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Review on Enhance Your Reptile's Habitat with Exo Terra Glass Natural Terrarium by Sarah Richards

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Solid design and improved screens

Great product. I have several (16) Exo Terra glass terrariums of various sizes and have been using them since they came out a few years ago. In general, they are an excellent reservoir for most reptiles. I've used them for both desert and rainforest and they work great in both. The double door is very convenient for daily maintenance and feeding, and also helps to deter animals from escaping during feeding. I haven't had any problems with condensation even in very humid conditions (many of my aquariums are equipped with fog heads). Pros: 1. Cost (when you consider/use lots of built-in features) 2. Durability, my oldest tanks are about 3 years old and have held up well. The only exception is the old screen mount design (see other notes below).3. The size of the tank, I use the double bottom design in all my rainforest tanks and still have plenty of space for bedding and live plants. Wire connectors, I have two tanks with working water filters and built in power cord connectors work fine.5. Raised legs, I use heat mats on some tanks and raised legs keep the weight off the heating tape (weight on the heating tape can cause problems) Cons: 1. Strength/function in the background. I don't care what backyards look like. They may look a little cheap, but functionally they are poor. Crickets climb on them and run away or hide behind them. Even blocking the vents leaves a small ledge between the top of the screen and the background that crickets love and never come off. Reptiles that cannot climb cannot reach or eat them. If you clean styrofoam regularly, it will quickly fade, wear out and fall apart. I suspect if you don't feed the bugs and wash them carefully they might work just fine for a while. However, mine was thrown away with the box it arrived in.2. The cable port and sliding port cover still leaves a small gap at the back of the tank. Smaller crickets and reptiles can escape. I keep the cable port covers closed and siliconize the gap behind the sliding cover to eliminate any escape routes.3. I've had some corrosion on the top of the wire mesh screen, mostly in wet installs. The screen looks simple enough to replace when it wears out.4. Smaller aquariums do not have enough space to properly light the terrarium for reptiles/plants that require UV/warm lamp/full spectrum light. (There are new variants of the Exo-Terra dual top dome on the market that can help solve this problem for small aquariums, but not for nano aquariums. Also, they seem to be very expensive, but still Exo Terra Dual Top 24" Canopy for Exo Terra PT2610 and PT2612 Terrariums).Other:1. The latest Exo Terra tank design uses a new screen top mount design. So far I haven't had any issues with the new design and this seems like a positive improvement The old screen tops were held in place with plastic snap tabs which would fatigue and break even with limited use.2 The frame is all plastic and doesn't feel particularly sturdy I keep waiting for it breaks or cracks when I clean or move them, but it hasn't happened yet.

Pros
  • Best in class
Cons
  • Ugly packaging