Thrive Corner Terrarium Review

I've reviewed every other Thrive cage: the 45 × 45 × 60 cm (18 × 18 × 24 in) rectangle, the crescent-fronted terrarium and the hexagon. The corner terrarium was the last. It's an empty cage with no accessories, so there isn't much to it.

The top

It has the same top as the hexagon: a black rim that stands about 1 cm (1/2 in) above a screen top. The screen is sturdy, better than Exo Terra's, but the mesh is much thicker, and I wonder how well UV light gets through it for plants and animals. There is a full opening for a Thrive fogger and a smaller slot for a power cord.

Stacking

I stack my hexagon cages two high. Three high puts them about head height, but the weight pressing down makes the bottom door hard to open and close. I put a small sticky rubber foot, the kind sold for desk items, on each corner. That lifts the cage slightly and gives it grip so it doesn't slide. Because the doors open at the front, you never need to take the top off.

I'd love Thrive to make a slim metal support for the corner cage, with a small shelf for a UV light or a short heat lamp, so you could stack three or four up to the ceiling in a room corner.

The door

The latch holds the door much more firmly than on the 45 × 45 × 60 cm cage. That cage has one swivel latch at the top of a big door, and an animal can push the bottom corner out far enough for a whole snake to get out.

This cage has a bigger gap between the door and the glass panel than my hexagon does. A young mourning gecko could get through it. But it ships with a strip of plastic on the door that I first took for shipping protection. Left in place, it fills that gap when the door is closed. Thrive doesn't do that on its other cages. My mourning geckos got out of the crescent terrarium through a gap like this, so I'm glad to see it.

The shape

Fitting into a corner saves a lot of space. The downside, as with the hexagon, is that you really need a matching stand, or you end up buying a big square table for it. I'm not sure whether Thrive sells a stand for this one.

The two big back panels are what I like most. You can build a background across both, run cork bark or a grapevine from one side to the other as a bridge, and have plants falling down the back. You end up with background on about two-thirds of the glass. Less open glass means less of the outside world coming in, and your gecko feels more secure.

Verdict

I'm really digging this cage. It may be the most versatile of all the Thrive cages for building. Some of Thrive's other products are cheap and not great, but their cages are solid, especially this one and the hexagon, and for the price you can't beat them. I highly recommend them. I'm building this one into a fully bioactive vivarium that will live in my studio.