Our Story

I’ve loved animals for as long as I can remember. Luckily, I grew up with parents who were patient—and tolerant—enough to let me have all sorts of pets over the years. That love of animals carried me into adulthood, where I earned my BS in Biology and went on to work as an animal caretaker at the Oregon Zoo. It was an incredible experience and deepened my respect for all creatures, great and small.

Life eventually led me down other paths, but animals were always part of my world. By 2019, I’d added my first baby tarantulas to my growing collection of pets. Not long after, in late 2020, I was listening to Tom’s Big Spiders podcast and heard him talk about the dangers of mesh lids—how one of his tarantulas had gotten its tiny claws stuck in the mesh. That hit close to home, because I had recently purchased an adult tarantula housed in an Exo Terra Nano terrarium with exactly that kind of lid.

I decided I needed to replace the mesh with acrylic. I bought a sheet of acrylic but couldn’t quite muster the motivation to tackle the tedious job of modifying the lid myself. Around that same time, my dad had gotten into 3D printing, and I suddenly wondered—could he print a lid that would hold the acrylic securely? I asked, and he was happy to give it a shot.

That’s how the first Nano lid was born.

I loved the result and shared it with a few tarantula groups on Facebook. The response was overwhelming—people immediately wanted to know where they could get one. So we started printing and selling them. Over time, we refined our designs, added new models, and improved our printing process. I learned the ins and outs of 3D printing myself and eventually got my own fleet of printers.

Today, my dad and I still work side by side, creating custom lids and enclosures for fellow enthusiasts all over the world. We’ve shipped more than 3,000 orders to happy customers—and we’re still just as passionate about making safe, high-quality enclosures for the animals we love.

~Susan