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Feeding Port!

Tortoise Tom

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Location
Southern CA
I've been trying to figure out exactly how I wanted to do the feeding ports for some of my enclosures. I don't want anything unsightly or complicated. I've been trying to find the right size little plastic plugs that would fit perfectly and snugly into the perfect sized, cleanly drilled hole.

I opened up one of my spare parts drawers in the garage today looking for some little screws and found this bag:
IMG_6435.JPG

See the little bag with the little gray thingies? I don't know what they were for or where they came from. I can only guess my wife put them in there, but she has no idea what I'm talking about and doesn't recognize them. There must be 50 of them in there!

On a previous thread about making ventilation holes in the enclosures, @Mr. P recommended a "step bit" for drilling the vent holes. I went and got one and it works great. I've used it to make 100s of vent holes, and I only use the first two notches on the bit.
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Well guess what… I tried it out on an old AMAC box that was sitting around and the largest step makes a perfect sized hole for these little gray plugs I found in the garage:
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It seals perfectly and the little flange on the sides of the plug make it so the tarantula can't push it out!
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I can't believe my good fortune. I just happened to stumble across these plastic pieces, I just happened to have the perfect sized and correct type of drill bit to make perfect clean holes in this type of plastic box, and all of it fits and works perfectly!

I intend to pick up a couple of Poecilotheria this coming weekend and both my Psalmopoeus are about due for a rehouse. Its just dumb luck that my H. pulchripes and I. mira haven't made a break for it every time I open the entire top of their AMAC boxes to feed and water. Once I install one of these little babies on each of those enclosures, I will be able to relax a whole lot more when doing regular maintenance.

I wish I could tell you guys where to find these little plastic plugs, but I don't know where they came from. If any one knows what they are, please let me know. I'll eventually run out and need more. The step bit came form Lowes.
 

Basilisk

New Member
Messages
18
Location
USA
Googling "plastic bottle stopper" gives some promising leads, as does "rubber bottle stopper".

Edit:

Looks like something like this would be a good bet. [link]
 
Last edited:

Whitelightning777

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Location
Baltimore MD
Nicely done!! I wish more enclosures had this option so you wouldn't have to do the mod yourself. They can be helpful when it's that time for the first more aggressive / defensive / escape prone tarantula.
 

Dave Jay

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3 Year Member
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1,079
Location
Mt Barker South Australia
Here are some pictures of what I do. If the cork bark is the right shape you can barely see it from the front.

View attachment 31501

View attachment 31502

I cut the hole in the enclosure, then cut the top off of a plastic water bottle and glued it over the hole.
Yep , that's good thinking for sure! Of course you could buy little plastic bottles/containers for small enclosures too.

I use similar plugs as water dishes. "End cap" usually yields good results when searching.
 

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