Critter Room Planning: How would your dream Critter Room be equipped??

[SludgeMunkey]

After a few years of battling with the wife, the housing market, and the economy I have purchased a house. I now have a completely empty 15x15 room in the basement that will become the new Creepy Salamander Guy Cave.

While I have a plan on how to out fit it with shelves, a sink, and lighting, before I begin to purchase stuff, I wanted to get input from everyone here!


So, in a nutshell, if you had a 15x15 foot room to do anything you wanted with, how would you set it up for your amphibians?

 

[Shizeric]

Congrats on the new house. I wish I could give you some helpful advice on what an ideal Critter Cave would be...but I would be clueless with what do with that much space. Approximately how many amphibians do you have?

 

[Jake]

I'd set up a few rows of those heavy duty metal racks like they use in restaurant kitchens and fill them with 10 gallon tanks, then add a few larger tanks for larger species, and a bunch of racks of tubs for rearing larvae and live food cultures. You can cram a lot of salamanders into a room that size

 

[SludgeMunkey]

Congrats on the new house. I wish I could give you some helpful advice on what an ideal Critter Cave would be...but I would be clueless with what do with that much space. Approximately how many amphibians do you have?

I would estimate the number of individual animals is well over 200. Most are larvae and new morphs at this time.

I'd set up a few rows of those heavy duty metal racks like they use in restaurant kitchens and fill them with 10 gallon tanks, then add a few larger tanks for larger species, and a bunch of racks of tubs for rearing larvae and live food cultures. You can cram a lot of salamanders into a room that size

I was thinking steel racks, or perhaps spend the money and go for built in surround shelving. I would really like to do a "dart frog" type rack system, but I worry such a rig would be a pain to maintain for the aquatic species.

 

[Shizeric]

Sludgemunkey, you must be one hell of a sweet talker to get your wife to allow this. Most men want their man cave to set up their LCD TV's, Xboxess, and surround sound. You are quite the opposite. I bet you won't be buying a drop top bimmer when you reach your midlife crisis.

p.s. Since I have seen you mention your wife's interest in Axies previously....how many Axolotls do you have?

 

[Mark]

This is a topic close to my heart at the moment because I'm 90% through a newt room re-fit of my own. The shelving was the hardest part for me. They needed to fit the tanks perfectly and be as compact as possible (the room is very small). I shopped around for weeks and couldn't find anything quite right - so I built my own. Here's my shopping list:

• Strong, free standing shelving.

• Daisy chained 6 Watt T5 lighting for each tank, all running off one plug and timer.

• Cable management under each shelf for air-tube & electric wires.

• 4 inch brushless computer fans under each shelf.

• Water input pipe-work.

• Syphon output tubing, automatically set at 10-20% water change with cut-off valves.

• Air conditioning unit.

I would strongly recommend a built-in water management system. What used to take me 1 hour now takes 10 minutes. I can syphon all tanks at the same time and they'll just stop when the required volume of water is out. If I had the space and money I'd include a large sink with work top area and tiled floor. As it is I've just sealed the wooden floor.

Here's one of the units as it was being installed. You can see the beginnings of the water system in the middle tank and an unfitted T5 light on the top tank.

 

[Azhael]

Behold....neatness!!!!


I also wish i could help you Johnny, but as it is i don´t even have a critter room...i just put the tanks wherever i can xD
Mind you, if i had your dreamy critter room (i´m still hoping for the future), i know ..i just know....i´d install a largish custom-made tank in the middle just for show! xD

 

[blueberlin]

I think the most important time and effort saver is plumbing in the room - water inlet and outlet. We can add water straight from the tap here (no chlorine) so I would ideally have a pipe running around the walls with a tap by each tank, but any sort of system that means you don't have to lug buckets is a good one. Not sure how I will do it with having to treat water first. If you figure something out, I hope you'll let us know!

A cooling system (like A/C) is good for summer and possibly a way of venting to decrease humidity would be nifty, too.

-Eva

 

[Otterwoman]

Don't forget a slop sink and attached hose for water changes and cleaning up!

You could even try, in a corner, if you wanted, a naturalistic pond or something. Here's something Jenn did that is totally cool:
Pond Project

Of course, light would be an issue for that. She's going to come and build one in my basement. Did I say 'in my basement' ? I meant, in my dreams.

 

[Molch]

okay, old thread, but I found it when looking at pics of "newt rooms".

My dream newt room would contain:

- wall-to-wall installments of giant naturalistic planted jungle tanks, no smaller than 30 ga. each, populated with fat and happy newts and their offspring.
- plumbing!
- what Mark has, that automatic water-thingy
- oh yeah, a pond in one corner would be nice. With pond lilies.
- a large plushy couch in the middle of the room, big enough for 1 person and 2 dogs, that swivels on a pedestal so I can turn and look at whichever tank the action is in.
- a whirlpool with bar
- a live-in masseur, who resides in his own apartment through a trapdoor in the floor. He comes out to give one back-massage in the whirlpool every night and cooks a luscious meal, and during the day does menial jobs around the newts for which I'm too lazy, like turkey-bastering poop etc. He will be well paid (I am a millionaire in this version) and has the rest of his time off...........he also looks a lot like Clive Owen.......

...............................yeah.............................................

..............................anyways...where was I? Oh yes, I gotta go haul water from the pond.....

 

[Kaysie]

My ideal newt room would have a floor drain. That way, when I up-end my 5-gallon bucket on the floor, it all just goes away instead of scrambling for every towel in the house.

Then again, I wouldn't have 5 gallon buckets if I had my ideal newt room. I'd have a large water tank where I can treat and age 500 gallons at a time, and just hose all the water I need directly into the tanks.