Jun 24, 2026 · 1 hr 43 min · 12 segments
What if you could build your reptile enclosure before spending a single dollar? In this episode, I sit down with Daniel Wilson, creator of CritterCAD, a 3D vivarium design platform that helps keepers…
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Yeah, I, I would love to know where the motivation came from it, and w- obviously, well, maybe you can throw in a very quick brief overview for folks to, to tell us what it is.
I, you know, was working on enclosures like these ones behind me, and I had some sort of vision in mind for what I wanted the enclosure to look like, and then I'd go to, you know, my local pet store and buy, you know, hardscape or substrate or whatever, and I'd...
I, I might have had a shopping list in mind, but, like, just kind of a fuzzy idea of what I wanted to create.
Um, and then I'd go looking in the, you know, the bin of, of, you know, cork bark and ghost wood and, you know, whatever else, and just pull out pieces that I, I thought were interesting, try to assemble it together in my, in my head, and I, I expect a lot of people do that today.
Uh, I've talked to a lot of people that sketch things out on graph paper or, um, some people I even talked to use some, some heavier CAD tools or 3D design tools to lay out their enclosures.
Um, but what frequently happened is I'd, I'd pick up a few things, and then I'd try to fit them in the enclosure, and it just wouldn't work, wouldn't look right, and so I wanted just to be able to plan things out in advance.
I like working with tools like, um, you know, what I, what we, you know, built with Critter CAD of being able to try a whole bunch of different things, kind of visualize what the end result is going to be before I even begin, you know, before I, I spend a bunch of time either looking for the right, uh, pieces or, um, you know, spending money on something that may not work with the design that I'm trying to, uh, to set up.
And, uh, so that's kind of, like, where the idea started, was just I wanted to make a tool to help myself lay out enclosures.
Um, and then as the idea got more, um, fleshed out and, you know, trying to research the different care that each tarantula requires, so they have different humidity levels and temperature, substrate depth.
And throughout this process, especially of keeping tarantulas, I'd notice people would post their enclosure setups on, you know, Reddit and Instagram and, and everywhere else.
And so very often you would see someone, uh, you know, they went to, uh, some, you know, big box pet store.
They'd come back with, I, I wouldn't even say the minimum that a tarantula needs.
They'd come back with a plastic enclosure of some sort and then lay, you know, you know, reptile chips on the ground, uh, have a hide, put a water bowl in there and call it a day.
And, like, every time people would post pictures of these enclosures, I'd notice, like, like, you can tell just looking at the, the tarantula that it's a very stressed, unhappy animal, and it's not because the keepers don't mean well.
Like, I'm sure they want to provide a good home for the animal that they're bringing back.
And so if you want to encourage people to do their own research on animal husbandry, uh, I mean, where do you start, right? People walk into a pet store, they're expecting to bring a pet back, not spend hours on the internet trying to research this to- these topics.
Yeah, I, I would love to know where the motivation came from it, and w- obviously, well, maybe you can throw in a very quick brief overview for folks to, to tell us what it is.
I, you know, was working on enclosures like these ones behind me, and I had some sort of vision in mind for what I wanted the enclosure to look like, and then I'd go to, you know, my local pet store and buy, you know, hardscape or substrate or whatever, and I'd...
I, I might have had a shopping list in mind, but, like, just kind of a fuzzy idea of what I wanted to create.
Um, and then I'd go looking in the, you know, the bin of, of, you know, cork bark and ghost wood and, you know, whatever else, and just pull out pieces that I, I thought were interesting, try to assemble it together in my, in my head, and I, I expect a lot of people do that today.
Uh, I've talked to a lot of people that sketch things out on graph paper or, um, some people I even talked to use some, some heavier CAD tools or 3D design tools to lay out their enclosures.
Um, but what frequently happened is I'd, I'd pick up a few things, and then I'd try to fit them in the enclosure, and it just wouldn't work, wouldn't look right, and so I wanted just to be able to plan things out in advance.
I like working with tools like, um, you know, what I, what we, you know, built with Critter CAD of being able to try a whole bunch of different things, kind of visualize what the end result is going to be before I even begin, you know, before I, I spend a bunch of time either looking for the right, uh, pieces or, um, you know, spending money on something that may not work with the design that I'm trying to, uh, to set up.
And, uh, so that's kind of, like, where the idea started, was just I wanted to make a tool to help myself lay out enclosures.
Um, and then as the idea got more, um, fleshed out and, you know, trying to research the different care that each tarantula requires, so they have different humidity levels and temperature, substrate depth.
And throughout this process, especially of keeping tarantulas, I'd notice people would post their enclosure setups on, you know, Reddit and Instagram and, and everywhere else.
And so very often you would see someone, uh, you know, they went to, uh, some, you know, big box pet store.
They'd come back with, I, I wouldn't even say the minimum that a tarantula needs.
They'd come back with a plastic enclosure of some sort and then lay, you know, you know, reptile chips on the ground, uh, have a hide, put a water bowl in there and call it a day.
And, like, every time people would post pictures of these enclosures, I'd notice, like, like, you can tell just looking at the, the tarantula that it's a very stressed, unhappy animal, and it's not because the keepers don't mean well.
Like, I'm sure they want to provide a good home for the animal that they're bringing back.
And so if you want to encourage people to do their own research on animal husbandry, uh, I mean, where do you start, right? People walk into a pet store, they're expecting to bring a pet back, not spend hours on the internet trying to research this to- these topics.
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