Hello, people. I am new here, obviously, and would like some help with my vivarium. I will be designing it for a single leopard gecko and am planning on having the size around 3'x2'x2' (36"x24"x24").

I plan on building my vivarium similar to this one: http://reptiliciousreptileforum.com/...ackground.html

It will be built out of melamine wood since humidity won't be much of an issue, and it both looks half decent and is cheap. I will also be using tiles for the flooring. The problem lies in the heating situation. I currently use a UTH for his glass viv right now (36"x12.5"x16"), and I know I can't use a UTH directly on the melamine wood. I also don't think heat lamps would be sufficient enough to heat the surface temperature to the high 80's. I've been viewing everyone's custom, homemade vivs and have been impressed by every single one. How can I overcome this heating problem? Any other tips/tricks are also appreciated.

Thanks for any help, Cody.

Hi and welcome to the forum Cody

I keep and breed many leos and have a number of differnt setups.

I mainly use under floor heat cable, either under the viv or under a false bottom.

However, I do have a number of vivs but none quite that big for a sole leo.

Having said that, you can hang a ceramic heater on a chain to bring it closer to the floor and in my experiance a 100w heater will be able to produce the heat needed in a relativly big area, and still leave a cool end.

It will also enable you to have a number of hides in all different temp ranges.

Good luck, and please feel free to post photos of the new viv.

Thanks for the welcome and the response.

One thing that I was hoping on including in my vivarium was both a day light and night time viewing light. Would a 100 watt "day" bulb be hot enough for him, or should I just stick to a CHE and use a low wattage night bulb? Also, if you don't mind me asking, how did you create the false bottoms? Also, the reason it is so big for a sole leo is so that I can reuse it in the unfortunate, inevitable future, when my leo passes. It may seem a bit morbid, but I've always wanted a snake and won't be able to get one for a while and figured I can make a huge enclosure for my leo now, and pass it on to a corn snake or something similar in the distant future.

Thanks again for any response, Cody.