Compared to cats and dogs; not very! All pets need to be active to lead long, healthy and fun lives. No pet wants to sit around and mope all day about how boring their life is. This rings true for all species of cats, dogs, reptiles and even fish! Keeping that in mind, how can a reptile possibly stay active if they only have a floor, walls, food, water, and heat to entertain themselves??? What could they possibly do with only their bare necessities?! Oh sure, they could eat all their food, crap in their water, then run into their vivarium’s walls all day.

If you haven’t given your reptile anything to entertain himself with, how can you expect him to stay active, have fun or even love you?

For humans, entertainment is complicated. New entertainment is released everyday. New iPods, TV’s, Laptops, Cruise ships, Water parks, Super Soakers, and anything else a person would gladly buy…in hopes that it would entertain them long enough until the next generation of products come out……..a week later!

But for reptiles, cats, dogs, heck, any kind of animal; they are way too easy to entertain!!! Most people have heard of the saying; “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime.” This relates completely to “feeding a reptiles hunger for entertainment”. Here’s my saying: ”Give your reptile a few toys to entertain him for a lifetime!”

Start by getting creative. Watch your pet for a little while, or better yet: Release him from their vivarium and see what it interacts with in the room. I had a bearded dragon recently. Whenever I took him out of his vivarium I made sure I watched where he liked to travel to. I saw that he loved to hide in small crooks and crannies. Whenever it was time to go back to his vivarium, he never wanted to move from the small crooks. So I bought a small cave accessory for his bearded dragon vivarium. He absolutely loved it!!!

After that, I got pretty creative and decided to buy a few more caves for the bearded dragon vivarium. Multi-colored caves placed in a staircase formation works great in making the bearded dragon vivarium look more appealing in your house and to your bearded dragon or reptile. It also adds some much needed variety to a bare bearded dragon vivarium or any reptile vivarium.

There are so many other ways to keep your reptile entertained in their reptile vivarium. Check out this list of options!

Entertain your Bearded Dragon or reptile:

• Keep a constant supply of crickets in the reptile vivarium
  • Bearded dragons love crickets because they like the challenge in retrieving  runaway crickets, and the taste of eating crickets is a sweet reward
• Creatively insert climbing branches
• Basking Platforms (they like to tan too!)
• Lizard Ladders – Place these on the walls of the vivarium to provide more space to climb! This is an especially great option for small vivariums
• Small (real or fake) plants – Give them a place to hide
• Jacuzzi reptile bowls
• Pictures of their natural habitat
• Hollow (fake) trees
• Moss
• Interlocking stones
• Bark litter
• Small balls – to push around and play with

In conclusion, reptiles are very simply entertained IF THEY HAVE THINGS TO PLAY WITH!
All items listed above can be found in our very own Reptile Vivarium Shop.

Good luck and be creative for your reptile’s sake!!!

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Creating a moving system of water is easier than most people think. All it requires is a pump, water, and a trench for the water to repeatedly flow through. Water pumps have dropped in price dramatically over the years. A reliable pump costs no more than 30 dollars. I say reliable because you don’t want this pump to fail and run the risk of the water becoming stagnant or polluted with snake feces. Obviously, water in any pump system or water dish should be refreshed daily for the same reasons.

Investing in making an artificial stream with a pump is hardly an investment at all because of the low-cost of supplies and ease of maintaining. All it requires to maintain is the refreshment of water!

You can find the lowest-priced water pumps and waterfall supplies in our very own Reptile Vivarium Shop. You can find the link in the upper left hand corner of this website. We have negotiated with Amazon to give you the lowest prices of any reptile supplies shop on the web!

A water pump in a snake vivarium is very beneficial since the moving water encourages your snake to both drink and bathe frequently! Installing a water pump in your snake vivarium also keeps your snake active by providing moving water to swim against. This can certainly lead to keeping your snake’s physical activity up and prevents against it becoming overweight!

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These are all excellent questions that many of you may have about reptile vivarium water dishes. I will answer them all!

Since you probably care a lot about your reptile, you want it to be as healthy as possible; and no reptile is healthy without having a clean and safe source of water.

Question: What shape of water bowl should you place in your reptile vivarium?

Answer: Any shape of bowl is alright, but make sure its structure is sturdy enough in the reptile vivarium so that your reptile can’t flip it over. If you want to make your reptile happy, then I suggest you buy a bowl that replicates the shape of the water source in their natural environment. If you have a desert snake, buy a small bowl that is pretty shallow at 1-2 inches deep. If you have a rain forest snake, invest in a running source of water like a waterfall and a misting or drip system in your reptile vivarium. They will LOVE you for it! Always take into account the size of your reptile. Make sure your not buying a water bowl that it can only fit its head into. Buy a dish that at least matches your reptile’s length and width!

