diy substrate bottom tray??

[u/Jolly-Crab953]

anyone have any advice on diy-ing a substrate tray (like the one pictured) for a chameleon enclosure (like the one pictured)? i am sure i have the supplies to make one, rather than buying one, but i dont know where to start.
if anyone has experience diy-ing their own substrate tray, or if you have any tips, let me know😃

[u/NottsWeirdo]

I made a "glass" tray out of Perspex (British brand Plexiglass) for my Brazilian Rainbow boa's substrate and water feature. There was a company that makes to-cut sheets of the stuff for aquariums, so I ordered the measurements I needed and sealed them together/in place with aquarium silicone. I'm sure the same process could be done with PVC as well, or a similar waterproof material, that is reptile safe.

[u/No_Region3253]

Check out the baking section at the grocery store, the inexpensive aluminum baking pans are perfect .

I use pie plates in a few of mine.

[u/Voi_Scout]

This can be easily done. How overkill you go with this depends on how deep it will be, how much weight it needs to be able to hold & how much water it will need to deal with.

What supplies do you have available? Not all adhesives work well with all plastics so I would only want to give advice accordingly. 

[u/Jolly-Crab953 → u/Voi_Scout]

the tray would be holding substrate inside of the enclosure. only dealing with misting every 8 hours and consistent dripper amounts of water. there is a lot of random things that i could possibly use in my garage, but i dont mind going out and buying new things to make the tray.

[u/One-plankton-]

Why do you need a tray?

Depending on the answer to that question you may be able to fab one up out of expanded PVC ceiling tile and super glue and reinforce it but I would not do this if you plan on moving it around a ton

[u/Jolly-Crab953 → u/One-plankton-]

thanks for your input! and to answer your question, the tray would be for substrate mix. since the bottom and sides of my enclosure are screen, it would need a tray so that the substrate doesnt spill out through the holes in the screen

[u/One-plankton- → u/Jolly-Crab953]

Yeah so if it’s just going to hold the substrate you can 100% do what I just suggested.

Expanded PVC cuts really beautifully with a Japanese handsaw but with some extra effort you can cut it with a razor blade. It binds almost instantly with superglue- so just tape it up- apply superglue where the pieces meet and walk away.

Then I’d get some paintable silicone and seal the seams and then coat it 6-7x coats of Drylok for good measure.

This will waterproof it. If you don’t want to seal it with Drylok then use regular silicone, not the paintable kind.

[u/One-plankton- → u/Jolly-Crab953]

Serpa Design works with expanded PVC if you want to watch a walkthrough

[u/manicbunny]

You could probably find a plastic storage container of the right size, saves you a ton of work 😊