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WftRight
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Today was cleaning day for my crestie's cage, and I took the opportunity to make some changes in the cage and my cage strategy. Here's a picture of the first version.
I have the 18x18x24 Exo-Terra Glass Terrarium. My primary means of giving my crestie water is the Habbi-Mist system that sprays the fake purple coleus leaves three times a day for fifteen seconds. A secondary source of water droplets and humidity was the Misty Mountain volcano. I also provided a little water dish, but I haven't been as diligent at keeping it full as I'd like. Mostly, I still don't fully believe that my girl is drinking from a water dish, so I see it as being extraneous. I feed her by putting a little paper cup full of the T-Rex mix in the clear soap dish that is in the upper left front of the terrarium. When I first decided that I would feed her there, I added the Bend-a-Branch and the fake Australian maple because I wanted to be sure that she'd have a means to climb to her food. Of course, she can climb the glass, so that concern became a joke.
My front view picture doesn't show a plastic, hollow log hide that is behind the tower. That hide is visible in this side picture.
This picture also shows the shower caddy on the side of the aquarium in the back. When I was researching cresties before getting one, I read that they like a hide that is above the ground, and I saw this shower caddy at Wal-Mart. I wasn't sure whether it would be of any value, but she often spends a day or two at a time sleeping in there.
The new version of my crestie cage is here.
The biggest change is the elimination of the volcano. I made this change for a couple of reasons. The first is that the fogger mechanism wasn't very reliable. I'm not sure what was wrong, but the fogger hasn't been making fog for some time. Another problem is that the volcano was difficult to remove from the cage for cleaning. Every removal meant taking the cord from behind the textured surface at the back of the terrarium, and fiddling with the cord was difficult. My crestie rarely if ever used the caves under the volcano to hide, but she occasionally went behind the volcano entirely.
I've replaced the fogger/volcano with a system that will be simpler but I hope more robust. I've filled the little Kritter Keeper with water, drilled a small hole through the top, and run an air hose with an air stone. I've put a small air pump on top of the cage, and the pump will run on a timer. While this setup will never produce the nice effect of fog in the bottom of the cage, bubbling air through water will increase humidity, and the bubbles will cause some splatter that will put droplets on top of the Kritter Keeper and on surfaces in the cage. Removing the volcano will also give the cage more open space, and I hope that she'll enjoy the open space.
My biggest concern with this change is that I had to put another plastic cage top over the screen on top of the terrarium so that the air pump can be above the water level without sitting on the wire top of the cage. Since making this change this afternoon, the humidity has been too high. I wonder whether that extra cage top is hindering ventilation too much.
The clamp lamp isn't really new, but previous pictures didn't show the clamp lamp. I like to let my house get pretty cold in the winter, so I put a clamp lamp above the cage to keep a little more heat in the cage. My house dropped to the low 60's occasionally, but the crestie cage stayed in the upper 60's and lower 70's.
Another addition is the hanger over the soap dish. The soap dish has worked well as a place to put her food, but occasionally, the suction cup doesn't hold. I'm not sure what causes this problem, but I'll sometimes find the soap dish on the floor of the cage. I'm afraid that my crestie could be hurt if she were underneath it or in the dish eating when it fell. The hanger has a better suction cup. I've used them in several cages and never had one fall. By putting the hanger above the soap dish and strapping them together with a plastic tie, I give myself another factor of safety to prevent the dish from falling.
In this picture, my crestie is barely visible in the upper left corner of the cage. She's actually holding the Habbi-Mist water tubing. She's sitting on the toothbrush holder that holds the fake purple coleus and halfway hiding under a purple coleus leaf. This spot is the highest spot in the cage, and she's been there since I cleaned the cage this afternoon. I can't tell whether she's just found a new spot or whether she doesn't like the new design and is trying to distance herself as much as possible.
In any case, I'm hoping that I'll get better control of humidity with the new design. Right now, humidity isn't a problem. Louisiana has warmed to the point that my heater isn't running and my air conditioner is still off. Without doing something to the air, humidity in my house is pretty high right now. The test will be how the humidity does this summer when the air conditioner is running much of the time.
