my wife likes the most is the draws at the bottom. No more tortoise stuff lying above the habitat, everything is kept inside. Finally another improvment compared to my old set up is that the whole thing is on wheels and is easy to move
I made a few change from my former set up. Firstly I switched the substrate from garden dirt/soil to a cypress mulch/coco mix. Just to try, I ll see how it goes. I used to have live plants but after a few month I always had insect problems. So I bought some fake plants, I'll see how koopa behaves with them, I hope she'll not try to eat that.
There are a few improvments I still want to make in the future. I'm afraid as she grows she can climb over the top edge of the open table part. So I'm looking to add a removable framed net over the top. I'll also keep an eye on the black tape I used to water-proof everything, I don't like the look of it, but I didn't come up with something good to replace it yet.
I was a bit tired of my terrarium and wanted to built a new one. My former one was built in a hurry when I received my tortoise, I had not much tools, not much time and not much money at that time, the cuts were not straight. But at least it was a confortable home for my koopa baby.Since then I had more time and started thinking of building a better one. Here is the result, a double decker habitat, wich means twice the space she used to have. It is 60cm*120cm, so it is approx 15 squared feet to roam with the additional floor. It is not totally finished but it's allready a lot better than my former habitat
One of the priority was to have as much direct sunlight possible. So I made the top as an open table. The heigth of the tortarium was made so I can open the window, this way koopa can bask in direct and natural sun light from 9h00 to 12h30.
A ramp goes down to the main floor, where there is all the confort from the older vivarium: Uv tube, basking light, habba mist, soon I'll add a webcam
The part my wife likes the most is the draws at the bottom. No more tortoise stuff lying above the habitat, everything is kept inside. Finally another improvment compared to my old set up is that the whole thing is on wheels and is easy to move
I made a few change from my former set up. Firstly I switched the substrate from garden dirt/soil to a cypress mulch/coco mix. Just to try, I ll see how it goes. I used to have live plants but after a few month I always had insect problems. So I bought some fake plants, I'll see how koopa behaves with them, I hope she'll not try to eat that.
There are a few improvments I still want to make in the future. I'm afraid as she grows she can climb over the top edge of the open table part. So I'm looking to add a removable framed net over the top. I'll also keep an eye on the black tape I used to water-proof everything, I don't like the look of it, but I didn't come up with something good to replace it yet.
