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You can get a hold of me on AIM at selloutsoldout or you can email me at dkelly007@ameritech.net.
I prefer AIM o)

*** Try to make the backs of the polystyrene as flat as possible so they will stick to the wall easily when you try and glue them. If they are not flat the glue will not be able to catch to the wall.

Once you are ready to glue, take out your liquid nails (make sure it is the correct one for gluing polystyrene, they will show you at the hardware store if your confused) and toss it in the cauking gun and get to work! Simply slide the glue on the back of the polystyrene (I used quite a bit on mine just to make sure things stuck well, I suggest using more then less) and press it into place against the wall. Read the directions of the liquid nails before gluing, but I am almost posative for a quick stick, you press the polystyrene against the wall then remove for 3 minutes,then press it back into place. This creates a real quick solid hold, if you just press it into place it will stick, but you will have to wait for it to dry much longer.

Once you have the plystyrene glued into place you want to take your *foam-in-a-can* and fill in all the spaces between rocks. Remeber that the foam your using will expand a lot so use it sparningly and make sure its completely done growing before you add more. If you do add to much its ok just remove it with your finger or spoon or stick or whatever. A good example of where I used this step his to the right. Notice whee Saku's leg is hanging down. Behind that piece of rock I filled in the back with the foam-in-a-can.

This is the step where your fake rock starts taking shape of real rock! Take your tile grout that you bought at Home Depot. I used two 20 or 25 lbs bags of Natural Grey tile grout. They were $10 each. They have several different colors available to choose from, even sand color. I chose grey because it was substantially cheaper and I bought play sand for $2 and added it in later (more to come on that later.)

To put the tile grout on you can use a few methods. You can use a paint mixer stick and slap it on, use a paint brush, or just do like I did and slap it on with your hands. I suggest using sole latex gloves or something like that. I used nothing and my hands got eaten up by the tile grout and it got all up under my nails. It was quite annoying and at times it burned a bit.

Take your tile grout and mix it on up (all it takes is water.) I suggest doing this in a well ventilated area, it is quite smelly and might make you naceuous. Your first batch of tile grout should be fairly thin.. You will use this as your base coat and you need it to sink into all the nooks and crany's to make sure you covered everything. I would do at elast two of these types of coats. Let the coat dry before you start applying the second coat.

After you have completed those thin coat(s) move on to a thicker consistancy, that of something like peanut butter. Take these and slap them on and cover everything you can. The thicker you make the tile grout, the more rocky it will seem and to me it seems much more natural. I would do at least two thicker coats on top of the 1-2 thin coats.

Here are few pictures that I took while applying the tile grout. They appear in order of when I did them.

Here you can notice this is one of the first coats I had applied. Notice I had to prop up one of the ledges to keep it from falling.

I used a fan to help dry the tile grout faster. Yes i am quite impatient!

Step 4: Sealant & Sand

After all your tile grout has dried and you have several coats on it is time to seal up the cage! This step is *extremely* important or you will have a messy cage. I forget the exact name of the tile grout sealer but any hardware store will have it. The stuff I used came in a yellow container and was approximately $10. Make sure you use an *ACRYLIC* based sealant, it is les harful to your animals and does not have as strong of an odor. Be sure to not use anything flamable! If you use the tile grout sealant you will be fine, but make sure to ask at the local hardware store you go to. Before you go home pick up a bag of play sand from the hardware store as well. Bring it home and wash it before you put it in the cage just to be safe. I washed mine in just regular water.

You can experiment on ways to apply the sealant to the tile grout, the best method I found is to use an old paintbrush (or a cheap new one because it will get ruined.) Take the sealant and place it in a plastic bowl, something you do not mind if it gets ruined. Take the painbrush and dip it in the sealant. Just blot down on top of the grout covering as much as you can. You can also just poor the sealant over the grout and spread it around with the paintbrush, either way works. Take some play sand in your hand or in a cup and sprinkle it over the section of rock that you just applied the sealant too. Then go back with the paintbrush and blot down on the sand, selant, grout again to press it all together and spread it around. I recomend doing this in sections as it is easier to keep track and it wont dry up on you.

Put on several coats of sealant (each time adding more sand until desired effect is achieved) to make sure everything gets sealed and do not forget all the nooks and cranys. I used two complete bottles of sealant on my cage just to make sure it was completely sealed. That and also I wanted to keep adding sand to my rocks.

*** The sand will look darker then it does when it completely dries.

Step 5: Light Fixtures

I bought two ceramic light fixtures at Home Depot which cost about $3 a piece. I could have went with cheap plastic ones but I was concerned about them melting. The fixtures I bought also had a nice feature of a hanging on/off switch. These fixtures are the exact same ones that are used in closets.

Figure out where you want to place your fixtures according to your basking spots. Once you have these figured out, take a dremel tool (or some other drilling device) and drill a hole in the back of your cage (it will drill directly through the tile grout.) Once you have drilled through, take the extension cords you boght and cut the end off where you plug thigns into. (Not the side that plugs into the wall.) Take the cut end and splice the wires so that the metal is showing. Slide the cord through the hole. Make sure the hole is only big enough for the cord to slide through.

Tale the cut extension cord and place the wires on the appropriate places on the fixture and screw the wires into place. If you are confused with this step just follow the directions that came with the light fixtures, it is *extremely* easy! Once you have the wires secured to the fixutre screw the fixture to the top of your cage.

For my UVB light I have a strip light that I bought at Kmart for $9.99. I simply screwed this into the top of the cage over a basking spot. I plan on getting another UVB light up and running over the second basking spot to make sure all is well. I do not have any pictures of this at this moment.

