Eredant
Member
Dear all,
I will soon start building a shed (5x3m or roughly 16x10 feet) specifically to house my two aldabras (about 2 years old now) at night and during the winter months. I realize that bigger is always better, but rather than building a bigger shed, I was thinking of adding a greenhouse as an outdoor area. This could be one of those plastic tunnel types that I could put up for say 5 months a year.
For the shed I plan to buy a standard wooden shed with insulated roof and then add an additional 10cm of PIR foam all around. I'd protect the foam by glueing on PVC panels in the inside since those can stand the high humidity. In total that would give me 13cm (5 inch) walls and floor and a 15cm (6inch) roof. Since they are still small at the moment will provide them with a 'night box', so I don't need to heat the whole shed at night.
The main reason I'm posting is to get some advice about the lighting, although other advice is also welcome. How would you provide the UVB light? In a perfect world, I'd hang 15x T5 lights at about half a meter above the ground but that doesn't seem reasonable? How do zoos do this?
I will soon start building a shed (5x3m or roughly 16x10 feet) specifically to house my two aldabras (about 2 years old now) at night and during the winter months. I realize that bigger is always better, but rather than building a bigger shed, I was thinking of adding a greenhouse as an outdoor area. This could be one of those plastic tunnel types that I could put up for say 5 months a year.
For the shed I plan to buy a standard wooden shed with insulated roof and then add an additional 10cm of PIR foam all around. I'd protect the foam by glueing on PVC panels in the inside since those can stand the high humidity. In total that would give me 13cm (5 inch) walls and floor and a 15cm (6inch) roof. Since they are still small at the moment will provide them with a 'night box', so I don't need to heat the whole shed at night.
The main reason I'm posting is to get some advice about the lighting, although other advice is also welcome. How would you provide the UVB light? In a perfect world, I'd hang 15x T5 lights at about half a meter above the ground but that doesn't seem reasonable? How do zoos do this?