Want to Build a Custom Terrarium!

Lucy seems to be outgrowing her 40 gallon breeder, so I wanted to build her a new one. I've never really done a project like this, but my dad said he would help me. If anyone has any tips or anything they'd like to share with me that would be wonderful. How much should I expect to invest on this?

How big are you thinking? Do you plan to upgrade any lighting etc?
4x2x2 are popular and can be made from a little more than one sheet of plywood.

I think my 4x2x2 cost about 150-200$. The glass and plywood being the more expensive parts.

I won't be needing to change any lighting, but I do want to add more features/ thing to climb on because she seems bored sometimes the dimensions I wrote out are 45in×25in×15in. That's just from me measuring her current tank and adding more where I thought necessary. I did make the height a litter smaller because I think it's too tall for a non-climbing reptile. The thing I want to add most is sliding doors on the front because I'm SO sick of trying to get her through the tiny hatch on the top.

Dragons are considered semi-arboreal; they do climb and can end up pretty high in trees. In captivity to much height is probably risky (for falls) but 24" is a pretty good height IMO. This gives room for climbing furniture and branches and such - for a bigger dragon the branches/rocks need to be bigger too and a good rock or two can take up a surprising amount of space. You could also use the height to build levels and add more interest/enrichment structurally. Just a thought though.

48x24 foot print is a good one, being closer to standard lumber you shouldn't have to make quite as many cuts, but that's up to you and how much space you have for the final enclosure. If you choose to go with the 15" height I would suggest cutting a hole for the basking light so it can be mounted in a dome outside the cage. My biggest complaint with my 4x2x2 was the basking bulb eats up space quickly and made it hard to get close enough to the UVB.

Front open doors are awesome - I couldn't go back, that's for sure.

alright 48x24 seems good, I'll do that instead. Is there a good online step by step kinda thing to follow? Because I really have no idea where to even start with the building process haha.

oh and I also wanted to keep the sides (and possibly back) see-through and use glass/acrylic because I have her against a window in the summer and she loves looking outside

I really like the design of the National Geographic terrarium and bought one at first, but when I opened it a piece of glass was completely shattered so I returned it and didn't get another one. But I would like the final product to look like it a little.

that poor dragon looks so cramped though

This is what I built from. http://beardies.dreamwidth.org/2145.html


It's not quite like what you want though. It might get you started.

Thanks for your help taterbug!!