Wednesday is the day!

[gen]

My new bp will be shipped to me on Wednesday. I'm so excited! I can't wait to get him and see what he's like. I've got his enclosure all ready.

Speaking of his enclosure, I posted a couple days ago having frustrations with my temps and humidity in my glass tank. It just got to be too much work to keep the temps and humidities right all the time, and I'm going out of town this weekend and I wanted to be able to leave and not worry about the temps getting too cold or the humidity dropping.

So I decided to try out a rubbermaid. They're so cheap and I figured if I didn't end up using it for my snake, I could always use it as storage in my classroom.

Anyway, it seems to be working out great! The temps and humidity are fine, with the warm side at currently 90.3 and the cool side at 79.5, . Humidity is 62%.

Here is what it looks like. Let me know if anything doesn't look right or if I'm missing something.

[beaglegod]

Way to go Gen! Im very excited for you and the set up looks very nice. At least youll be away while he/she settles in a nice quiet enviorement and you wont be worried about temps and humidity.

One tiny suggestion IF you havent gotten that setup escape proof yet, you can drill 3 holes through the lip and lid of the rubbermaid. 3 on each long end say 1/8" holes than buy 6 screws and six wingnuts to basicaly lock that lid on. Beleive me unless hes got help on the outside he aint gettin out. Everything looks great though.

[Marla]

It looks great, Gen! Seriously. I'd also echo Paul's concern with escape-proofing the enclosure, though. As he said, bolts and wingnuts are one pretty easy way to go about it. Another is to make holes with a soldering iron or drill and use bungee cords to secure it. Another way you can do it without needing to make more holes is to buy clamps in the hardware section and use them around the edges.

I think you'll be really happy with your new enclosure. You may have to do a bit of tweaking to keep your temps and humidity in range, but it shouldn't require nearly as much as an aquarium, and now you can use that aquarium for either something aquatic or something that doesn't require as much monitoring.

[gen]

Hmmm, thanks for the suggestion, beaglegod. The rubbermaid container I got is one of those "Latchables". So it's got a latch on each side and you have to pull the latches out in order to take the top off and you snap them back closed when you put the top back on. It seemed pretty secure to me. Do you still think I need to take any extra measures? I definitely don't want to take any chances.

[Marla]

gen, i tried those "Latchables" at the store. You definitely want to secure it.

[gen]

Also, I've got the heating pad hooked up to a thermostat, so hopefully the temperature in there will stay pretty constant, and I'll mostly just have to watch the humidity.

As far as the tank, will it hold water? Some fish would be cool. Otherwise I'm not sure what I'll do with it. And I guess I'll have to get a different top for it.

[gen]

gen, i tried those "Latchables" at the store. You definitely want to secure it.

Thanks, I'll get to work on that.

[Marla]

There's one way to find out if it will hold water. Glad to hear you have a thermostat in place. That should make temps nearly a no-brainer (though changes in ambient temp may still affect your gradient).

[gen]

So clamps should do the trick? How many do you think I need?

[RPlank]

Rubbermaids rule!
Since it has a latch top, I would just secure the middle on the two sides with clamps or whatever you decide to use.