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Thread: Move the build to here CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  1. #1
    PurpleHooligan
    Guest

    Default Move the build to here CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Please Note that i have copied and paste my own web page. I didnt feel like retyping it all if you seem to be confused about the writing take a look here to see what it suppose to look like.

    http://purplehooligna.webs.com/




    My Enclosures






    Thank You for taking the time to look at all my enclosures i have built. I do get some help from the kids, family and friends on some things. If you have any comments or questions please look for my email in the contact info.








    Introduction





    So i decided to go ahead and build my very own paludarium. Well instead of starting small with a 20 gallon tank. I decided to go into unfamiliar terrority and actually build the enclosure also. Something I should of thought about more. Any who after thousands of plans I thought of i dove right into this. I ended up buying a 36" x 18' x 72" metal storage rack. Something you would find at lowes or homedepot. Now the enclosure is only half that height. so it ends up only being 36" x 18" x 36" the equevalent size of the lagerest exo terra you can buy for 300 bucks online. I also bought other stuff which i will list future down into the latter for you to check out. I would like to say Im sorry for any blurry or just plain bad pictures you will see. For im using my phone to take them all. Hopefully one day I could get a decent camera. Keep in mind that i will have a section with in this build for you to see what materials i used. What glues I used and also what i sealed it all with. There will also be a price section to see what your going to be spending also for the materials and stuff. I will be estimating some of the prices so kept that in mind when doing your own.




    Lets Get Started





    So i put the rack together, then was trying to figure out what i would use to enclose the sides. What I ended up doing was using the wood that came with the rack and wedge it all in place. Sorry I do not have any pics of this step for you to see. Lets get to the pics and discription of what i did and why i had to change it.








    Here you can see that i had the first step complete. Dont
    mind the stuff on top of the enclosure. Its just sitting there. As
    you can see i have two veiw spots here. Originally this was going
    to be filled with water up to the brace in the middle. Later you will see
    I removed that and ended up with one big window. I realized that, the water
    pressure would have been to great for this to hold it back. The front peice is blue
    insulation foam from work. Im planning to put a .5 inch plywood around it all to hide
    the rack and to make a door for the enclosure. You can also see inside i lined a portion
    of the inside with the blue insulation as well. That to was later removed and replaced with Poly
    Panal aka styrofoam. The boards and the Insulation foam on the front have nothing holding them
    togther but the rack itself.






    In this image you can see the brace is missing, and where i had replaced the foamwith poly panal instead. the poly panal was thinner. Allowing more room for theanimal and other stuff to go in. Sorry about the mess inside. Has to gosome where right. The back left corner was going to be my waterfeature. But that had some design flaws. So i scrapped it for a diffrent one. Like before you will see it in the followingpics. The foam is held together buy Loctite PowerGrab. The flaw i had with this feature was filterissues. There wasnt any room for one.














    So here you have my waterfall area. As you can see in the four pics it became more detailed and less plain. I only put one single line of loctite down the middle of each layer in the first pic. The second pic to the right is single peices i cut to fit the front of the first pic. And so on with the 3rd and 4th.


    The reason I went this route was because my other designs were flawed. I wasnt able to find a easy way to use a filter or water pump to filter the water. I prefer to have filtered water for my inhabinates then plain water and have to change the water on a regular basis.


    I did end up changing the waterfall desgin also. It is now only a top peice to cover the filter. The bottom portion, the curved flat piece has been removed and the middle section in the 4th picture is now permantly in the tank. You will see the changes as you continue to read through this build.




































































    This was my first design for my false bottom. You can see where I used zip ties to hold the eggcrate together. Eggcrate is also known as Light Diffuser. You can find it in the lighting section of HomeDepot or Lowes.


    I even changed this in the end design aswell. i wanted more land section. I also wanted my land and water area to be completely sealed off from one another. What i did was end up just using the top piece and split the tank.






    Here is my grout stage. I believe this is my second coat of grout. You cana see that brace peice in the corner. That is what i ripped out and replaced it with the middle section of my waterfall.


    I ended up doing the corners first with a little thicker consitiency then you normal use for makeing fake rocks. I followed that and did the first coat of grout. You can see the corners are lighter then the back. This is my 3 coat about to go up.



















    This is a pic of the waterfall feature. At the time it was a two peice lid/hood for the filter. But it toppled easy. I ended up just making one top. I have about 2 coats I believe on here. After a few more coats I made thick grout. A little thicker then what is recommended for the grout. With this i added more curves and detail. I am happy with the look. The picture doesnt show the extra grout detailed I did, because I wasnt able to get the camera to focus right on my next step.
















    Well bad news. Girlfriends cat decided it was thirsty during a leak test of the drylok before i went a head to do the coroling drylok coats. I had 3 coats on everything i needed and the cat jumped in and spazzed out when it landed in the water braking part of the ledge off. (pic coming soon) So I had already done the patch work and waiting to finsih that before being able to move on to the next phase. I will post pics up once the patch and blending work is completed. Sorry I wont be posting pics of the patch and blending work. I will do so in its own section when the time is right.



























