Starting on a 40 gallon long vivarium

[arielgasca420]

Thanks Locascio. As much as I would love to have a water fall, I think I will just have to stick with a water bowl and turn my 10 gallon tank into a waterfall vivarium haven for my betta.

[arielgasca420]

So I have been seeing alot of different themed backgrounds. My overall theme will be a cemetery. I would like my background to be covered in ecoearth. I am having a little trouble understand layering
So I will be starting out with a polystyrene board and using great stuff on that. Do I use pond sealer, black silicone, and then stick the coco fiber to the black silicone? I wont be having a waterfall, but I do need to make this water proof. is fish safe sealer good for waterproofing? does anyone know of any brand to use?

[arielgasca420]

Ok froggers,
I had a hard time finding polystyrene so I decided to use plexiglass. This is 1/8 inch cut cautiously with a table saw. It melted slightly while cutting, but they are minor cosmetic damages covered by great stuff
This is a picture of my nosy fat cat on the plexiglass before cutting.

[arielgasca420]

This is the finished application of Great Stuff: Gaps and Cracks on plexiglass. This will hopefully expand more

[Locascio]

very cool is it done yet??? let us see pics i might do the same

[arielgasca420]

ill put up pictures today. the entire terrarium is about 75 % done.

[arielgasca420]

I apologize that these pictures are not in order.
This step was with the background attached with blue duct tape since I ran out of silicone. I will be mounting with either silicone or velcro. I am leaning more towards velco
This is my first made background. There were a few spots of white that showed through so I used VOC free paint to touch up and let it air dry overnight. the silicone said to let it sit for 4 hours but I let it sit for 24. I used no additive topsoil for the background because it was cheaper and sturdier than eco earth
A lot f people use window mesh, but I used a 10 gallon screen lid that I had lying around. I just set it on the river rocks and it works great
These two pictures are showing the gradual eco earth being poured on the screen and rocks. you can see the layering in the second picture
The first picture is what the enclosure looks like now, but it is still no where near complete. I still need to mount the background, put more Tillandsia on the DIY background, and I need to paint moss on the background as well
I will post more pictures once I find moss and make my moss smoothie