# Using IKEA cabinet as vivarium?



## froggedup (Jun 29, 2020)

In the past few years there's been a trend for using IKEA cabinets as greenhouses for plants etc. Do you think they'd make a good vivarium?

I'm thinking of getting the Rudsta: RUDSTA Glass-door cabinet, anthracite, 80x37x120 cm - IKEA

Dimensions are 80x37x120 cm or 32x15x48 inches. Obviously not particularly deep but it would be doably, I think?

Obviously the cabinet would need some modifications, ie. waterproofing, adding a glass sheet at the front for the false bottom etc etc.


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## bulbophyllum (Feb 6, 2012)

Do you have the skills to 100% waterproof the inside?


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

By the time you retrofit it to be waterproof, ventilated, and ready to start building a vivarium in it you'll have spent as much, or more, than a similarly sized terrarium.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Ventilation is no small feat -- the physical work (drilling/cutting glass, assembling screen inserts), but even more so the design of the ventilation. Thousands of posts here debate venting design, and much of the success of a viv depends on it being done right.

The dimensions of that cabinet are not at all ones I'd want to work with. Way too hard to build hardscape appropriately, and limited to the species of frogs that it would be ideal for. Lighting tall narrow vivs is challenging, too. Frog vivs are cubes for good reason.


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## E.Shell (Aug 27, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> By the time you retrofit it to be waterproof, ventilated, and ready to start building a vivarium in it you'll have spent as much, or more, than a similarly sized terrarium.


I agree. I went through this same process, looking at used furniture at a 'second chance' type store. I saw quite a few semi-attractive cabinets that could have been pressed into use, but modifications would have been major. Not saying it can't be done, and might be worth it if the furniture was to match your other pieces/decor, but there likely isn't any savings in in.

By the time I bought a piece of furniture, bought the necessary additional components and put my labor into it to adapt/modify it, it was a harder project to do and I would have been money in the hole. This was true for both a large, elaborate, well-ventilated bird cage and for a relatively airtight monitor lizard enclosure.

This is what I ended up building last time:


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

That's a nice little aviary. 

I built something like that years ago for breeding canaries, though my building skills at the time were still in development (then as now, I guess).


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## E.Shell (Aug 27, 2020)

Socratic Monologue said:


> That's a nice little aviary.
> 
> I built something like that years ago for breeding canaries, though my building skills at the time were still in development (then as now, I guess).


Thank you!
My own skills are always in development. Every time I build something, I get almost finished and I think "Dang, I should have....". I always wish I had thought of something else before getting that far and tell myself "Next time, I'll...".


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

E.Shell said:


> Thank you!
> My own skills are always in development. Every time I build something, I get almost finished and I think "Dang, I should have....". I always wish I had thought of something else before getting that far and tell myself "Next time, I'll...".


Yep, I've been there too. 

That's the thing, @froggedup , about either conversions (whether from a fishtank or some piece of general furniture) or even custom designed enclosures -- they're likely to have faults (more likely and more troubling faults if the maker is less experienced in either building vivs or keeping the species in question) that aren't apparent until it is really too late to do anything about it ("Dart frogs need that much ventilation? How would I have known that? But I used all tempered glass and can't cut holes! Argh!").

The only way to get better at the design and building is to just to do it, I guess. Strictly from an animal husbandry POV, though, an off the shelf viv is much more likely to give good results for novice keepers, as there are turnkey viv options (InSitu) or time-tested recipes for using other general herp vivs (ExoTerra).


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## DarciD (May 23, 2020)

I’m in the process of converting a fabrikor, though not for frogs. I’m not sure how how the milsbo is assembled but adding a screen to the top of the fabrikor was pretty simple. A screen cover meant to go on top of a tank fit just right.
If you would need to drill the glass at all though, it is tempered… at least the shelves are I don’t recall the sides.

I had glass cut to size at a local glazier to make a false bottom basin.

I’m shopping lights right now and I think that’s going to be a bit a challenge. We’ll see.


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## Petcraze (9 mo ago)

How did you cut it? And how easy was it? About to get one and getting nervous about this part.



DarciD said:


> I’m in the process of converting a fabrikor, though not for frogs. I’m not sure how how the milsbo is assembled but adding a screen to the top of the fabrikor was pretty simple. A screen cover meant to go on top of a tank fit just right.
> If you would need to drill the glass at all though, it is tempered… at least the shelves are I don’t recall the sides.
> 
> I had glass cut to size at a local glazier to make a false bottom basin.
> ...


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