# Gerbil water bottle - help!



## kat04kt (Sep 11, 2011)

Hi, 

So at the moment i'm using a ceramic dish to give my gerbils water, however it's not ideal because it gets dirty quickly. 

I have a glass water bottle, but how they heck to I attach it to a perfecto tank????


I can't use plastic suctions because they eat anything plastic, I can't hang it because don't think the holes at the top are big enough - I'm just at a loss, but thinking I must be being really dumb and there's a really obvious way to do this!

Cheers
xxxx


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## Crittery (May 2, 2011)

You can't attach it to the lid because it will just get stuck when the lid slides off surely?

Perfectos aren't that great for gerbils because they need a minimum of 6 inches for burrowing (ideally a lot more) so those ledges just get in the way. I use tanks with wire toppers so you can put the water bottle in there safely, along with a large wheel, hammocks, rope toys and a sand bath and things.

I've seen some people adapt a wire bird feeder to hold a water bottle and rest over the lip of the tank but they would only work with a homemade lid I think. I've currently got a wire base for a water bottle to sit in for a tank of lemmings, but they can't jump so the tank doesn't have the lid on it - gerbils would just escape with this...!


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## Lil Miss (Dec 11, 2010)

you can use sticky back velcro strips

but as has been said perfecto tanks really arent ideal for gerbils


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## kat04kt (Sep 11, 2011)

Sure. Currently having a customed built Gerbil tank made for me. I've found a specialist to design and build a tank for me from scratch, custom aquaria, incase anyone is interested! 

They are rescue gerbils and needed a home asap as they were currently living in a Ferplast duna (even at the rescue), so their perfecto is a much better upgrade - but I always knew it was too small long term. New tank won't be arriving for another two to three weeks.

But I still got this issue with the water bottle until it arrives.....

I could try the sticky back velcro I have some of that.


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## LostGirl (Jan 16, 2009)

lucky gerbils having a cage made


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## kat04kt (Sep 11, 2011)

Yup! hehe. I just couldn't find anything on the market that seemed suitable. I can't use plastic because they will be out of it in two seconds flat, the perfecto is a bit of a pain, I'm not handy enough to buy an aquarium and then deck it out to make it suitable so I was really at a lose on what to do. 

So I called a guy in Camden who owns a aquatic store, and asked about tanks, he put me onto another guy - who makes up all their aquariums. 

So we sat down on the phone for about an hour, and talked through everything I wanted, the size, the levels, for example we want 40cm of total depth before there are any levels added. So he's making one up that is 90cm long, 50cm wide and 75cm high. 

It will be all glass, the top will be ventilated like the perfecto is, and there will be sliding doors at the top of the tank to put in food, water etc. Plus a special section created that will fit their wheel, above the substrate! 


Just need to look at what other options could be an idea to make for really good ventilation. 

But the bloody water bottle is still going to be an issue! haha.


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## GerbilNik (Apr 1, 2011)

Just make a hole in the lid big enough to poke a spout through and sit the bottle on top of the tank with the spout poking through to the inside. The Gerbils can either sit or stand and drink that way. Means the bedding doesn't get soaked by piling up at the spout and making it leak and also they can't chew the plastic on the bottle as it's only the metal spout they will have access to.


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