Equipping a fishtank for gerbils

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Skullblits

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Hello sorry if I posed this in the wrong section. But I'm bad at DIY and not sure how to do this. So we have 2 gerbils. And they live in that cage atm

www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/extra-large-gerbilarium



But I've been thinking of getting them a fish tank to stop the mess.

But I would like to keep the wire part of the cage for there water and wheel and have a little extra space for them.

Now the question is. How would I go about fitting that wire cage part to a wooden frame for around the tank.

I'm not really knowledgeable to DIY things. So would anyone have any ideas?

Thanks
 
Can gerbils swim?

Can they exercise under water? I would have thought they'd struggle overcoming the resistance of the water against the wheel.
 
Can't tell if serious or... Made me chuckle though bravo

Hmm its gunna be empty. They can't chew out of the glass
 
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Get a free standing wheel.
Get free standing bits for them, get some branches, twigs etc.

Fashion a platform with a ramp on.

Be creative - Im sure they won't mind.
 
I'm confused mate, by the looks of it that cage already has a plastic tank at the bottom ? What would be gained from changing it to a glass fish tank ? I'm obviously missing something here
 
HawkEye244 said:
I'm confused mate, by the looks of it that cage already has a plastic tank at the bottom ? What would be gained from changing it to a glass fish tank ? I'm obviously missing something here
Click to expand...

It would be alot bigger and less mess
 
I had gerbils in a fish tank when I was a student. I remember we fashioned a cover for the tank out of a bit of chicken wire, the attached a free-standing wheel to this (upside down) which seemed to work. Can't remember what we did about the water bottle - probably a similar method, or maybe hang it over the side with some wire. There wasn't much mess at all this way, but we found that the burrows they'd dig themselves would cave in easily (we used wood chippings). We tried to make them shelters out of cardboard, then wood to give their burrows some support, but the little gits would always chew them up. In the end my dad welded a shelter out of sheet metal,which did the trick.

In the end we were waiting for the last one to croak as we had goldfish waiting to go in the tank. The last gerbil was barely cold in the ground before those fish were enjoying their new home! The gerbils chewed a lot of the silicone away so it was a silly thing to do really, but better to make these mistakes when you're young!
 
Won't the tank massively reduce the amount of free airflow? I'd imagine it could be pretty grim for them on a hot summer day
 
andyjohn3 said:
The last gerbil was barely cold in the ground before those fish were enjoying their new home! The gerbils chewed a lot of the silicone away so it was a silly thing to do really, but better to make these mistakes when you're young!
Click to expand...

The gerbil's diet of sanitary silicone and chemically laden woodchips likely helped it along.
It would be interesting to have a toxicology report carried out on a deceased household pet just for sh1ts and giggles.
 
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