Dragons and Damp Wood

I find mysefl a bit stuck with a domestic scenario and as the range of expertise in this forum (or at least opinion) seems limitless I thought I'd seek here for help.

Number two son (15) has a chinese water dragon.

In case of doubt, the lizard is the beast on top.

They get quite big, 2 feet (60cm) and more and so we required a largish housing. 4 foot high and wide and 2 foot deep (the younger element can do their own conversions).

I won't bore the thread with the story of the mis-delivery, mis-assembly and final bodge of the housing, nor the replacement of the ill fitting glass with an acrylic front. It would just make me cross.

Now the point here is in the name. Chinese WATER dragon. They like it damp. They want a swimming pool which must be changed every day (among other things this is their toilet).

In hindsight, a contiboard enclosure seems like a very poor design decision (not mine, recommended by the shop) for a basically wet environment.

A while back I put some pond liner in the bottom, though I confess that the gluing up the sides wasn't too brilliant (why do adhesives and paint only ever cover 70% of what it says they can on the tin?).

Recently we discovered mushrooms growing in the lizard home. And little white spores all over the place. Gandalf (Lizard, not son) had taken to perching on the topmost branch glaring enigmatically (to be honest, his range of emotional expressions is pretty limited).

Well, Lizard has been despatched to Lizard holiday home whilst we work out what to do. Bear with me. I'm nearly at my question!

So I've stripped out everything from the vivarium (wot we lizard people call a lizard house) and pulled up the pond liner.

Much as I expected, water has leaked underneath it and the contiboard base has not succeeded in holding back the water. There is at least one soft spot of about 6 inches diameter, though no marked breaks in the surface.

Turning it over reveals that the underneath has got wet and mouldy. So to the floorboards, though 100 years of gloss paint has prevented further damage.

The base has swollen a bit, but is holding together OK.

What I'm thinking to do is to let it dry for a few days, replace the liner, but with plenty of glue / sealant to keep it watertight and then raise the vivarium on blocks to keep the underside off the floor and aired.

Number two son want's me to build a new bigger one out of glass. My response was short and succinct.

I am a bit worried about the contiboard's longer term stability now it's gotten wet. It has definitely swollen round the edges by 20% or 30% and most likely more in the middle. For all that, the structure seems stable and of course, it's not going to have much load.

It's one of those 'bodge it or break my back' decisions, but I really don't want it to fall apart in the middle of the night in 3 months!

Thanks in anticipation of some interesting advice!

Iain

The biggest problem is going to be the mould, it will be almost impossible to eradicate the spores. Depends on the particular type of mould but possible health implications for the lizard and yourselves. Dave

Just a research suggestion - is there a national lizard keeping / reptile pets club you could consult with? I know there are clubs for many other kinds of pets.

If there is such a club I imagine they can offer good advice for building a good home for Gandalf the dragon. JD

Edited By Jeff Dayman on 04/02/2017 13:23:00

i used to build my own vivs from marine ply and used sealant for aquariums for edges.

then varnish it can't remember name of it now but any decent reptils shop will tell you it.

we also used to get sheets of plastic and fit that into base and up sides to create waterproof section especially good when using bio substrate.

many happy trips out to woods looking for branches and logs to hollow out for hides.

thinking of getting back into it.

go on RFUK used to be brilliant site but not been on in few years.

where are you?

I think you need to bite the bullet, grasp the nettle, seize the day, cross the rubicon.. or whatever cliche phrase takes you and your junior herpetologist and do the job right by lad and legged snake: preferably in some material that cnan be sterilised in future either by higher pressure steam or a blow lamp or strong chemicals you can effectively rinse away afterwards. Glass fish tank constuction if you can find something higher temp than the usual silicone sealants is probably the simplest (so yer lad is right) and while it might be heavy and really needs to be toughened glass at lst you can maintain it.

I'm out of date on herp keeping but general rule of thumb was to provide warm basking area at one end of the tank and let inhabitant choose it's own zone. If you need higher humidity then there's plenty of capillary mattings that can be dunked into the water end.

Return both lizard and son to the wild and let nature take its course ? - Or perhaps just the lizard.
BobH

Are they edible?

Hi, Dave. I think the mushrooms have been removed. The black mould under the thing appears to be endemic to the region in that it pops up anywhere that's damp.

Naughtyboy. Thanks for the link to RFUK. I shall tell young Sir to investigate. I'm really trying to avoid building a replacement, though I wish I'd built it in the first pace. Marine play and glass or acrylic would have been my choice. We're up in God's country near Harrogate!

pgk pgk. Yup I could build a new one. BUT I DON'T WANT TO!

Bobh. You have no idea how tempting.

Gordon. Probably but it would barely be a starter!

Iain

Maybe give a zoo with a reptile house a call and see if you can pick the brains of the keepers, after all they are the experts. They might even have an in house building team who should be able to give you construction tips

not that far then i'm near leeds.

two good places are reptillia in osset and tyrannosaurus pets in leeds.

Does it have claws that penetrated the pond liner? It might not be leaking but cause condensation to form on the underside next to the wood.
If you put it on blocks as you suggested put them on a plastic sheet (heavy duty builders plastic not blue tarpaulin plastic so you can trap and see leaks.
The stuff called Coreex used for estate agents signs nowadays might be a handy thing to use as a layer to protect from claw, provide insulation and is waterproof.

If you have a look back at Page 2 of Neil's thread on Corner Joints in Plywood, I posted a couple of links about Tricoya waterproof MDF board.

**LINK**

He came from Tyrannoraurus pets.

The pond liner is not leaking, but the sides weren't glued well enough and the water seeped down through that.

At the risk of disrupting the thread , I'm really mainly concerned if the somewhat weetabixed base contiboard is likely to be sound for a year or so if I prevent any more water getting into it.

Iain

I once employed a young associate that wanted to make his own surfboards and as part of his learning curve created a bunch of cat kennels out of thin (4mm?) MDF just pinned and glued then the whole thing reinforced with a thin layer of matting and a smooth gelcoat. I commissioned some s/s cage doors and when I sold up they were well into their 15th year of functional use resisting scratches and urine and strong disinfectants. An option if you just want to tart it up

Back in prehistory folk used to make quick and lazy animal cages out of domestic cold water tanks supported by simple timber frames. Depending on available sizes that may be a drop in solution or perhaps an animal litter tray siliconed as a new internal base.