Enclosure design

[Fangs]

I'm toying with the idea of building a 4ft enclosure(melamine) with a partition in the centre.What I have in mind is to cut a section from the top of the partition and installing the heat source (globe) and guard in this cutout allowing both sections to be heated by the one globe and one thermostat.
Would this work in practise or not?

cheers M........

[Greebo]

I have seen it done Fangs.
It is important to have vents in the centre partition to allow an even air flow as you will only be using a thermostat one one side I assume.
Thats the only thing to really worry about. A bit of trial and error with temps and you should be able to get even temps in both sides.

[Fangs]

Thanks Greebs,
Would having vents in the partition cause any trouble if a male was in one side a female in the other?I'm thinking the male might try and get thru to the female and end up with a sore snout.

cheers M..........

[Greebo]

I use vents the same that go in walls of your house. You can get them from hardware stores and they have really fine mesh behind the grill.
I havent had any problems.

You could also loop the wiring through the partition to run 2 heat sources (1 per side).Considering the enclosure would be partitioned dead centre and both sides having the same dimensions internally it should work with a single thermostat.

[Fangs]

Thanks for the ideas Guys,
Reasoning behind one heat source,one thermostat is purely for economical reasons.
Also in the design I am looking at making it say 3ft tall and partitioning vertically and horizontally so I could have one cage at 4x2x3 or two at 4x2x1.5 or four at 2x2x1.5 although heating would become more complicated,maybe a 9mtr heat cord?
On the issue of partioning above is there a way to do it that would make it easy to remove/replace?

cheers M.......

You could use brackets (cheap pine dress board) above and below the shelf at a gap the same width as the shelf itself.Then simply slide in or out your partition.Another option is using the brackets as used in book shelves,these push into a hole drilled into the sides of the enclosure then the shelf would sit on it (but depending on overall length and weight of species housed may be pushed upwards).The 1st option would be the best I think.

[africancichlidau]

To stop the shelf being lifted as CC so correctly mentioned, you can put the little brackets above and below the shelf thus removing the animals ability to lift the shelf

hehe yea!
Same as I mentioned with dress board :wink:
oO(Now why could I think of it with boarding but not shelving dowels)

[africancichlidau]

Hehehe, I think they call it team work buddy