Habitat - Indoor :: Mikey's new ATBA!! [pic heavy]

[untsmurf]

We've been working on making Mikey an ATBA for a few days now. I didn't get any pictures of the beginning part. But it was basically just cutting and sanding, so that's not interesting. So here goes:

This is the door for the basking area, we wanted to be able to have easy access to Mikey and the tank without having to remove the entire thing. So we got four 1'' strips of wood and cut a groove along the inside of all four pieces, this way when they were put together, the plexiglass could rest inside and wouldn't need to be screwed or glued onto the wood.



This is the actual enclosure. It's clamped together so all the glue can dry. It consists of 2 plywood sheets for the sides, a piece of MDF for the baking, and a wooden frame on the front for the door. We designed it so that the front and back would hang off the tank in order to secure it. The sides rest on top of the tank. It's upside down in the picture.



These are the holes we cut out before gluing the whole thing together. They are for the hoses for the XP3.



We wanted to fill the tank up all the way to the brim, but if we did that, Mikey wouldn't have been able to get out of the water onto his floating log because we had hoods on the tank. So we got some plastic egg crate and created a box to sit on top of the rest of the tank. This way we can fill the tank and he can still use his log but he can't escape. We used this glue called loctite no mess adhesive. It's for plastic and we got it and Home Depot. We also bought 100 clothes pins from Hobby Lobby and used all of them:



It took about an hour to dry


Then up it went


But we had to make sure and cut out holes for the other tubes too. We used wire cutters to cut everything. It was really simple.


We had just painted a green accent wall in our tank, so I used the left over paint and painted the basking area after the glue had all dried (about 12 hours).


Once everything was dry we put it on the tank. It's really snug so it's not coming off unless it has too. We also realized that the clamp desk lamp we were using for his UVB was shot, so it's not in the picture. We went out the next day and bought him a second clamp lamp from home depot.


This is my 6' tall husband for some perspective


The hardest part of the whole thing was getting the hinges on straight. We tried like six times but couldn't get the screws to in straight. So we gave up and just let it be crooked. But it still works and that's all the matters. We have a lock to keep it shut.


Here's the inside. We used the egg crate for the basking area as well. I got some black shelf liner and glued in on top of the egg crate so that Mikey doesn't scratch his belly.


And this is Mikey the next day after the tank was filled. He climbed onto his basking dock, which is actually his ramp for the new basking area, and started scoping out the door. He likes to escape and wasn't too happy when he realized the door was locked.




My only question is for those of you that have used the egg crate as a basking area. It doesn't seem to hold that much weight (granted Mikey isn't a heifer). What did you use to secure it to the tank, and to make sure it can support your turtle's weight?

[Raphulk]

why dont you try putting a fairly thick sheet of plexiglass under the eggcrate for stability?

in my case, i jsut stacked two eggcrates on top of each other for stability.

my turtle is only 4" though.

FANTASTIC job by the way. looks like quite a process

[untsmurf]

Mikey is about four and a quarter inches, so he's about the same size as yours. Plexiglass is an awesome idea!! We still have a good sized piece left over from making the door. I'll try that now.

Thanks!! It wasn't that hard actually. We drew up plans first. Then we made all the cuts and tested EVERYTHING along the way. That actually is what saved us because if the walls were even 1/8'' shorter, it wouldn't have fit. I think the reason it wasn't as challenging as it could've been is because we put a lot of thought into the plan ahead of time.

[mat012]

Very cool! You have me thinking of my plans already - and I just finished a new tank set up about 2 months ago! I think that is one thing I love about owning a turtle. it allows you to be creative.

I like the way you made the little door to open up. Very nice and clever.

[BullDog]

Looks fantastic! Nice use of clothespins Wow, I'm jealous!

For the eggcrate, I had that problem with Frankie, who a big ol' gal.
The eggcrate started to crack down the middle before I noticed it. So I did exactly what Raphulk said - Took a scrap piece of plexi and just set it underneath. Now I've noticed the plexi is sagging a bit (:lol:), but it's an old thin piece, so it tends to warp. If it gets too bad, I'll replace it.
A bit of food and stuff gets dragged up there when Frankie crawls out, so I have to give the plexi underneath a wipe every once and a while.

[untsmurf]

Thanks!! I'll definitely consider that. I was looking at our leftover plexiglass and it's pretty flimsy. I'm looking at either getting thicker plexiglass or putting some sort of metal rods underneath for support. I'm still not sure though.

