enclosure design questions

[IchliebeTiere]

I was reading the care sheets here and I am really interested in "enhancing" my skinks enclosure. It mentions in the care sheets that "She uses a piece of kitchen tile with 4 thumb-sized PVC pipe legs and disguises them with fake plants. Here is a picture. This is a neat and creative way to make cool hides and keep clean water at the same time. Alternatively, you could simply keep the water bowl on top of a piece of tile"


1. Is this a certain type of kitchen tile"?
2. Can it be porcelin or ceramic?
3. Can the tile heat up from the light and become to hot?
4. Instead of PVC pipe legs can I use the 1.5" claypots as legs?
5. Do I glue the legs to the tile or just rest the tile on the pots?
6. What type of glue if I glue it?

I really like the idea of the plants. It would make the cage more eye pleasing.

7. Are there any live plants that I could use?
8. Are plants in the enclosure a good idea?

And can anyone tell me where I can find snails? Do I buy the type you put in a freshwater fish tank?
If you haven't guessed I'm still a brand new owner. I really appreciate your feedback and help. If anyone wants to show a picture of their enclosure I would love to see it. Thank you

[donkeybuff]

1. I think most people use the type of tile that is used outdoors (like flagstone), but I have never used tile in my enclosure so I'm not too sure.
2. Ceramic tile would probably be fine, but again, I have never used it. As long as there is nothing that is harmful to/breakable by a skink, it should be fine.
3. Anything can become too hot under a light. Your basking spot should be about 100 degrees F, so you need a temp gun or digital probe to measure the temperature there. If you need to lower the temperature, just raise the light. If you want to put a water bowl on it, the tile would probably not be under the light anyways. If you are using it as a basking spot, you will need to measure the temperature.
4. As long as there are no harmful materials and they are not skink-breakable, I see no problem.
5. If I was doing this, I would somehow attach the tile to the legs. While skinks shed, they rub themselves against things very hard. I have seen my skink move a full water bowl while doing this. I wouldn't want the tile with a water bowl on top of it to fall on my skink if he moved a leg of the hide.
6. Non-toxic glue should work, but I would glue only the middle of the leg so that the skink would have minimal contact with it.
7. Skinks like to burrow. A live plant would likely be uprooted. When shedding, your skink might try to use it as backscratcher and completely smash it.
8. I don't think that they are necessarily a bad idea, but they are not a great idea either.

You can buy canned snails at chain pet stores like petco or petsmart. Asian food markets sell large quantities of frozen snails (ask for them in the seafood section). Freshwater snails carry many parasites, so I wouldn't feed any from the pet store. If you breed them, they would probably be safer.

[IchliebeTiere]

Thank you very much for your reply. We have a petsmart here but they only have canned grasshoppers... I will keep checking

[Katrina]

Any kind of tile is fine. The water dish is generally on the opposite end of the basking area, so it shouldn't get too hot. Any kind of easily cleaned, sturdy legs for a raised tile area are fine. I used silicone to glue them together, it works well and then the bluey can't topple it. There is an aquarium safe silicone that doesn't have any chemicals to prevent mold or mildew that is great - just make sure it dries completely before you add it.

Like it was already said, live plants don't live long with blueys. They are much to hard on them. Lots of blueys will munch on them as well and many common house plants are poisonous, so live plants in a standard enclosure are not a great idea. It's also very difficult to regulate humidity if you have plants that need to be watered in there.

Good luck!

[IchliebeTiere]

How high do I want the tile from the bottom of the cage? I was thinking abouting using the 1.5" clay pots for legs.

[Jeff]

How high do I want the tile from the bottom of the cage? I was thinking abouting using the 1.5" clay pots for legs.

You just want your skink to be able to squeeze under there. I'm guessing the pots will be fine, but it really just matters that he can get under there. Otherwise, it's wasted space.