How do you think I can set this up?

[Doggey75]

So, A good friend of my moms is going to give away a 46 gallon bow tank to me because he heard about how much I like reptiles. I'm not sure how to make this reptile ready. I would like to get some tips and what not on what I should do. If this is even usable. Also can someone tell me what reptile can live in here (I will do research on it). Thanks

[The Serpent Merchant]

The only real challenge is going to be making a secure lid for it. The simplest way to do it would be to find a local shop with a CNC machine to cut a piece of acrylic to size, but that won't be cheap.

You could get some hardware cloth from home depot and cut them to fit. Then the issue becomes how to secure it to the tank. You might be able to find a shop that can bend some pieces of aluminum or stainless to fit the curvature, but once again that could be costly.

Plastic light diffuser grates also available at home depot could be cut to fit and if there is a big enough ledge in the trim of the top of the tank it could sit in place and just have something heavy placed on it to keep it secure. The only down side to this is that any reptile kept in the cage needs to be big enough that it couldn't escape.

If I were given this cage I would use it for something that didn't need a lid. Maybe a leopard gecko? Honestly I would use it for fish lol.

[Masonic]

The sunkist is advertisement? Get some glass cut to size and got with dart frogs great colors. Or go with fish and a turtle.

[crepers86]

Bearded Dragon would be great

[BFT12890]

Maybe some frogs/anoles in a "Living terrarium" im sure they have a mesh lid or something you could use (they must make one for when its used to fish) and just throw some clips on it since frogs/small lizards cant really push it open. put some mulch and moss and maybe a small pond part with some small fish?

something like this

Bearded Dragon would be great

the dimensions are 36.4" x 16.4" x 21.9", to small for a beardie.

[Physician&Snakes]

Build a lid using "bowed" wood, this is a long process by hand because it involves soaking the wood systematically, but of course Home Depot has them pre-manufactured . Just use a basic mesh for circulation. That would be a really nice cage for a pair of Amazon tree boas, an Iran Jaya Carpet, or a Green tree python.

[Doggey75]

Thank you for the advice everyone. I'll see what I can do and what my parents will let me do lol

[NYHC4LIFE8899]

Making a lid is actually simple...what you do is by a larger than the top of the tank piece of whatever. Take a sharpee marker and run it under the bottom of material placed on top of the tank and along the outside perimeter then get a jigsaw,cut to shape and use as a template unless what ever u are cutting out is what you plan to make the top/lid out of.

also I'd advise cut a little bit on the outside on the line,cause u want the lid to drop on and not be tight to fit...the but a few weight training plates to keep the lid down and your good to go...unless u wanna get fancy and make your own way of keeping the lid down...which is what I would do