[TheComputerGremlin]

I'm concerned about your lighting. One of two things is wrong. Either your UVB is over the water and not the basking area, so the benefits are lost. Or you have an MVB in the ATBA, which I have read are best when hung over the area, rather than angled.

And wow, that's a nice tank! You have one lucky turtle!

[Chrisbarnett]

Looks great!
I want to do something just like yours for my ATBA

[imderanged]

I have a question....everyone used egg crate to make these basking platforms, is there a specific reason for that? Sooner or later I am going to build on for Pickle, but I was think of making it solid and putting maybe astro turf or a green reptile carpet over wood or plastic for the actual box and using cork bark (if I can ever find any!!!) for the ramp...to try and make everything lok sorta natural. Am I missing something important as to why egg crate seems to be the material of choice?

[Fuzzy Hamster]

Nice work, untsmurf!

I'm also eventually going to be looking at an ATBA, and have been considering different materials that would not only work for Spike but also be as unobtrusive as possible. I was actually leaning towards an enclosure that is entirely plastic (of the kind that I remember heating and bending in high school). I'm pretty sure that someone here has already done something similar. I would add an integrated ramp with reptile carpeting or some sort of covering on the bottom that would enable Spike to easily climb in. The top would obviously have to be some kind of screen to allow light/heat in.

I personally don't like the egg crate plastics that I have seen locally, they just seem too flimsy, although some people here have done some great things them. I do like the door idea that untsmurf came up with, but would likely still use clear plastic. I also am not fond of using wood around the tank because I've seen what moisture has done to the wood in our windows - and thats with regular cleaning and painting. I suspect that anything (fungus?) that would grow on the moist wood, probably would be bad for Spike as well as the wood.

I also haven't ruled out glass yet - think along the lines of an upside down smaller tank, just not sure about a ramp and light/heat openings at the top. Anybody else done something similar to this?

Just my 2 cents...

[Chrisbarnett]

I have a question....everyone used egg crate to make these basking platforms, is there a specific reason for that? Sooner or later I am going to build on for Pickle, but I was think of making it solid and putting maybe astro turf or a green reptile carpet over wood or plastic for the actual box and using cork bark (if I can ever find any!!!) for the ramp...to try and make everything lok sorta natural. Am I missing something important as to why egg crate seems to be the material of choice?

I think because egg crate is cheaper, and already has holes for drainage.

if you make it solid, make sure you drill plenty of holes for drainage so that it won't have water sitting on the platform.

check out this link, http://www.reptilesupply.com/index.php?cPath=31_110 and go down to the Zoo med natural cork tiles. Those are nice because they are already flat!

Also, www.blackjungle.com has cork bark, but I cant seem to find where they sell it.

[untsmurf]

I'm concerned about your lighting. One of two things is wrong. Either your UVB is over the water and not the basking area, so the benefits are lost. Or you have an MVB in the ATBA, which I have read are best when hung over the area, rather than angled.

And wow, that's a nice tank! You have one lucky turtle!

I took this picture right after we had finished assembling everything and it had dried completely. After we put the ATBA up, we attached the lighting. The only problem was, we were using a desk lamp to hold the UVB (you can see it the chair in front of the tank) and the desk lamp was old and wouldn't hold itself up anymore. So, we went to Home Depot the next morning and bought a second clamp lamp for the UVB bulb. The one in the picture is actually only the heat bulb. We had just put it up and hadn't positioned it yet. It was also around 11:00 pm when that picture was taken so the light is off.

So no worries, we have a heat lamp and a separate UVB lamp and they're both pointed right down at the basking area. Thanks for the concern though

[untsmurf]

I have a question....everyone used egg crate to make these basking platforms, is there a specific reason for that? Sooner or later I am going to build on for Pickle, but I was think of making it solid and putting maybe astro turf or a green reptile carpet over wood or plastic for the actual box and using cork bark (if I can ever find any!!!) for the ramp...to try and make everything lok sorta natural. Am I missing something important as to why egg crate seems to be the material of choice?

These are the reasons I used it:

-It's cheap
-Easy to cut down to size
-plastic won't be affected by the water
-it has holes in it to allow Mikey to drip when he gets up there

The only thing is, there is a plastic kind and a metal kind, and I didn't even look at the metal but I think it might be more sturdy as a baskign platform. I noticed that because mine is spread over such a large area that it isn't as strong in the middle. You might not have this problem if you went with the metal, but this is all speculation.