Building a big stackable 7x2x2 enclosure

[dragonov]

Nice looking vivs. I'm going to be building one pretty soon and liked your style. I hope you don't mind if I borrow you idea and tweak it a bit. Great job!

Thx and good luck with your build!

 

[dragonov]

It has been a little bit since you have posted(2 weeks or so).

Was wondering how much did it cost to build one enclosure by itself and the time take?

I'm estimating the whole thing (the top viv for the dragons) cost me about 300 USD. It all depends a bit on the wood you use, the glass doors you use and all kinds of choices like that. You can make it a lot cheaper and a lot more expensive. I would suggest before you start to go look at some prices of the supplies you'll need and make a budget. And then add 50 bucks for all the stuff you'll need on the way that you didn't think of...like me.. :lol:

The time it took me was about a day for the wood work (time actually working on it only couple of hours, but i like lots of breaks... :lol: ) The background took about two weeks (the layers of grout need to dry 1 to 2 days each time) and the staining took about three days for letting the layers dry in between as well. Plus a couple of hours for fitting lights, doors and clean up of one million little styrofoam pieces all over my living room...

 

[Deviant]

OMG :book: in my book I will never be able to make something like this WOW that is really great work :!:

 

[CountofCasualty]

This is AMAZING. I'll probably try to build one of these in a year or two with my Father for my Beardie. Seriously, very well done and it doesn't look incredibly difficult, just tedious with detail work and time staking with having to wait between each layer.

 

[dragonov]

Thx guys. And you're right, it is not as hard as it may look. My "wood working skills" don't go any further than sawing pieces off and screwing and glueing them on to another piece... :lol: I really think everybody could make something like this if you take it step by step. That's also why I did the photo step by step thing, so people maybe get encouraged to do their own and make their beardie a nice enclosure.

 

[Lenewen]

We did something very similar to this except the 3 tanks (each is 80gal) have runners in the middle so they can divide into 40gal and 20gal increments. I love what you did with the styrofoam, I have built structures using the same process but nothing to that magnitude. It looks great!

Let me ask you this; something we did to help with moving the tank is we put heavy duty shop wheels on it. Have you thought about this? Ours was impossible to move without them. Wood is quite heavy; I think our next tank will be made from plastic and I'm hoping to make it fully collapsible. Easier said than done.

 

[dragonov]

That's a good idea about the shop wheels. The only difficulty will be when I want to change the order of the vivs around I guess. (right now I can put either one on the bottom or top) For now I think I'm sticking to keeping them in place as much as I can I guess... :lol:

 

[shootthebunnies]

Awesome build, will be using some of your techniques for my own in progress. Not near as big but it will be fun anyway!

 

[Ashleydmj]

Wow! Amazing!! I wish you could build me one! Ms. No woodwork skills over here -_- hahah

 

[dragonov]

Wow! Amazing!! I wish you could build me one! Ms. No woodwork skills over here -_- hahah

I could, but mailing it would be a slight problem... You don't need woodwork skills for this though, you should give it a go!

 

[megaglaze]

I have no artistic ability... i could never carve the foam like you did... :lol:
How much for you to make me one??? totally kidding btw

 

[dragonov]

lol thx, but it was more about hanging in there and not stopping before it looked like rock, than that it had much to do with artistic abilities.. Try it out yourself and take a piece of styrofoam and go at it with an exacto knife. At some point it will resemble a piece of rock, I promise...lol

 

[Ashleydmj]

How did you make this stackable? Have you finished all 3?

 

[dragonov]

I made it stackable by making the lid/hood exactly the same as the bottom of each viv. So the bottom of each viv can function as the lid of the one below it. I have one lid (that will fit all vivs) to go on the top viv, so I can also decide to change the vivs around at some point if I wanted to. The lights of the vivs are not mounted onto the hood but onto the vivs themselves, so it doesn't mess with the lights and wiring if or when it's being changed around.

No I haven't finished the third one yet (haven't even started on it... :roll: ) because I'm moving in a week and a half and I rather build it there than having to move it. (It's already going to be a challenge moving these two... :lol: ) I'm actually also playing with the idea of making the third one a two story one that would fit next to it instead of on top of it, so that the whole thing would be wider instead of taller.

 

[fusebaum]

Hi! Where did you find runners? I am making two 5x3x3 tanks and I cannot find runners anywhere!