Making baby tubs

Most keepers start out with just one chondro, and often it is a baby. An immediate dilemma presents itself to the new or potential GTP owner looking to house a baby or two...and that is there is no good commercial ready-to-use cage setup suitable for baby chondros. For those who are handy with tools and do-it-yourself projects, this isn't too much of a problem, but for those who don't have much ability or confidence working with their hands, this can be intimidating. Fortunately, with the proper guidance, a good baby enclosure can be made from some simple department store materials, and pretty inexpensively at that. For those contemplating housing several young chondros, it makes sense to buy or build a rack that holds multiple tubs. These are fairly easy to make for those with a good home workshop, and plans can be found on the Racks page.

NOTE: Make sure you set up your baby tub a week in advance of putting the animal in it. Part of good GTP husbandry is knowing your cages and how they respond to misting and temperature changes. Get this all worked out well in advance of getting your new animal.

(10-12) #8-32 X 1/2" machine screws with (1) nut and (2) #10 washers for each screw

Tools: drill, assortment of small bits, utility knife or jig saw, small fine tooth handsaw or bandsaw, scissors, and tin snips (to cut the hardware cloth if the store won't cut it for you)

You will also need an indoor/ outdoor thermometer, and good thermostat, and a red light bulb or ceramic heater, small water dish, and newspaper or cypress mulch. A sprig of silk pothos is optional.

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Select an appropriate size tub. For hatchlings old enough to be going to new homes a Rubbermaid three gallon tub works well. The clear polycarbonate tub (available from Habitat Systems) is nice looking but much more expensive and cannot be cut like the Rubbermaid lid can. It requires a small heat panel mounted inside (see notes below). Your chondro can live for a year or more in the three gallon tub, which measures 12" wide X 16" deep X 6" high. Any tub that is approximately this size will work. The dollar is shown for scale.

Position the reflector in the center of the lid and down to one end. Mark a line on the lid all the way around the reflector. Use a 6"-7" reflector...the larger sizes will be too big for the lid. Remove the spring clamp from the base of the reflector by loosening the screw that holds it on. Make sure the reflector is rated for the wattage of heater or bulb you intend to use. The one in the photo is rated for 60 watts.

Drill a hole about 1/4" inside the line you marked to allow the jigsaw blade to enter. Cut the disc out of the lid, keeping 1/4" inside the line. If you don't have access to a jig saw you can use a utility knife with a sharp blade. Be careful and don't cut toward your self or your other hand. Several light cuts are better than trying to make one heavy cut and having the knife slip.

Have your hardware store cut the metal hardware cloth to size for you unless you have tin snips. For the Rubbermaid three gallon lid use pieces approximately 8" square. Be sure to use fiberglass window screen for the inner piece...it won't melt under the heat like plastic screen. You will need 10-12 machine screws with nuts and two washers for each screw.

Position the hardware cloth over the hole, and mark the positions of the screws with a marker onto the lid. Make sure to mark them outside of the line where the reflector will sit! Remove the screen and drill the holes for the screws using a drill bit slightly larger than the screw shaft. For my #8-32 screws, a 9/64" bit was just right. Reposition both pieces of screen over the hole, use the utility knife to make a small cut in the window screen over each screw hole, and insert the screws up through the inside of the lid. Use a washer on both sides of the lid and tighten down the nuts on the outside of the lid. Work carefully to avoid making the screen pucker anywhere. If you do a neat job, the screen will lay flat and there will be no place for the snake to escape.

Use a sharp 1/8" drill bit and drill ventilation holes in all four vertical sides of the tub. Be careful, and drill the holes using a high RPM and a light feed rate so as not to crack the tubs. NOTE: If you have access to a Dremel tool, it will make this job much faster and easier due to the very high RPM. If you have a lot of tubs to drill, it is worth the money to buy a Dremel just for this purpose.

Cut the long side of four plastic coat hangers off and cut them to fit the tub to make a grid. Use a bandsaw or a hand coping or hack saw to cut the hangers. (If you have many perches to make, buying the bandsaw is...well, never mind!) Use cable ties to fasten the perch pieces together, inserting the ties in from each outer corner of the grid. If you don't the grid will tend to collapse, but this way it will be rigid. Cypress mulch or newspaper can be used for a substrate. Provide a small water dish, and add a sprig of silk pothos if you like.

This close-up of the left rear corner of the tub shows the thermostat probe (black) inserted through an appropriate size hole in the tub side. The probe from an indoor/ outdoor thermometer (white) is also inserted. You can wrap it around the perch, or hold it in place with a small rubber band placed on the perch member before assembly. Both of these are near the hole where the reflector will set.

Be sure to wash all parts of the tub except the substrate with hot water and an antibacterial disinfectant before using.

Here is the whole setup showing how it hooks up. In this photo I'm using a Helix DBS-1000. The reflector, with a red bulb or low watt ceramic heater installed, plugs into the thermostat receptacle. The thermostat plugs into the wall outlet. Set the tub in a safe place and mount the thermostat and thermometer where you can read them easily. Set the thermostat to provide a basking area of about 86 degrees, with a cooler gradient in the tub front.

You can run several tubs off of the same thermostat as long as the tubs are all identical, and the total heater or bulb wattage doesn't exceed the rating of the thermostat. If you use a light bulb, make sure it is a red one, as this won't disturb the chondro's night time cycle. Also, use the lowest watt bulb that will get the job done. This is more accurate than having the thermostat cycling a hotter bulb. Use caution when servicing the setup, as the reflector or heater can be very hot. The screen will keep your animal from getting burned, and the fiberglass screen prevents it from rubbing it's nose raw on the hardware cloth. Make sure to set up your tub and ensure everything is acclimated and working properly before adding the animal. This setup will hold humidity pretty well, depending on the amount of holes drilled in the tub sides. Go easy until you find the right combo of ventilation and misting. You can always add more holes. If you drill too many, and the tub dries out too fast, cover some of them by placing clear packing tape over the outside of the tub. Never put tape inside a snake cage. You can secure the lid onto the tub by using a few small spring clamps obtainable from office supply stores.

You can use this same setup for yearlings or even adults...just use larger tubs, reflectors, and heaters. It's also possible to use heat tape or a small reptile heating pad (made for use under aquariums), under the tub in this setup, in place of the reflector. This works best inside of a rack where the heat is enclosed by the cabinet, but if your room is warm enough it will work with the tub on a shelf on top of the tape. Always verify the tub temperature gradient with a thermometer...don't guess.