Naturalistic Sonoran Desert Toad setup with custom water dish

[z10silver]

I'm keeping a male B. alvarius in a 30 gal tank, and wanted to try going for a naturalistic setup. I wasn't happy with any of the water dishes designed for herps available on the market, so I decided to make my own. I wanted the water dish to resemble a depression in a red sandstone outcrop. To make it, I set a plastic water dish in some expanding foam. (I did this on newspaper inside the tank so it would fit perfectly).I then sculpted the foam a bit after it dried. I covered the whole thing with fine red sand using silicone. It looked great, but took waaay too long to complete (if anyone has any thoughts on how to do this more efficiently, please let me know!), and I had a problem with water "wicking" out of the dish. Someone on the forum suggested I coat the inside of the dish with 5 minute epoxy, which solved the wicking problem. Here are some photos of the dish, and the completed setup. The toad seems to approve!

-Zach

[Meefloaf]

very cool man

[Mentat]

Hello Zach! Your terrarium looks awesome, congratulations !

[Raya]

Wow, really awesome! Very cool viv and toad!

[DartfrogDan]

looks great

[Frogwarrior]

Did it continue to work well? I'm trying to design an aquarium for a few B. alvarius myself. I'm using a 50 gallon tank and thinking of building a land and water. Also do they like the sand better than coconut fiber?