[Riverside Reptiles]

I use PVC tubes as cheap, quick and easy arboreal hides for a lot of my geckos. My tokays in particular seem to love them. I know that a lot of other folks use them as well. But we all know that plain old PVC pipe is ugly. I just thought I'd share my quick and easy way of making them not only economical, but also look decent in the viv without a ton of work.

Just go to any Home Depot type store (or plumbing supply) and find some PVC that is the appropriate width and length that you want. Or buy a long piece and cut it to length yourself with pretty much any type of saw (I use a chop saw, but you could certainly use a circular saw or even a hand saw as it's not a hard material to cut).

Use a drill with a hole saw and cut as many holes as you want in it.

Then use Krylon spray "Fusion" paint that is specifically made to fuse with plastic products (no primer needed!)

Give the PVC a light sanding to scuff up the surface. This allows the paint a proper surface to adhere to.

Wipe it down to clean off any dirt, etc. And then paint.

I use Ultra-flat black and Ultra-flat "OD" green. I put it on in a sort of "camouflage" style.
You can get as fancy or keep it as simple as you choose.

Let it dry for 24 hours, and there you have yourself some hides that your geckos will love, didn't cost an arm and a leg, can be made any size you need, and actually blends into a wooded/jungle type viv. These are also easy to clean and last forever.

And it's a DIY project that's easy enough for most anyone to do...even if you don't have tons of building skills. Enjoy.

I tend to just lean mine diagonally against the wall of the enclosure for my arboreal species. But you certainly could use various other methods. These could also be used as hides for non-arboreal species if you just wanted to lay them flat on the ground. And for desert species, you could use paints that were tan and brown (think desert camo), etc. Use your imagination!

These are aprox 1 foot, 1 and a half foot, and 3 feet long:



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[mttycaz85]

is it ok to paint inside the pvc tube?

[PassPort]

why would you want to paint the inside of the tube?

[mttycaz85]

to make it the same color as the outside

[PassPort]

Or you could just save yourself a headache and start with the black PVC. It looks like that's what Ethan used here.

Also, if you start with black pipe and paint scrapes off, you don't really need to repaint it.

[Riverside Reptiles]

Actually I used standard white pvc because that's what I happened to have kicking around. But if I were to actually go out and buy some, I'd probably go with black pvc for the reasons that Kevin mentioned. I painted the inside of the holes enough so that you can't see the white inside when they're sitting in the viv. But 99% of the inside of the tube is still white. BTW, the Krylon "fusion" paint does a really good job sticking to the pvc. I've been really happy with these and my tokays LOVE them as would most any arboreal gecko I assume.

[PassPort]

I was talking with Blake Deffenbaugh the other day and he was telling me about torching white PVC to make it look like bamboo. I'll have to see if he has any pics he can post up.

[Riverside Reptiles]

Originally Posted by PassPort

I was talking with Blake Deffenbaugh the other day and he was telling me about torching white PVC to make it look like bamboo. I'll have to see if he has any pics he can post up.

Interesting, I've actually thought of doing that too. Seems like all you'd have to do is wrap a piece of coat hanger in a circle around the pvc and heat with a torch until it was hot enough for the hanger to melt into the pvc. Then remove the hanger and go to the next spot. But maybe he has a different idea on how to do it. I'd be interested to see. I know that he recently rejoined us here at GU. So maybe he'll post up some pics.

[oli]

torched pvc is what some of the guys do to make the pvc perches look a little better in some of the arboreal "chondro" set-ups, it looks ok at best.

[daggekko]

Hey, I like the whole paint the PVC idea!! Seems like it solve the browning of the drying out bamboo problem and keep the color constant!

I have seen an article somewhere about torching PVC. Makes for an AWESOME looking "Log". Problem with it from what the article said is that if you torch it for just too long it becomes weak and flops over. And the time between being awesome looking and useless due to flopping over is very small. Also, the fumes are supposed to be absolutely aweful and last a very long time, not to mention are very toxic. I will spend some time and try to find the article.