Home Sweet Home (Part 1)

Ramón's vivarium was a point of long discussion between the two of us. Even though we spent most of a week discussing it, we still ended up spending a good 4 hours in Bunnings weighing up our options. Luckily, Johno's parents gave us a simple solution.

They had recently reorganised their laundry room, which freed up an old MDF shelving unit that Johno had made for them years before. Turned on its side, it was perfect. the wood provided excellent insulation and heat/moisture resistance. We removed one of the shelves and used the other to cordon off an area for accessories storage. His parents also provided us with a large branch that was recently cut from a tree in their garden. It took us two lazy weekend afternoon session to put the vivarium together.

We cut the branch in two to make it look a little more interesting

Johno did most of the work really, cutting holes for the vents and generally doing all those handy man things that he does. I mostly helped stabilise it while he was doing those things. 

Clearly, I had the harder job.

The rest wasn't too hard to install. Since our heat lamp was caged (the girl at the store assured us that it would be safe for Ramón to be direct contact with it) we decided to seal the top with acrylic and make the front a grill to provide ventilation - mostly for the summer months when it gets quite warm. 

Storage shelf, acrylic top and grill front

Right now it's winter, so we make sure to cover the front with a towel so the vivarium stays nicely at 30°-32°C (hot end) and 18°-24°C (cool end) even when it drops below 10° at night.

Heat lamp mounted to an offcut

 The idea was to at the heat lamp on an angle at the crux of the leftmost branch so he had a nice basking spot, but also heat up the upper parts of the rightmost branch so that it would help spread and retain heat throughout the vivarium. 

Basking spot

We also bought some garden downlights (the kind you attach to fences and things) to provide some cool night lighting.

Down lights

Looks pretty good on, too.

Pimpinnnn'!

Johno also had the bright idea of sealing the top with draft stopper tape!

You can also see the internal hinges we bought. 

After all that it was simply a matter of putting all the other accessories on, like handles and locks. 

I was really more of an.. "Artistic Director".

Decorating the vivarium was a different sort of joy all in itself! To be continued!