Escape artist

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majahawt

New member
I'm going to make a lid for the tank today. So far, we've been using just wood panels with ventilation gaps because that's all we had and now it's time to get something proper in place.

Especially now that we have Eclair.

Every single time we've had doubts about whether she will go somewhere, she does. She's done some amazing, unbelievable climbs in order to get into Donut's tank. She tries to climb anywhere and everywhere, even in places it shouldn't be possible. This morning, I was woken up by my cat only to realise that Eclair had used a hide as a stand, gotten a hold of the heat cage (bulb was luckily off), climbed up and over it and jumped down on the other side of the divider.

The divider is about 28 cm tall.

We've spent so much money on trying to make this one big tank work, and now I'm honestly contemplating just going to a pet store and getting individual Exo Terra-tanks for them both. There's not much danger right now because of their age, but I'm afraid we'll never be able to build something well enough to keep her in and she'll get beaten up by Donut :/
 
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majahawt

New member
She shouldn't even be able to climb up the side of the divider since it's covered with a smooth background but once she gets a hold of the heater cage, she's gone. We're gonna do our best to fill in every gap and I've ordered one of those Exo Terra climbable backgrounds for her that'll go on the other side, so hopefully she'll just focus on being able to climb that instead!
 
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majahawt

New member
TBH making this lid has been a nightmare so far. We're only about halfway done and that's just because we scrapped lots of parts of the original plan. For some reason, my measurements didn't add up and then other people came in to "help", breaking some of the parts in the process (as well as spilling an ashtray all over my laptop keyboard). I was going to make a base with an inside edge to hold it in place, as well as two lids with mesh but now it's pretty much just going to be the base with some crappy bits glued to it, covered with mesh.

UGH if only we had a generic tank, it would've been so much easier (the aquarium we're using is about 40 years old)...
 
Elizabeth Freer

Elizabeth Freer

Well-known member
majahawt said:
She shouldn't even be able to climb up the side of the divider since it's covered with a smooth background but once she gets a hold of the heater cage, she's gone. We're gonna do our best to fill in every gap and I've ordered one of those Exo Terra climbable backgrounds for her that'll go on the other side, so hopefully she'll just focus on being able to climb that instead!
Click to expand...

majahawt said:
TBH making this lid has been a nightmare so far. We're only about halfway done and that's just because we scrapped lots of parts of the original plan. For some reason, my measurements didn't add up and then other people came in to "help", breaking some of the parts in the process (as well as spilling an ashtray all over my laptop keyboard). I was going to make a base with an inside edge to hold it in place, as well as two lids with mesh but now it's pretty much just going to be the base with some crappy bits glued to it, covered with mesh.

UGH if only we had a generic tank, it would've been so much easier (the aquarium we're using is about 40 years old)...
Click to expand...

Hi ~

^^^ lid troubles: :-(

:idea:: Can you buy "hardware cloth" in Scotland at a hardware store? This is actually a wire mesh that comes in different sized grids: 1/8 inch, 1/4 inch, and so on. Some stores will let you buy this by the foot. Cut it to a good length with a wire cutter, bend the edges to fit the aquarium, and PRESTO: a well ventilated screen top. No glue necessary at all! ;-)

Is the height of your old aquarium greater than ~32 cms? Short enclosures are much easier to heat.

Some caution exists providing leopard geckos with climbing surfaces such as those Exo Terra climbable backgrounds. Some leopard geckos have tendencies to climb high, but then fall down and could get hurt.
 
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majahawt

New member
The height of the aquarium is actually just 32 cm (as well as width, and 92 cm length), the temperature is usually around 26-28 C at the cooler ends, furthest away from the heat bulb. We've done our best with what we had but I think perhaps christmas wishes will be money for individual tanks :3

I'm going to cut the top of the climbing walls a little so they can't fall down and hurt themselves and can't reach the mesh at the top, otherwise they might crawl around upside down.

Donut is such a lazy guy, he spends most of his time in his hide or basking but Eclair is just all over the place, I've never seen such an energetic leopard gecko!
 
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majahawt

New member
There's only one hardware store where we live and all they had was one kind of wire mesh so we just went with that. We've attached them to a wooden frame with some weird little "wire nails" that do the trick. I really wanted to attach it properly because we've got a cat. I highly doubt she'd want to walk on the wire mesh since it's uncomfortable, but if she does, it's not going to bend and fall down into the tank :3
 
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majahawt

New member
Although it's better than it was, it's still a pretty bad lid and I'm finding it very hard to keep the temperature well regulated now.

Luckily my mother decided that she would pay for two proper tanks as an early christmas gift for us! There's a clearance sale at one of the online reptile stores here and I got 2 large tanks for the price of one! Really excited about getting everything set up properly and not have to keep making adjustments, not to mention getting it 100% safe for our little gecko babies. They deserve that!

I'll post some photos later in the week once they're all set up :3
 
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majahawt

New member
They are 86cm x 37.5cm x 42cm so it'll be pretty sweet! Can't wait to have a front sliding door, it'll be a lot easier to handle and feed them, not to mention clean the tanks :3
 
M

majahawt

New member
Here are the new tanks! They look a little sad since they don't have a background and need a bit more plants but I'll fix that :3 Photo
 
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kenseth03

New member
Wow. I just got my 2 Leo's and have been told they couldn't climb although one of mine is a pretty active gecko. Guess I know better now. Thanks for the heads up.
 
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majahawt

New member
If there's anything that looks climeable, they probably will try, even though they don't have sticky pads on their feet like a lot of other geckos. Eclair managed to support herself on her tail while on top of a hide, reach up to the heat cage and climb up that. I'm assuming she just dropped down on the other side. It happened while I was in the shower so I'm glad I caught it immediately when I came back - Donut did not look very happy.

They can climb unfinished wood, rocks, anything that doesn't have a smooth texture. And they will!
 
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