Constrictors NW / EcoZone build

[Nic Bednarz]

Hello again.

Thought I'd post a follow up to the questions I asked in http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...Mussurana-Home.

I decided to get a 4'x2' cage that will be my Mussurana's home until she out grows it. When that time comes I'll most likely need to build my own. I haven't seen much on here about ConNW's cages so I thought I'd post some photos up. On their recommendation I got a radiant heat panel from Pro Products. For a controller/thermostat I went with an ECO400s from EcoZone. If you're unfamiliar with EcoZone, check them out. They've got a ton of cool features like realistic light cycles, lunar cycles, humidity control, Temp alarms, mist timers, and so on. Sure it's overkill for most setups, but with this build I wanted to remove as much human error as possible. I only have two snakes, and she's in my living room so I wanted it to be aesthetically pleasing as well as good for Her. Here is my progress so far, it's still a work in progress so consider the current decor temporary.








I like the construction of the cage. Its marine grade HDPE, UV and stain resistant. Its held together with dovetail joints and some screws.







The EcoZone unit has an internal fan that is louder than I would like. Although it has rubber feet, it still transmits vibrations, and thus can be heard in the enclosure. I'll need to mount it some where else. The towel underneath is to try and isolate it some more. The towel in the back is to keep my girlfriend's cockatiel from chewing on the wires. The enclosure comes with two small vents in the rear panel. I used those to run my wires for the two sensors and the power cord for the RHP. The panel is held up with two bolts. I used safety wire and drilled through the cage to hold the cords down. I've already found and issue with my sensor routing. The hot side sensor is heat and humidity, I attached it to the floor under the substrate. The cool side sensor is temp only. I should not have put the hot sensor under the substrate. The humidity reading doesn't represent the ambient (duh). And I've learned the RHP heat isn't very penetrating. when my sensor is reading 84deg the ambient can be as much as 10deg more. I'll need to move the hot side sensor to a location similar to the cool side. Live and learn.

That gnarly dragon is actually an aquarium bubbler. Its hollow inside so I'm going to route fogger through the inside of it and wire LED(s) inside. I'm not sure if I'll program that for a humidity control or more likely a timed interval, or possibly just turn it on when I want to. I'm going to build a separate water feature that will have a small waterfall and a good size water area. I'll share as that comes along.

I still need to figure out what I'm going to do for day/night lighting. The EcoZone unit uses dimming much like a wall dimmer, so most LED stuff wouldn't work. I've seen 25w blue night lighting. I may use that in hopes it won't heat the enclosure too much, hopefully at all. for day light I'd like to provide some UV light. Its not needed as she's nocturnal, but I still want to provided some. I may also put a live plant or two in there. Dimmable UV lighting that doesn't put off a lot of heat seems to leave me with florescent lighting, but dimmable ballasts aren't cheap. And again, most LEDs don't work with wall dimmers. The ECO500 can dim one output of leds. I'm considering adding a small fresh air fan that will run on a short, intermittent interval, we'll see.

I can't think of anything else, Thanks for checking it out.