The value of screw caps...!

[Cirith Ungol]

I've started to integrate screw caps into my tanks as feeding ports. I think I mentioned this idea previously somewhere but today I've actually intigrated them...

So what I did was to buy lots of plastic bottles with 2.5cm (1in) screw caps. (Then I obviously drank the contents.) Then sawed off the top of the bottle (practically sawing off the neck) some milimeters beneath the screwcap.

Then I made holes in the plexi-lids of my 3 big tanks so that the bottle top would fit in there, then I hot-glued it in. (Gonna make some pictures in the comming days I hope.)

So now I don't need to open neither lid, nor sliding doors to feed my Ts. It's safe, very quick, extremely practical and what not! :)

I'm also gonna build in such caps, though the smaller, normal variety, into the plexi sliding doors of the smaller tanks. I might use coke bottle caps or something similar and glue the neck ring to the sliding door. When doing this I'll only have to remember that I have to glue the cap to the outer door and that the inner ending of the bottleneck is parallel with the outer doors inner surface - otherwise the doors might get stuck when I try to open them. I hope my description isn't too complicaded.. ;)

Cirith

[Lorgakor]

I'm having trouble picturing what you are describing, so pics are definitely welcome! Sounds interesting though!

[becca81]

Neat idea!

You might want to be careful with hot-glue - I've noticed that it tends to pull off easily over time. There are some good "super-glue" type adhesives that are sold in home improvement stores that I've had a lot of luck with (when hot-glue fell over time, these still held strong).

[P.P.'s Mom]

Awesome idea! My super-fast P. cambridgei is always at the top of his clear canister. If I had a feeding port, I could just drop in his food instead of waiting for him to (never) move. Wow! Smarty-pants! :worship:

[Cirith Ungol]

Neat idea!

You might want to be careful with hot-glue - I've noticed that it tends to pull off easily over time. There are some good "super-glue" type adhesives that are sold in home improvement stores that I've had a lot of luck with (when hot-glue fell over time, these still held strong).


Thanks for the warning!!
Though I hope it doesn't happen. I've learned that it makes a big difference if you use a low Watt HG-gun in comparison to a high Watt HG-gun. The lower Watt ones seem to be prone to not heat up the glue enough for it to stick to the other surfaces well enough. There are also different glue sticks on the market for different materials. My HG-gun runns at a maximum of 80W so I'm hoping I'll never have a problem with this.

May I ask what the power output of your HG-gun is?

[becca81]

May I ask what the power output of your HG-gun is?

I have no idea - so it's probably not very high. ;)

I didn't know the output would affect the adhesiveness of the glue - thanks for the info! My gun and glue are both cheap so that is probably why they don't hold very well.

[Cirith Ungol]

I just made a picture. MADE is the word. But it should explain everything. It makes an example of the sliding door model of the screw cap feeding port, SCFP for short :D

A. Before
B. After

1. Screw cap with bottle neck top
2. Hot glue
3. Outer sliding door
4. Inner sliding door
5. If the bottle neck was to stick through the sliding door 3., it could obstruct sliding door 3. and 4. when you attempt to open them. So try to glue the bottle top to the outside only.

The same idea works for the tank top SCFP's but there you don't need to worry about any parts sticking into the tank because obviously they don't do any harm there.

If the screw cap is small enough you won't even have to worry about the fastes T's getting out during a feeding since it obviously won't fit through in all the haste but maybe it would have to painstakingly squeeze itself through it. It would never get the time to do that since using the SCFP you just toss in the feeders within seconds only exposing a minimum of an escape hole.

I don't see any reason why this same thing wouldn't work for screen tops.

The only problem I see with the SCFP is that IF the T is too small and the cap has too large a diameter AND if the SCFP is easily accessible for the T, it might find it to be a very practical and nice spot to build it's nesting site.

I'm using the 1 inch SCFP's for my parahybana, the genic and will later use it for the blondi. Those SCFP's are large enough to even put a mouse through.
The smaller T's only get coke bottle SCFP's because they are obviously large enough for roaches and crix.

[jbrd]

good idea and a nice illustration there. Have you tried puttin a cric through the hole yet? Sounds like it might be a little comical to watch you do it lol

[Cirith Ungol]

good idea and a nice illustration there. Have you tried puttin a cric through the hole yet? Sounds like it might be a little comical to watch you do it lol

Thanks!
I havn't tried it (and besides I'm crix hater no. 1 and only use roaches :D ) but I can't imagine there being any problem. The 1in caps are on top of the tanks so I just have to take the roaches butt and toss it in there just like that. The coke sized screw caps should also be easy for full grown roaches at least since they arn't able to turn arround in that cap-cylinder, so the only way is forward into the tank. If I have to put smaller insects into the tank I will use a pair of pincers in order to drop the insect in the tank. The pincers fit perfectly even into the smaller screw caps. :)

[Thoth]

For such a great idea I present you with the MacGyver Award for novel uses of everyday items. :clap:

http://aolshop.com/media/coverart/dvd/cov150/drt500/t533/t53350fwfl0.jpg


(Admittedly the only value it has is the prestige of having one, and even that is not all that much :} )

[Cirith Ungol]

WOW, I feel honoured! ...a little bit :D

[Deschain]

MacGyver kicks ass. He typed this with a rotary phone, some fishing wire...and a roll of Mentos.

[Deschain]

My previous post was funny.

[subzero.xml]

nice idea =)

[Skypainter]

For my 2" P. rufilata s'lings I have them enclosed in 4" x 4" x 8" tall acrylic containers. I melted a 1/2" hole in the top for a cork making a feeding port. To easily place crickets into the cage I have a short piece of 1/2" clear tubing with a cork in one end. I dump several crickets into a deli container and herd them into the tube with ease. Then, its just a matter of pulling the cork and dumping the cricket in. Piece of cake!