    This is the 1st through 3rd coat of drylok. Before the cat problem. I was looking forward to posting a bigger update then this one. But this is all I can do. Since the cat decided it needed a drink. You probably had notice the false bottom to the left in the first 2 pics. I will go over that in a diffrent section. As i have not fully clear to what im doing with it.


















    I have more pics to come. I just have to take them from my phone to my computer. I also have a video update of the last leak test and flow of water before i add the finishing touches to it.

    I havent decided what im putting in the enclosure yet. I do have some ideas going through my head. I was thinking natives.

    First Idea
    3 Green Anoles 1.2
    2 Green Tree Frogs 1.1
    2 Grey Tree Frogs 1.1
    MAYBE ALSO 2 Eastern newts and 3 spring peepers

    NOTE: I have kept all these species growing up as a kid through my teens WC species from my yard i would release them before fall so they could go into hypernation. the only species i didnt catch was the anole. I live in the northern part of the eastern side so we dont have them here. I beileve its a bit over crowded as the greens and greys will both be up high but i didnt know of any native species that stayed to the lower side besides springs and the newts. I know alot of salamanders can but they would always be under something and they are a little small for me.

    Second Idea
    Group of Mossie Frogs

    Well I say group as Im not quite sure how many i could possibly put into this size of enclosure. Im a lizard guy. So i know the common rule of thumb there. Just i seen people say more then just one common rule a thumb with frogs that im a bit confused about.

    Third Idea
    3 Dragon Agamas (
    japalura splendida ) Yes that is a google correction link hahaha I always forget how to spell the first word.

    Forth Idea
    Group of red eyed crocodile skinks. Unfurtunatly from the extreme amount of reading i did on this species. That i believe that my enclosure would have some wasted height to it. Also i dont have that much land for them to scurry around.


    So Let me know if you have any comments questions advice ect. If you have any other stock ideas please let me know with common name and sceintific name so i can get to reserching, please only species that can be housed in a group not just one only. Thank You



















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  3. #2
    100+ Post Member jarteta97's Avatar
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    Default Re: Move the build to here CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    It sounds like you're planning on mixing species??
    “Life is a journey, not a destination.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

  4. #3
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    Default Re: Move the build to here CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Very ambitious build. I like the concept very much, but I am worried about the execution. I know we only have a small slice of the view of this build, but I am instantly concerned about water proofing and structural support right off the bat.

    But as I said I do like how ambitious this is. I hope it all works out great for you and you end up with an awesome tank!


    Powergrab is not good to use on something that will be exposed to water. Unless you can ensure you seal it away 100% you might end up with a toxic mess :/ I hope you don't but wanted to mention it just as a heads up.
    1.1.0 - Oophaga Pumilio 'Blue Jeans' (2014 Nicaragua Import)
    1.1.0 - Oophaga Pumilio 'Chirique Grande' F1
    1.1.0 - D. Tinctorius 'Citronella'
    1.2.0 - D. Tinctorius 'Azureus'
    0.0.2 - D. Tinctorius 'Sipaliwini'
    0.0.2 - D. Tinctorius 'New River'
    0.0.4 - D. Tinctorius 'Leucomelas'
    0.0.4 - Terribilis 'Mint'
    1.1.0 - R. Ventrimaculatus 'French Guiana'

    Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/hashtagfrogs
    Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgC...sEZiZQoT8sOuuw

  5. #4
    PurpleHooligan
    Guest

    Default

    Thanks Punk. I know all my concerns and what can happen, the water section was filled more then once and there are no leaks in the tank. The water section is sealed with drylok, about 4 or 5 coats total.

    I'm planning to put 1/2 inch ply around the outside. The back will not have it. There will only be 3 sides like a shell to cover the rack and anchor to the wall to make the woman happy n keep her quiet lol.

    Mixing species would of bern the natives only. Since I know I can provide what they need.

    The ither speicies would be singular housed species. I know the HATE of ppl asking about mixing and the warning of it. But I'm clearing not asking about it. I'm jist letting everyone my ideas,
    I don't want to give to much update away but the back and sides will be covered in great stuff.

    Sorry just woke up for work and its a bit early, I will edit this later

    Sent from my SPH-M830 using Tapatalk

  6. #5
    PurpleHooligan
    Guest

    Default Re: Move the build to here CHECK IT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Hey Everyone sorry but the long wait for any updates I sorta became unorganized and lost track of everything with being busy and what not but here is the updated pics and some info on them, Note that i copy and paste all this from my website to save time on typing. Im a little to lazy to retype it all.




    On the left you can see the rocks taken shape and more detail as you skim down the photos. The first photo is after my 2nd coat of tinted drylok. It also has a light coating of brown tint to it as well. The white is just the base color of the grey drylok, I used the dry brush style here. Then i went over it again with the dark tinted drylok and again with the grey base color drylok to try and make it seem a little more realistic. I have a leak test video but i can not use it here as it wants me to upgrade first. sorry but all this was done after i did my leak test.










































































    Since i finished the water section and was happy with the out come. I decided to coat the land section next. This is where it stands at 2 coats in. I will be applying a additional 2.5 coats being 1 solid coat followed with just a single joint area coat only. Then another solid full coat.

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