Collection of Articles and advice to help us keep our herps

[varanio]

This is going to be an open discussion where we can all throw links to care sheets, copy and paste something insightful someone said, so when someone has a question that has been answered a million times, they can be directed here. No bashing etc... credit must be given to authors if not then it will be erased so please comply!

 

[varanio]

http://www.dragonsdenherp.com/htm2/cs_dragon_eng.htm

This is a pretty good example of a bearded care sheet. Its short and informative overall. Credit to Kevin @ dragons den. Note the only thing I could leave out is the use of UV

For water dragons credit to sapphire dragon ranch

http://www.sapphiredragons.com/htm/WaterDragonCareSheet2.pdf

 

[varanio]

http://www.proexotics.com/care_ackie.html

This is geared more towards ackies, but it can be applied to all species of arid dwelling monitors.

credit to pro exotics

I will actually pin this in entirety due to them having great starter care sheets, for snakes and lizards.

http://www.proexotics.com/care_sheets.html

 

[varanio]

http://www.saurian.net/htm05/froginfo_main.html

For all the frog folks here is a good link credit to saurian frogs inc.

 

[Ophiuchus]

The following are some caresheets from HerpFamily.com. Each of these is written by one forum member and then subjected for criticism by the rest of the messageboards. Once all mistakes have been addressed, and the caresheet is approved by 3 admins, it goes up available to the public. I wrote a few myself.

Bioactive Substrate System:
http://www.herpfamily.com/HerpFamily/docs/BioActive%20Substrate%20System.html

All Lizard caresheets:
http://www.herpfamily.com/index.php?page=5

Snake caresheets:
http://www.herpfamily.com/index.php?page=6

African dwarf frogs:
http://www.herpfamily.com/HerpFamily/docs/African%20Dwarf%20Frog.html

Pink-toed Tarantula:
http://www.herpfamily.com/index.php?page=9

 

[malawi haps]

This is a construction journal of this bahemouth!! It measures 7 foot tall by 4 foot wide by 2 foot deep.I origionally designed it to house a male double plumed basilisks but after 4 attempts so far have only been able to raise 4 females?? I was also thinking of getting a blue tree monitor .But first things first.

I started off with 2 sheets of 1" birch plywood to make the back and sides.And one sheet for the top .I must apoligize in advance for not taking enough pics at first due to it being kinda boring and all.

I assembeled the two .Top and bottom and used a 1x4 to make the front of the cage .I am making the bottom for half land and half water due to basilisks liking to swim.

I searched long and hard for somthing to use to seal the bottom permantly for water tightness and tossed around several options but decided good old silacone was best.I mesured up 24" from the deepest point and drew a line around the three sides and applied the silacone.After it dried I went to the local building supply store and got some oops ( missed mixed)outdoor latex paint(non toxic and non costic) and painted the remainder of the tank.

While all of this was going on I went down to the river and collected some drift wood to make branches and soaked them in bleach/ water solution to kill any parasites and hitch hikers.

 

[varanio]

sounds great ! get those pics in .... its nice to see when people give their animals ample room for the animal's benefit. This is how i built my tree monitor enclosures in case you decide that route. Although the plummies would look very nice in that setup you described. This one measures 6 ft long 6 tall and 3 1/2 wide it also sits on a 2 foot stand giving the monitors more eye level contact with me and above me.

 

[malawi haps]

I promise pics are comming soon. After everything was dry my very opinionated wife came out and said "that thing is not going in my house looking like that ".So I had to come up with some solutions.The first one was to take care of the bottom that was nothing more than white silacone(it was on sale)

I wanted the bottom to look like a river bed so I went to the home improvement store ( where we basicly live) and got some egg rock and clear silacone.I applied the rock to the bottom with the silacone let it dry then for ease of maintanance put a small layer of the clear silacone ( After this project I should own stock in this stuff) over the rock and in all the little crevaces.

Then the wife ( who was beside me the whole time )suggested somthing needed to be done with the rest of the cage.So I went to a fire place store and got some thin brick /stone to use as the walls.Did the same application of silacone to this as well but did not cover it completly just the spaces in between as a kind of grout.

Next I installed the branches .Ok you have read enough to deserve a pick here you go.

 

[malawi haps]

After all of this was done My lovely wife said " now that the bottom is done the top needs somthing".I figured I've gone this far now it's time to take it all the way .I decided to make it look like a chunk of jungle in a box.

Back to the home improvement store to get supply's. Foam sheeting and "great stuff foam".

Since this was a tall cage and the basilisks are aboreal I decided to make a few ledges for basking.Cut the foam in to diffrent shapes and attached then to the walls with silacone .I also decided to make a "safe haven " for them and made a cave out of the foam also. Then filled up the spaces in between with "great stuff"
I applied it in three diffrent coats to make the wall three dimentional.and let it dry for a week to fully cure.

There was a process to the application of the foam .Step 1 lay the tank on its back on a bench and spray the back in with foam and let set for 24 hours.Tip the tank on each side and repeat process three times.

 

[malawi haps]

After curing for a week I figured the foam was done mooving around so I carved it some to make it look more natural and went to the home improvement store to get some "quick crete".Well after getting their I decided against "quick crete" and went for fiber reinforced latex flooring leveler.Mixed it up to a paste like consistancy and ended up applying a total of 5 coats over the entire structure letting it dry 24 hours between coats and applying it in the method described for the foam application.