[Gwegowee]

not a bad idea.

I have used a few similar ideas but my favorite idea took a bit more work. Since opening the lid scares the heck out of my A seemanni especially she doesn't try to escape, but when she gets scared and runs to her hole, it takes her about 2 extra hours to catch the cricket because she doesn't leave her burrow. Therefor I decided to put a small sliding window style feeding hole, with a lock just in case. I made it from the leftover plexiglass I used to make the lid. Now I nolonger scare her when its feeding time and I can watch her catch her prey shortly after insertion. also the nice thing about this design is, there are no large protrsions, including sliding window with handle, window frame, and lock, only stands 2 plexiglass thicknesses high. this was the first time I used the design. took a while to make, but... I think it looks like a professional job. and because of this and ease of use I will probably make them when I graduate my slings into this size terrarium. If I can get my Memory card reader to work I will be able to put some pictures of the design online.

also... when I am putting crickets or any type of food in, I use free 35mm film canisters. keep black film containers inside with my cricket colony, there is only room in the film canister for one or two crix at a time, so its perfect. this will not work for anything much larger than crickets, but will work for anything I feed inside this specific terrarium.

I thought about the problem where if the spider finds the feeding hole to be a good place to hide. it would probably be best if you made 2 feeding holes, making them as far away from eachother as phisically possible. so if the spider likes one, the other is still quite accessable without disturbing the spider.

[Cirith Ungol]

I thought about the problem where if the spider finds the feeding hole to be a good place to hide. it would probably be best if you made 2 feeding holes, making them as far away from eachother as phisically possible. so if the spider likes one, the other is still quite accessable without disturbing the spider.

Yup. I solved that problem with the large screwcaps by hot glueing smaller screwcaps "upside down" into the larger ones. For the normal coke bottle sized screwcaps I don't use those distancers since I only use feeding ports for juvie and up so I'm not worried there.

For the blondi I'm gonna use 3 large feeding ports in the roof, so there won't be any trouble there either.

This will actually be the one thing that will make me get one or a few OBTs. Then they can try to escape as much as they want :wicked:

[Gwegowee]

oh well ok then... lol good ideas nice and ez too.

[Jeff_C]

related concept: I have used the plastic plugs that are designed to cap the unused holes in electrical gang boxes for this very purpose. All you need to do is drill (or dremel) a 3/4" hole into the side or top of the container and you are good to go. No hot glue no mess.


You might get the idea from these really fuzzy cellcam pic::

Jeff

[Crotalus]

Isnt it easier to open the lid of the terrarium and throw the crix in there?

[Cirith Ungol]

Isnt it easier to open the lid of the terrarium and throw the crix in there?

In my case, not at all. My custom tanks lids are firmly secured with 2-4 braces. Another benefit of the screw caps is that it doesn't startle the T in any way when I open them. When I open the lid though, the draught will in many cases send the T running.

[ancientscout]

You are on the right track. You're thinking. I have already gone that route but a bit different. If you see my post on the perfect enclosure for Cobalt Blue Tarantulas you'd see that my idea was similar only i used a piece of PVC plastic pipe. For me, about one and three quarters inches was enough. I cut a hole in the top of the enclosure, put a length of PVC in there, silconed it in place with a screw cap to prevent escape as my Cobalt blue has been found walking upside down on the underside of the lid at least twice.

Now, i drop my food items in using the feeding port. Additionally, i can water the water bowl without opening the lid as well. here is how. I drilled a hole in the top, fitted that with a micro funnel i had lying around. It is similar to the ones used to fill Coleman products with fuel. I inserted that into the top. From the underside i attached a piece of standard aquarium airline tubing to the funnel that ran straight down to the water bowl. Now, i just pour the water in to fill H. Lividum's water source without opening the lid.
You're think'n man..keep it up! i am currently working on a custom habitat that will humidify, heat, water and feed without opening the lid. I have part of that enclosure finished right now. I am finishing the inside and believe it or not will incorporate a drain so if i need to completely empty it out and clean it out i can simply run water and rinse it out. I am also trying small computer fans for circulation/ventilation as well. Sounds overly complicated but it is not. What it does do is seperate my hand from the fangs of that crazed Cobalt blue of mine..or, if someone has time..come on over and show me how you grab yours..
Ancientscout

[Cirith Ungol]

My digger tanks will not receive feeding ports I believe. I don't have the design ready yet. Anyway, I'll drill a hole in the roof right above the water dish and just use a large syringe (100ml) to refill the water. The lid will be the top sheet of the tank and it will run on gliders and can open to both sides. That way I can push in a second sheet next to the original one, push them in any direction so that the separating slit between them is anywhere above the substrate and then pull them apart to push pincers down that hole. Very straight foward.

[Lorgakor]

So you are just going to keep refilling a dirty water dish? Don't you rinse yours out frequently? What about food boluses? It is an interesting concept, but I know when I feed my spiders, I check their cages thoroughly for food remains and clean the water dishes at the same time. If I just kept filling them without cleaning the dishes, I imagine it would be pretty icky. I too have defensive spiders, but I don't find them bad enough to be afraid of regular cage maintenance.

[Cirith Ungol]

No problem doing whatever I need to do with the double top sheet thing. Cleaning everything that needs cleaning isn't really a design problem anyway, rather a determination one. The easiest for important mainenance like cleaning is anyhow to "plug" the hole of the burrower before going about picking dirt and cleaning the dish.