Showing off super awesome vivarium habitat

My daughter is in FFA and she loves reptiles... so this was her project this year. It was a lot of fun. We bought a used curio cabinet on Craigslist. Then she foamed up the back of it, carved it out, and applied silicone paint and stuck coconut substrate to it. She also waterproofed the wood inside. We allowed it to air dry for a *long* time, many days in our dry climate.

She took out the side glass panels and replaced it with mesh. Then she installed the mist system and put it on a timer. You can see the buckets of water inside the cabinets. One feeds the mister system and the other collects drainage.

She made a drainage system and filled that with clay balls and then mesh (to make clean up easier) and some rocks to hold the mesh down.

She installed both a UV light (with screen to protect the chameleon from getting burned) and a heat light on the side.

Finally she put in live plants and fake plants and things for the chameleon to climb on. And of course temp and humidity monitors.

The chameleon is named Harold, and he's super friendly. He's 6 months old now, doing great. If we walk near the habitat he will go to the door that we open the most and stretch his front arms out and beg to be let out and held. :-)

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That’s really impressive. Nicely done !

Wow, that's beautiful! I've re-purposed cabinets for snakes before & used perforated metal (smooth side inward) on the sides for ventilation with temporary wood
covers to retain more heat & humidity as needed...SO many things you can do creatively to house herps, and your daughter did a WONDERFUL job on that! :gj:

But I have to warn you...if you keep posting awesome threads like this, we'll just keep demanding more & more! :rofl:thank you for sharing & since it appears that
you only recently joined, :welcome:

I'm doubting the "partridge in a pear tree" though, can we see some evidence? (from what I've seen so far, I might have to eat my words?)

That is very cool...beautiful job on the enclosure. She may have a future career in enclosure design....looks way better than some of the stuff on tv. :D

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Originally Posted by Dianne

That is very cool...beautiful job on the enclosure. She may have a future career in enclosure design....looks way better than some of the stuff on tv. :D

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I agree...and she's making me want to throw out some fancy dishes & put a snake in my china hutch! :rofl: It wouldn't be the first time either ;)

I felt kind bad for "ruining" a perfectly lovely cabinet... but it turned out better than we ever expected!

That looks like an awesome chameleon viv! Good job!!