Glass tank on its side

[JeepFreak81]

Good morning everyone!

So we've been playing with many ideas on how to house some more Leopard Geckos. My wife has asked me to get her one for her birthday (March 22) and she'll get me one for my birthday (July 11) That will put us at 3 geckos. Sooooooo, I'm trying to come up with some creative, cheap, and/easy ways to house these little fellas.

We were going to do 20 gallon long tanks, and we may still. However, I've been thinking about 55gallons with a partition or flipping tanks on the side. I'm trying to get out of it cheap so I put the word out that I'd take anyone's leaky fish tank cheap or free.

So, I'm wondering what everyone does for ventilation when they flip the tanks on thier side and also what material they use for the sliding doors. I'm thinking Plexi will cloud and scratch too easy. So what about acrylic or Lexan?

I'm game for tryin to drill holes in the glass, but I'm not sure how well that will work out. I'd hate to get a nice tank for free then bust it up trying to drill a hole in it.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestion? Been searching Google, Youtube, and this forum with little luck. I think I just suck at search terms...haha :main_laugh:

 

[scm133]

I can't add any suggestions to your plan. When my group starting growing, I switched to racks. I stated with one, and now have 11.

 

[oceanoasis]

I divided my 20l with a home-made divider. i just used a sheet of plexi or acrylic(i cant remember which) and a plastic track from the shower department if homedepot. used double sided tape to make it stick. i can take the sheet out if i want to use the whole tank or leave it divided. it has worked out great so far and it it still clear.
I also have a home-made rack.
I have pictures in my albums.

 

[JeepFreak81]

So what's the consensus for proper ventilation....if I decide to go with tanks on their side should I plan to drill holes?

What I really want to do is build a custom rack with 4 enclosures built in....we'll see if that ever materializes.

 

[fadedsession]

View attachment 44809

 

[theCREECH]

I sometimes visit a website called dendroboard

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/parts-construction/

this site has some ten gallon conversions for Dart Frogs. Most of them have dealt with ventilation in some way. It seems some of them like to make a small frame out of screen door components for part of the front, and then a couple of small doors on the rest of that "missing" panel. I've thought of doing this myself.

Think "living hinge" for the doors. I've never done it myself, but I've seen people create hinges entirely from silicon on this same site. Search a user called GRIMM, he's posted a Living hinge topic.

I've seen it with glass:
cut your pieces, leaving about 1/8" between them, mask off an area for silicon, spread silicon and let dry, remove tape and trim silicon. Silicon will dry to both sides of the acrylic. PLEASE make sure you look at some examples first don't believe everything I wrote here.

 

[RampantReptiles]

It may be easier just to start from scratch and build something from wood. That is easy to drill and no fear of breaking the glass. Although it may be more costly upfront it could make life easier in the long run if you plan it so that they could eventually be stackable to form a rack.

I have only ever seen screen doors and partial screen doors when people use tank side ways for arboreal species or critters that use height...

 

[Russellm0704]

View attachment 44809

Very attractive setup you got there, like someone said above, once you get racks there is no going back haha

 

[abrahamavelar]

drilling the tank is kind of hard if u dont know what u r doing due that if u don doit right it might crack the glass the way i was told on how to doit and ive done it a few times is to mark where u want the holes and how big u want them then if u already have the drill bit for glass u get plommers putty and make kind of like a ring thats is bigger than the hole u r going to drill and add water to it so ithe glass dont crack as u r doing it, put some pressure on the drill but not too much cuz u will break the glass just enough so it doesnt bounce around, and then get some water sand paper and sand the hole, hope it helped atleast thats how u do the wholes dor the fish tanks

 

[JeepFreak81]

Thanks, ya i would use a drill guide and water as a coolant. I use to run a cnc mill so i'm familiar with lots of maching practices, but i have never done glass. Working on a design for a wood cabinet design with 4 enclosures right now. Would like to go that way but looking at probably $200 or more to build

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk

 

[abrahamavelar]

yeah its pretty easy to drill them, there are a few videos on youtube on how to doit and keep us posted if u decide to drill the tank