Question: How often should you refresh the water in the bowl?

Answer: EVERYDAY! Water evaporates faster in hotter or more humid environments. Because of this, a water dish in a reptile vivarium simulating a hot environment can dry out in one to two days, depending on the exact temperature, humidity, and volume of water originally in the bowl. Since the health of your reptile is your number one priority, refresh the water daily to make sure it always has a source of hydration.

Question: How deep should the water bowl be?

Answer: Deep enough for your reptile to wade in but not deep enough for it to drown. Simple enough for you?

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What is the biggest favor you can do for your pet reptile to make it feel at home?

Answer: Simulate your reptile’s tank as close as possible to its natural habitat! It’s as simple as that. Researching your reptile and its interactions with its natural habitat and constructing a reptile vivarium to mirror that environment can boost your reptile’s personality, while making it feel more comfortable around you and save you from having to deal with a reptile that simply hates how you decorated its tank as if you were Ray Charles with a interior design license.

Variety is the Spice of Life!

Once you’ve done your research, you can have some fun by mix-and-matching different textures in your reptile tank. As long as the material isn’t too foreign to its natural environment, creatively place natural or natural-looking materials into the reptile vivarium. If you own or want to own an iguana, putting at least 4 different textured branches and 3 varied live plants inside the reptile tank along with 10 different textured stones can keep your iguana’s interest level high. If you own a bearded dragon, I recommend mixing different colored sands (like red and white) on the bottom of the reptile vivarium and including 2 different textured huts to hide in. This will never cease to amaze your pet reptile and keep boredom at bay. Do as much creative decorating as possible to interest your reptile, but always keep functionality, safety, and aesthetics of the reptile vivarium in mind. Never allow materials to take up so much space that the reptile doesn’t have any ground to run around on.

Creating the Perfect “Mirrored” Environment

When you customize your reptile tank to ensure your reptile stays healthy and comfortable, you should always factor in temperature, space necessities and lighting requirements. All reptiles need temperature regulation and some species also require humidity control. When you install a light for your reptile tank, make sure it is strong enough to produce the minimal heat your reptile needs to live in to survive. If it is not, you can always buy another heater, be it a ceramic heating system or a heat mat underneath the reptile vivarium. Make sure you give your reptile enough space to roam around in. Keep in mind that all species of reptiles desire different amounts of space to exercise in. Bearded dragons tend to want a ton of space whereas frogs do not need that much.

Be the Paul Blart of “Reptile Vivarium Security”

When customizing your vivarium, install measures that keep your reptile from escaping. Obviously, you shouldn’t forget to cover the tank when done with visiting your reptile. Security is common sense for most people, so I won’t go into great detail about it. Just use your smarts when deciding whether or not to include an item in the reptile tank.

If you follow these guidelines to perfectly mimicking your reptile’s natural habitat, your reptile will give back to you tenfold in love!

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Depending on the vivarium you choose to buy, your reptile may love you or hate you. This is the sheer truth. If you give it only the basic essentials like food, water and heating, but don’t give it any privacy, hiding space or even a substrate like sand, your reptile will likely not like you one bit. If you factor in all of the following bullets in the list below when customizing your reptile vivarium, your reptile will absolutely love you!

Here are important factors to consider when buying a reptile vivarium:

• Make sure you know its natural habitat
• Current size of reptile
• Future size of reptile
• Number of reptiles that will be housed in the reptile vivarium
• How much hiding space it wants
• How much privacy it wants
• If you’re building your own vivarium, do your how-to-build-it research
• Strength of reptile (to determine how strong the vivarium itself needs to be to prevent escape)
• Type of vivarium material (ex: wood, glass, wire mesh, ect.) your reptile is best suited for to mimic its natural habitat
• Whether your reptile is ground-dwelling or tree-dwelling to determine how tall your reptile vivarium needs to be
• Heating and light requirements

This is the list of essential factors to determine what reptile vivarium you should buy. Make sure you don’t only use this as your reference sheet for buying your own vivarium. Browse this site to answer any other questions you may have about buying the perfect reptile vivarium. If you’d like a question answered specifically for you, simply comment on this article with your question.

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First lets start with the question of “What is a vivarium?” A vivarium is a tank or enclosure that has both a land and water portion inside. Simple, right?

Depending on the species of reptile, or more specifically the species of tortoise, you will have to research whether your desired tortoise’s natural habitat is in a high humidity (water vapor) or low humidity (very little-to-no water vapor). If you found that your species of tortoise lives in a high humidity environment, you should include water vapor in your reptile vivarium by means of installing a humidity system. A humidity system can be very inexpensive to buy and can be found in the Reptile Vivarium Shop.

