Advice on material for display enclosure

[Chrisc]

I have been tossing around the idea of building an enclosure as a center piece for my unused dining room. It will most likely have geckos or snakes that require close to the same heating and lighting requirements, and it may also have poison dart frogs. All animals will have their own seperate enclosures for each type of reptile, built within the same frame.
All other sites I have posted on has ended with the same results, Just use sealed plywood. Sealed plywood is not an option for the enclosure walls. I personaly do not like the look of it, and since it will be a center piece showing off my interest in reptiles I want it to look good. I was thinking about using black ABS plastic for the walls, does anyone know if ABS is reptile safe? Any other suggestions on what to use for the enclosure walls besides sealed plywood?
Since I would like to have geckos or snakes that have close to the same heating requirements I would like to use heat tape along the bottom of all the enclosures, then add other forms of heat to each individual enclosure to get the temps right for each animal. I know that using any plasic for the bottom would be a bad idea, but is there any option other then glass that would be safe to use with heat tape? Anyone know of a heat tape that could be ran in roughly 8 ft lengths?
This will be my first time building a complete enclosure from the beggining, so any suggestions anyone has would be helpful.

[Donnie]

For snakes and geckos you could use melamine and just ensure the edges are well sealed but I don't know if it will be suitable for frogs or not.

[DragonsEye]

Not meaning to appear "dense", but I assume that the walls of each tank will be opaque where they abutt each other?

[Chrisc]

Not meaning to appear "dense", but I assume that the walls of each tank will be opaque where they abutt each other?

The way I have it pictured in my mind so far all the seperate enclosures will all be built on a base cabinet to store all my reptile supplies. Things like food, vitamins and whatnot. The enclosures will have have a few inches seperating them from one another so i have room to run wires, studs for furniture and such like. Thats why I would like to use AbS or somthing like it so I could have say Tokay geckos in one enclosure, then a Green Tree Python in the next one and not have to worry about the GTP trying to get to the Tokays, or my Tokays being stressed out by seeing the GTP next to it. The enclosures wont look into one another, and as i said have space in between so i can run wires and insulate them and not have to worry about one enclosure heating up the one next to it. Right now Im working on drifting out how its all going in my head so hopefully before to long I will have a drawling to give a better idea of what im thinking about.

[beardeds4life]

I know you dont like the look of sealed plywood, I don't either, so what I used is finished plywood. If you use the furniture grade stuff and stain it it looks really nice and like a piece of furniture.

[Chrisc]

I know you dont like the look of sealed plywood, I don't either, so what I used is finished plywood. If you use the furniture grade stuff and stain it it looks really nice and like a piece of furniture.

Its not just plywood, I dont like the way most wood looks in an enclosure. I have seen some types of wood that i think would look great if it was stained the right color, but most of it is exotic and pretty expensive for the size of piece Im looking at building. Im a bit ocd on how things look I guess lol, tho I have been keeping an eye out on furniture wood and stains just havnt found any that I like in my price range.