Bill
I have the 18x18x24 Exo-Terra Glass Terrarium. My primary means of giving my crestie water is the Habbi-Mist system that sprays the fake purple coleus leaves three times a day for fifteen seconds. A secondary source of water droplets and humidity was the Misty Mountain volcano. I also provided a little water dish, but I haven't been as diligent at keeping it full as I'd like. Mostly, I still don't fully believe that my girl is drinking from a water dish, so I see it as being extraneous. I feed her by putting a little paper cup full of the T-Rex mix in the clear soap dish that is in the upper left front of the terrarium. When I first decided that I would feed her there, I added the Bend-a-Branch and the fake Australian maple because I wanted to be sure that she'd have a means to climb to her food. Of course, she can climb the glass, so that concern became a joke.
My front view picture doesn't show a plastic, hollow log hide that is behind the tower. That hide is visible in this side picture.
This picture also shows the shower caddy on the side of the aquarium in the back. When I was researching cresties before getting one, I read that they like a hide that is above the ground, and I saw this shower caddy at Wal-Mart. I wasn't sure whether it would be of any value, but she often spends a day or two at a time sleeping in there.
The new version of my crestie cage is here.
The biggest change is the elimination of the volcano. I made this change for a couple of reasons. The first is that the fogger mechanism wasn't very reliable. I'm not sure what was wrong, but the fogger hasn't been making fog for some time. Another problem is that the volcano was difficult to remove from the cage for cleaning. Every removal meant taking the cord from behind the textured surface at the back of the terrarium, and fiddling with the cord was difficult. My crestie rarely if ever used the caves under the volcano to hide, but she occasionally went behind the volcano entirely.
I've replaced the fogger/volcano with a system that will be simpler but I hope more robust. I've filled the little Kritter Keeper with water, drilled a small hole through the top, and run an air hose with an air stone. I've put a small air pump on top of the cage, and the pump will run on a timer. While this setup will never produce the nice effect of fog in the bottom of the cage, bubbling air through water will increase humidity, and the bubbles will cause some splatter that will put droplets on top of the Kritter Keeper and on surfaces in the cage. Removing the volcano will also give the cage more open space, and I hope that she'll enjoy the open space.
My biggest concern with this change is that I had to put another plastic cage top over the screen on top of the terrarium so that the air pump can be above the water level without sitting on the wire top of the cage. Since making this change this afternoon, the humidity has been too high. I wonder whether that extra cage top is hindering ventilation too much.
The clamp lamp isn't really new, but previous pictures didn't show the clamp lamp. I like to let my house get pretty cold in the winter, so I put a clamp lamp above the cage to keep a little more heat in the cage. My house dropped to the low 60's occasionally, but the crestie cage stayed in the upper 60's and lower 70's.
Another addition is the hanger over the soap dish. The soap dish has worked well as a place to put her food, but occasionally, the suction cup doesn't hold. I'm not sure what causes this problem, but I'll sometimes find the soap dish on the floor of the cage. I'm afraid that my crestie could be hurt if she were underneath it or in the dish eating when it fell. The hanger has a better suction cup. I've used them in several cages and never had one fall. By putting the hanger above the soap dish and strapping them together with a plastic tie, I give myself another factor of safety to prevent the dish from falling.
In this picture, my crestie is barely visible in the upper left corner of the cage. She's actually holding the Habbi-Mist water tubing. She's sitting on the toothbrush holder that holds the fake purple coleus and halfway hiding under a purple coleus leaf. This spot is the highest spot in the cage, and she's been there since I cleaned the cage this afternoon. I can't tell whether she's just found a new spot or whether she doesn't like the new design and is trying to distance herself as much as possible.
In any case, I'm hoping that I'll get better control of humidity with the new design. Right now, humidity isn't a problem. Louisiana has warmed to the point that my heater isn't running and my air conditioner is still off. Without doing something to the air, humidity in my house is pretty high right now. The test will be how the humidity does this summer when the air conditioner is running much of the time.
Bill