After you know what environment your tortoise naturally lives in, it’s important to to realize that if your tortoise requires a high humidity environment then the size vivarium itself will probably take up a relatively large space in your home. Where you place the vivarium in your home is just as important as buying the right size and type of vivarium for your tortoise. Place the reptile enclosure in a place in your home that gives your tortoise enough privacy. The alternative to this is to cover a wall or two with a background of its natural habitat. This can provide both privacy and comfort for your tortoise since it will feel as though it is actually in its natural habitat! When you are customizing the tortoise vivarium to meet its needs and desires, make sure you are modifying the arrangement from your tortoise’s perspective and NOT your own. Your tortoise will love you for that!

Plants, rocks, branches, water pools and other parts of your tortoise’s natural habitat should be included in the tortoise vivarium to make your pet feel at home. Most pet owners don’t put enough of these items in their vivariums because they want to keep the pet where they can always see it. In fact, it is always more important to included enough natural parts of the tortoise’s environment in the vivarium so that it feels a sense of privacy instead of having few to no places to hide from too many eying visitors. Check out our free high-quality backgrounds of a typical wetland tortoise’s habitat to place on the sides of your vivarium.

Unfortunately, many tortoise’s end up ramming their heads into the side of the glass vivarium because they want to get out and don’t comprehend nearly invisible glass. This can be solved by erecting structures on all the walls of the tortoise vivarium. These natural structures can be vines hanging in front of most of the glass walls, or branches/logs blocking the turtles from ramming their heads and causing stress and injury to themselves. Putting up a background may also solve this because the tortoise can comprehend their natural habitat and therefore will not ram it.

Pet tortoises also require a heat lamp in or above their vivarium. There are many brands and types of heat lamps. You can find a heat lamp in the Reptile Vivarium Shop through the link on the top left of this page. Simply search for heat lamps and you’ll find what you need.

Always keep in mind that your pet tortoise’s health is more important than making your vivarium look like a beautiful piece of art.

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RVS Mascot in Reptile Vivarium

 Different Types of Vivariums 

1. Most plastic vivariums are much too small for adult-sized reptiles. If you would like to house a small reptile in an enclosure for the minimal cost to you, buying a plastic vivarium is a fantastic idea…if the reptile wont outgrow the cage itself and is still comfortable within it if the reptile does grow larger.

 2. Glass vivariums are perfect for animals living in habitats filled with water, such as turtles or fish. This type of enclosure always has either a removable wire mesh top or a ventilation hood to provide just that – ventilation. The ventilation hood may also include a light/heating unit that is necessary to monitor (a very easy task) in order to be certain that your reptiles/animals do not overheat. Since glass vivariums are see-through, it is important to provide a small shelter within the vivarium where the reptile can go to hide or to escape to in times of feeling stressed from seeing something moving outside of the cage that may scare them.  

3. Wire vivariums can be bought to house reptiles such as chameleons or bearded dragons. This cage is usually made out of wire mesh crafted around a wooden frame. Since the wire mesh is not the best type of insulation, it can be difficult to maintain a certain temperature necessary to simulate the reptile’s habitat. Fortunately though, your reptile will get plenty of fresh air with a wire vivarium because of the many natural holes in the cage’s walls. This type of enclosure will also offer you a greater view of your reptile over what a wooden cage will provide for a view. Make sure you buy a wire vivarium that has tightly-woven wire mesh so that your reptile cannot escape, but will still get great enough air ventilation. One very-high quality cage I have personally bought and tested can be found here: Extra Large Screen Reptile Habitat Cage – U.S.A. made  

4. The most popular type of lizard enclosure is the wooden vivarium. The popularity is mostly due to the fact that since lizards are agoraphobic, or fear of a difficult escape from an enclosure, the visible walls of a wooden vivarium will prevent your lizard from running into them like lizards in glass vivariums frequently do. Because of this and since wood is part of their natural habitat, most reptiles in wooden vivariums feel more comfortable and relaxed. Buying a wooden housing unit for your reptile could make a huge difference in its personality when it is both inside and outside of the reptile vivarium.  Wooden reptile vivariums are also very good insulators as compared to a wire mesh or glass cage. More insulated housing means lower electricity bill since the wooden vivarium’s heater works much less to keep the cage warm for your reptile. Need I say more?  

5. Melamine is another type of vivarium which is made out of wood painted with a finish resembling plastic. Usually, a melamine vivarium has a glass front with three side walls and a bottom made of melamine. This type is very innovative because it provides the insulation of a wooden vivarium and the ability to see your pet as with a glass vivarium, all the while still providing the reptile with its own privacy. Melamine vivariums are great at resisting water and absorbing heat.

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