ZooMed Night Box
- Thread starter SinLA
- Start date
Renee_H
Well-Known Member
Well that’s pretty cool! I wonder how well it insulates and maintains heat?! Looks to be rather small I’m gonna go look it up!
ETA: Size: 45 x 30 x 29" with 14" wide door
I’ll be interested to see how it works for anyone who may try it.
ETA: Size: 45 x 30 x 29" with 14" wide door
I’ll be interested to see how it works for anyone who may try it.
Renee_H
Well-Known Member
Side note I really wish his video didn’t show a dog and tortoise interacting like that. He has a lot of social power online and just UGH.
Yeah agreed
The_Four_Toed_Edward
Well-Known Member
Many people here on the forum do often ask if there is some ready made night box they could buy
Since it says "double walled" I'm thinking its just the 2 "walls" with a small gap between, ie the panels are hollow. Better than single wall (like the dog igloos) I guess.
The_Four_Toed_Edward
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I wonder how well it is insulated.
Renee_H
Well-Known Member
The best I’ve found premade is a cozycube made from coldroom panels. Unfortunately the door is only 11” wide for the xtra large.
I’m super curious to follow and see how well this maintains temps.
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This brand is genuinely insulated: https://www.asldoghouses.com/doghouse-products/ I have tested how well it maintains temps. Still not designed for this usage, but its rare to find any truly insulated
Renee_H
Well-Known Member
I almost purchased this one prior to building Leonora‘s house. I just couldn’t figure out how to deal with the drop from the door.
I have a better idea now, but this was prior to even having a Tortoise so my mind just didn’t know how to do it
_The_Beast_
Well-Known Member
This one was designed specifically for tortoises and appears to be insulated but I'm not sure how it stacks up to Tom's recommendations: https://www.pinktortz.com/
Renee_H
Well-Known Member
Looks good but rather small
Cool, I've never seen that before. I find it strange they have no interior pics, but I guess people are catching on this is a good thing to have.
Oops I see the inside now if you click thru the images. Kind of confused that the photos with heating elements are different photos than some of the others, i can't quite see a full setup with the heating options
Renee_H
Well-Known Member
I will say these premade houses do make it seem a little easier to accidentally acquire another tortoise.
Asharak
New Member
I can offer some feedback on the pinktortz house as I bought one. I am still testing it before it's used. The walls are 1 inch thick, that's including insulation inside the boards, so not quite what they claim. My disappointment with it is the bottom is not insulated at all. It sits a couple of inches elevated off the ground. If you don't need have cold nights it might not be an issue. I am considering building my own bottom layer to attach it to using Tom's design. I can maintain 80 in the box but the temp gun shows the bottom is dropping below with our overnight temps. This was after sealing the bottom and adding their tarp and a layer of repti bark.
It will still serve it's purpose for me as an extra summer house but definitely doesn't match up to building one
It will still serve it's purpose for me as an extra summer house but definitely doesn't match up to building one
Good info. Been trying to find any more indepth info on this product. I didnt know about the zoomed option till just now either. Still the only thing i can find its paid sponsorships of the product and virtually no real detailed reviews. 1" insulation isnt much but good enough for a summer time house and the zoomed only says "double walled" but what does that actually mean. Both seem a bit pricey for what they are however.
The video i saw on the zoomed also showed a zoomed space heater but i havnt been able to find any other reference to that product??
Alternatively, i did find this https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNSP74Y4/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20
Change out the soft foam for better rigid insulation and fab a door and second floor layer out of left over plywood and you seemingly have the exact same product for a bit cheaper and slightly larger footprint.
The_Four_Toed_Edward
Well-Known Member
I would like to hear what @Tom thinks about these ready made boxes, is there a use for them?
I have not seen the ZooMed box yet, so can't comment on that. I won't click on Chris's videos anymore. He's doing harm to tortoises and making fun of the people calling him on it. Not cool.
The Pinktortz box is made by my buddy Cliff. He gave me one to try out, and after assembly we had a huge windstorm come up and blow it over, breaking the top. My fault for leaving it sitting where it was. I have not got around to fixing it and testing how well it holds temperature. Too many other projects in the works at the moment. From what I have seen of it so far, I have to agree with the comments from @Asharak about the floor. It's just wood slats, and you can see the ground through them. Cliff designed and made a pretty awesome, ready-made box, and with some minor work on the floor, I think it will work well for many people and many applications. All you'd have to do is lay some 1.5 inch rigid foam insulation on the floor and cover it with plywood. I love the two different door sizes to accommodate different sized tortoises. I would recommend it to anyone not capable of building their own. I saw the box in operation at Cliff's house and it held temperatures perfectly for him on our cold nights and his tortoises looked great.
There is nothing better, and no ready-made substitute for custom building your own box with insulation and sealing it at each seam. It is very labor intensive, time consuming, and reasonably expensive to do it right, but the finished product is superior to everything else by a wide margin. I understand the desire to buy a box from the internet or a store, take it home and set it up, and be done with it, but there is no cost effective way for companies to to build and ship the type of boxes that work the best. My finished boxes weigh 200-300 pounds and they are so solidly built that you could park a car on top of them. My goal is not mass production or keeping the price down for people to buy. My goal is optimal performance and long term structural soundness. They last forever, seemingly, and what is most appealing to me since I am running 10-15 of them all the time, is that they hold in the heat extremely well and operate very efficiently. Running a dozen 700 watt heaters, in addition to all the normal every day electrical use, can obviously add up to a large monthly electric bill. Another member just built a "Tom" style box and reported it cost about $700 for all the materials, paint, heating elements, and electric stuff. That sounds about right. I'm currently building another 4x8 box right now and I intend to make a much more detailed thread than previous threads on how I am building it. I want to show more of the little fine points and explain it better. I will also show the current costs as of May 2025. My other night box thread is from 2015! Things have changed since then for sure.
An updated build sounds exciting.
After building a few enclosures now i have to agree there just is no making a box that is large enough and insulated enough to house most species in the majority of the US that would also come off as "reasonable" to the average reptile owner that hasnt gone through the cost breakdown before. Even the options that are close to ready, like these, all require some kind of modification that all seem to circle back to just making it yourself. I might try out one of these for the summer, but i have very little confidence in 1'' insulation during the winter without spending a ton on energy.
The above quote reminds me of a good point: Boxes that are cheaper, less well made and less insulated can work and maintain temperature, BUT, they will need more electrically generated heat to do so. This costs a lot more, and the electric heat really dries everything out and causes desiccation. This might be okay in South Florida and New Orleans, but not so good in El Paso, Phoenix, or Southern CA where it is already exceedingly dry.
I build my boxes for maximum efficiency. I'm running 10-12 of them all year, so I can't afford to waste any electricity.
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