Poor guy's probably gettin SO ticked off at me

[OreoGaborio]

Well, most of you guys might remember that i had my tank set-up a little differently... It's a normal aquarium style tank but i had it on its side w/ the opening on the front w/ sliding doors... worked really well, cept heating was a little tricky... i had been using a UTH on the bottom & a heat lamp on top of the glass. welllllll.... i had the lamp over on the edge of the tank & while i'm misting the tank i hear this loud POP! ...... thing cracked. Pretty big... not HUGE at first, but she grew & eventually was all the way across to the other side 22 inches away.

anyway, it looked like poo so i just put the tank right-side up & put a little wallpaper thing on the inside so the crack is covered over & Trigger can't get to it (it has a VERRRRY slight edge to it, just enough that i put the wallpaper thing on the inside)... so i removed the UTH, but it on the REAL bottom, wiped down the glass that was covered by the substrate, etc etc etc all the time while Trigger was either around my neck, on my desk in a little bag or in the tank itself.

Poor Trigger's probably wonderin what the heck i was doin to cause such a fuss & what happened to all his floor space, since it literally cut it in 1/2.

maybe in a couple days i'll take pics of the new setup & post em side-by-side w/ the old set-up so you guys can see just how much it reduced his floor area, but for measurment comparison it went from about 30"x22" to 30"x11.5"

[Cody]

That sucks. Sorry to hear about that. I'm sure Trigger isn't bothered too much. :p

Sounds like it's time to get another enclosure. :eek:

[mlededee]

sounds like it's time for a rubbermaid!

[Cody]

I'm with you on that one.

[OreoGaborio]

pfft.... well this new arangment is horrible... doesn't hold heat OR humidity.... the hide directly below the lamp is too warm & the rest of the enclosure is stone cold, and the humidity is only 30% even though i sprayed down the substrate last night.

think i'm gonna just tape up the crack & put it on the bottom.

i'd go rubbermaid, i totally understand why so many people use em.... but call me vain, i'm just much more for an asthetic presentation. besides, i already have the tank, stand etc.

[shelley11]

Pete i'm sorry to hear about what happened.
Also something I used to do when humidity would go down is take a wet rag (warm water) and put it on top of the cage keeping the sides and top coveredd and it would help get it up...have any others heard of this?

Hope things get better!

Shelley

[Ginevive]

i'd go rubbermaid, i totally understand why so many people use em.... but call me vain, i'm just much more for an asthetic presentation. besides, i already have the tank, stand etc.

I have to agree with you there. I use tanks too, and they actually are not that hard to thermoregulate and humidify, if you take the time to do so, if you keep your house pretty warm too (I know glass is not a good insulator, but my house never goes below 76 degrees; some like it hot lol.)
They retain humidity just fine if you coat most of the screen lid with plastic wrap. I just love how my tanks look with that rich red cypress mulch, climbing logs (for my boa) and fake plants (ivy vines.)
I am sorry to read about your on-its-side tank. I actually thought that was a great idea when I read about it awhile ago.

[mlededee]

i used to only use aquariums for my two bps. i felt the same way--i liked the way they looked and couldn't imagine hiding my beautiful babies away in an ugly plastic container. well, i bought a rubbermaid for some strange reason because it was just too perfect of a size for snick or something--really i'm not sure what posessed me, though it was a little dry in his enclosure. i set him up in it and the very next day went and bought one for nellie. i can't believe how easy the temps and humidity are in the rubbermaids, even though i never found it terribly difficult in tanks, everything is dead on now and barely fluctuates at all. and honestly it doesn't look that bad. in nellie's rubbermaid i cut a large section out of the top and replaced it with plexiglass so it is crystal clear to look through. so that's just my little story of how i was converted i guess oreo, perhaps you could pick up a rubbermaid for now until you can get things stable in your cracked tank or until you can get a new one. you don't want your little guy to have to unstable or cold of temps for too long while you try to get things back in order.

[OreoGaborio]

Yeah, it was actaully really easy to retain the humidity when it was on it's side w/ those sliding doors... sealed it up pretty good.... i just made the mistake of putting the lamp too close to the edge of the glass, that's why it cracked. i think if i tape up the crack really good & put that on the bottom I can put it back on it's side & be back to the way it was... just gotta keep the lamp closer to the middle of the tank, not near the edge. think i'm probably gonna do that later.

all i gotta do once i have that done is eventually get some flexwatt & a t-stat to keep the temps up a little bit more over more area of the tank... only 1/3 of it was really warm enough & it was actually too hot in his warm hide, gettin above 95 pretty regularly. I think i just need a heat source that covers more area & a way to control it rather than a smaller uncontroled heat source. my current UTH gets the job done good enough, but a larger controled heat source would be more ideal.

for the time being i think i'm gonna put something under the substrate & over the UTH to even the heat out a little more... tryin to think of what i can use... maybe just a sheet of cardboard or maybe a shallow cookie sheet?