Going back to Tegus...Need new ideas

[jclaiborne]

I've had tegus before, from hatchling through adult so I definitely know how fast they grow. I've gotten all my tegus from Ty Park in the past, and plan on picking one up from him again. Regardless of when I get the baby I'm still not comfortable putting a hatchling in an 8 foot enclosure. So I will need to have an intermediate enclosure for short term. If it's going to be short term I would rather not mess with wiring lamps inside the cage. In the past I build up basking platforms to get the right temps. Just from looking around the internet it seems that people use metal troughs pretty successfully. I will check out the plastic tubs. Still wary of them.

People can utilize metal troughs successfully when they are the base of the cage and filled with dirt. Metal may work fine like I said depending on your ambients, I just know with my temps it won't work for me. Metal WILL draw away heat. If you are wary of the plastic tubs do a bit of digging on the actual different materials they are made of. "Plastic" is a catch all term, I work with "plastics" and metals all day so I am fairly familiar with them. Each one has a different melting point as it is made up of different compositions. Here is an example, a 1/4 inch sheet of type 1 PVC has a max exposure point of 140F, that isn't the melting point, that is the point in which it will start to warp and get brittle. All 3 of my small cages are 1/4in PVC with internally wired bulbs. All 3 bulbs get to a temp of 140F on the bulb itself, however they are far enough from the walls that the temp drops to the wall surface to 90F way below the "danger" zone. The bulb is in a ceramic fixture which is attached to a metal box, again the heat drops substantially so there is no danger of melting. We utilize different plasitcs for components in our products and I run them through our autoclave at 135C which is 275F with multiple cycles at a 30 minute exposure rate and we don't have them melting. My point being plastics can be quite a bit tougher than one would think. That being said good plastic is costly, a cheaper one like you would find at a local hardware store for fountain liners, I would tell you to ignore everything I just said.

Now as far as wiring a bulb internally I know you said in the Tegu thread that you were a little unsure of electrical, but the fabrication side you were comfortable with, it wouldnt be that hard to do, once you had the lid figured out, I would say it may take an additional 10 minutes to wire it up.

If you decided to go this route and have any questions let me know, I'd be happy to try and help out with pictures or diagrams if need be.