Hi everyone!
A little backstory! I had a hamster named Peanut in the UK (he lived to 3.5 years old) in a Hamster Heaven cage. Disliked it even though he seemed happy enough.
Now I've got a new hamster in Hong Kong (Chestnut, sticking with the nut theme!) and we decided to get a tank-style cage as we also have a cat.
We had a lovely 40 x 18 inch glass case that was used to display all sorts of random things. My parents wanted to give/throw it away but I decided to convert it to a hamster tank after a lot of persuasion. Last night, we finally put it together! Thanks to this website, we also got to use the Ikea Knuff holder idea to make a lovely platform for Chestnut.
We went with a natural theme. I love the log on the floor, as it hides 3 separate toilet tubes buried under the substrate. He's got a smaller wheel at the moment because he's just coming up to two months old, but there's a larger wooden wheel for when he grows up, which looks quite nice
I used Untreated wood blocks (Jenga) and dowels to make the balcony walls and the staircases, and industrial strength velcro to attach his water bottle to the tank wall.
The only issue we had was the fact that it had gaps between the glass on all sides. Using aquarium safe silicone, my dad glued a thin metal piece on each edge to stop substrate falling out, then we took the very heavy glass doors off. For the top of the cage (the lid), we use 2 barbecue meshes and one large solid plastic mesh that we have ziptied to the metal bars that run along the edges of the tank. This allows us to lift the lid off and provide a lot of ventilation for the little one. It also is uncomfortable for my cat to walk on, which is a bonus.
There's 720 square inches of space for him to play in, plenty of things to gnaw on and also a toilet under the platform, for a bit of privacy
I'm happy that he's got a couple of places to hide/dig/sleep.
Here are a couple of pictures as attachments. Thanks for reading!