Step 6: Sliding Plexiglass Window

I used plexiglass for my sliding doors that slides on a plastic track, both were bought at Home Depot. I belive the track was under $10 and the plexiglass $30 a sheet (used 2 sheets). While the plexi glass is expensive, it is exteremly nice. It does not break like glass and it can withstand some heavy damage. Also the plexiglass comes into play for ventilation later on. Make sure you measure your cage and get the appropriate size plexiglass for your cage. Remeber to make it tad bit shorter then the height of your cage, and a few inches longer then it. The two pieces of plexiglass need to overlap in the middle or you will have magical cricket escape issues! Check the top picture of the site to see how I over lapped the two pieces of plexi.

I used liquid nails again to glue the track into place. I measured my cage and cut the pieces of plastic track to fit. The track comes in two pieces. One is taller then the other. It is very important to put the larger piece on top and the smaller piece on bottom, other wise you can forget about getting the plexiglass into place.

Once the track was in place I took my plexiglass and slide it into place. This proved difficult since my plexiglass was not cut perfectly, but with a little use of the dremel tool and some sanding I managed to get it in there.

Step 7: Ventilation

This step is quite easy, but quite time consuming. I took my dremel tool at first and simply drilled holes althroughout the plexiglass. I suggest using an actual drill to do this instead of a dremel because it was *extremely* slow going. Check the picture to see my first few holes I started.

Questions & Answers - (I will update this as people ask me questions)

1) "Before you glued the rock pieces into the cage, did you paint them or something? Or do they naturally look grey?"
Answer: No paint involved at all. The grayish color is the color of the tile grout. You can get colored tile grout as well, (brown, white, sand colored etc etc) but it costs extra money. I went with a simple natural gray, then added sand on top of it to give it color.

2) "Approximately how long did it take you to complete the project?"
Answer: It took me quite a while to actually complete the cage. But only due to my laziness and lack of money. If you get all of your items quickly and work straight through it, it should not take more then a week. This only due to the fact that each coat of tile grout takes approximately 24 hours to completely dry. I suspect this takes a little less, especially with the thin coats. Even more so when you use a fan to dry it. Cutting out the rock formations out of the polystyrene only takes a couple hours, depending on how much effort you put into it. The glue and sealant is fairly quick going. Glue is about 5 minutes or so and the sealant is makred on the bottle as 2 hours drying time between coats, again it can be shortened significantly with the use of a fan.

3) "How much do you estimate the project to cost altogether?"
There are a few things to keep in mind... I got lucky in having an old dresser that I could tear appart and destroy to make into an UBER cage! Also I had some items on hand and did not have to purchase them such as the dremel tool, screw driver, screws, plywood for the bottom floor. I am not calculating these into the estimate. Also keep in mind the size of my cage. It is quite a huge cage. CIts close to the equivalent of a 125 gallon tank. And thats just for one beardie. So the supplies you will need might be reduced. Especially the plexiglass pricing, which is a huge chunk of the overall price.

Ive calculated this cage to be approximately.... $155 (without tax)

• Polystyrene -- $10 -- The sheet of polystyrene which was HUGE (I still have half of it left over) was a little under $10.
• Tile Grout -- $10 (2)-- I bought two bags of 25lbs Natural Grey tile grout from Home Depot. I used both of them.
• Metal Files -- $10 -- I bought a three pack of metal files. Cant remeber the exact amount, but they were under $10.
• Ceramic Light Fixtures -- $3 (2) -- Bought two ceramic light fixtures from Home Depot.
• Washed Play Sand -- $2 -- Bought one honking huge bag of play sand from Home Depot. Used about 10 cups.
• Liquid Nails - $2 (3) -- Bought two different types of Liquid Nails. Two tubes to glue the polystyrene to the walls, and one tube to glue the track on the wood. Im sure you can use the same type to glue the track to the wood. But I just happend to run out of the other two tubes so I bought the correct kind.
• Cauking Gun -- $2 -- Bought at Home Depot.
• Foam-In-A-Can -- $5 -- Bought one can at Home Depot.
• Acrylic Tile Grout Sealer -- $10 (2) -- Bought two containers from Home Depot. Not sure of exact price but very close to $10. I used both of them, but you might be able to get away with one, especially if your designing a smaller cage.
• Extension Cords -- $2 (2) -- Bought two of these at Home Depot. They were 6ft cords.
• Plastic Sliding Door Track -- $10 -- Bought this at... you guessed it Home Depot!
• Plexi Glass -- $30 (2) -- Bought two of these at Home Depot. Also had them cut to size there which was a HUGE help. Cutting the plexi is tricky, if done wrong it will snap in lots-o-little pieces.

4) "How do you wash and clean you cage out?"
Answer: I use a simple water/bleech solution in a spray bottle, a water spray bottle, and a toothbrush. When they go to the bathroom I pick up the feces with a paper towl and get as much as I can with that. After that, I spray the section down with the bleech/water mixture and let it soak for a minute or two. Then I take the toothbrush and scrub down the area and then I blot it up with a paper towl. After that I spray the water bottle over the area and let that soak for 30 seconds or so and blot that up and let it dry.

5) "Is plexi-glass easy to scratch? I'm thinking about using glass because I know it's more durable and won't scratch. But plexi-glass is so cheap. Can you help me out??"
As for the plexiglass scratching, it does. And fairly easy, but its not really to bad. The scratches are usually surface scratches and you can buy polish to buff them out. I havent done that, but i know its an option. And yes it is cheaper and it is actually much more durable. A piece of plexiglass can take a shot with a baseball, while a glass front would shatter. My cats bang up against it all day long, id really worry if it was glass. Also, if you buy glass for your front, you need to find another way to ventilate the enclosure. I drilled holes right through the Acrylic, you can not do that to glass so keep that in mind.