40 gallon breeder tank

[Slither Seeker]

ok, so I'm not suggesting you have to go to all this trouble, but I can say that if you do you will have a rather nice stable environment for a BP, at least this type of design has worked well for me on several enclosures. you can mix and match ideas to your own liking. I use insulation, mostly seal up the tank and rely on low wattage heat sources and t-stats. Also, I think that because the BP's are surrounded in more of a cave like environment with this approach, being more buffered from vibration and movement around them, it seems they are more willing to come out at night and lounge about. If you really get into it, you can see more photos in my gallery and I'm happy to answer detailed questions on the design. in the long run you save on electricity, bulbs and you have less of a wrestle with the "keep it open enough for heat lamps vs want to close it up to conserve humidity" tug of war. with this approach it is much easier to nail the heat and humidity to the point where you can actually go on a vacation without having to leave a manual behind for your house sitter.

in the first shot you can see the "curb" that I placed to hold back substrate/keep it away from the sliding door (otherwise it fowls up the sliding of the door) and you can see the sliding door that I cut out, just a little bit smaller than the width/heidth of the inner groove of the fish tank rim. the rim becomes the slider once a large peace of plexi is added to the outside. I went with a high curb, because I want to have room for a false bottom for planted/bioactive set up.


In the next photo I show how I drilled holes in the four corners. this photo is of a 20 gallon long, but you get the idea. you'll have to pre drill the hole in the rim, curb and outer piece and get a long enough bolt to go through all the pieces. doing it this way makes for a very secure lid.


in the next photo you can see how I cut out a window in a piece of plexiglass smaller than the sliding door and mounted it to the tank. it takes quite a while, like 4-6 days for the silicone to finish off gassing enough to be safe, at least by my estimates. ideallly you give a day per MM of sealent. sorry, I don't have a lot of photos of the steps leading up to this.


In the next photo you can see more closely how I created the secure port for the wires.

In the last photo I show how I mount a UTH to a piece of glass. this is placed inside the tank, taking advantage of holding in all the heat that a UTH can produce. there is less waste this way, but it needs, like with all heat sources, to be regulated with a thermostat. it's also important to realize that this is not how the manufacturer intended for a UTH to be used, so you are on your own as far as risk/warranty etc. I did consult zoo med over the phone a bit on this, they can't recommend it but I feel that I have addressed the potentials for problems, at least enough to satisfy me. I have been using variations of these for 5 years width no problems. Zoo meds UTH's are pretty well sealed up and durable, in my experience but it's a shame that they don't have a built in thermostat.

in the final photo, I show how I secure the sliding door. I used industrial strength double sided tape and modified some pieces of plastic that will suffice for a door handle. for my 5 year old son, I decided to add two locks to lesson the chance that my son would forget to secure at least one of them.