How to make a naturalistic water dish?!

[z10silver]

A while back I posted about making custom water dishes for naturalistic vivariums. While these water dishes looked great, and seemed to work fine for a while, unfortunately none of them really held up long-term. I needed to coat the inside of the dish with 5-minute epoxy to prevent water from "wicking out." I have been told that this stuff is safe to use once dried, but I just haven't had great luck with it mixing correctly and drying. It seems to break down gradually over time, and honestly I would prefer not to use it. I would still like to figure out at way to construct my own water dishes, as I'm not impressed with many of the pre-fab ones out on the market, I just have no idea what materials to use. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you,
Zach

[Tongue Flicker]

I plan to make a couple of those using some styrofoam, grout and acrylic paint. I was thinking of making a cut-out hole in the styro fit to size for a removable ceramic water dish inside so changing water and cleaning would be easy. When the whole thing is done, you don't need to move the whole structure out. Just the dish hehe. Also, just make sure the hole is a few millimeters deeper than the dish so the rim is not visible

[michael1846]

For the water part you could put a premade one in and build around it. So it would not wear away but it would not be boring.

[z10silver]

I contacted Aves to inquire about their products and received the following helpful response. I picked up some "Apoxie Sculpt" from an art supply store the other day, so I'm going to give it a try and will post results here!

Thanks for your wonderful questions Zachary

Our products are used in zoo’s across the globe for repairing elephant tusks, turtle shells, beaks of various birds/toucans etc., additionally used for live habitat displays, turtle bowls, aquarium & terranium customization…..bottom line is the product is very safe to use for these purposes and works really well. Most just with the Apoxie Sculpt because it works great but they don’t know we have an industrial line of products “FIXIT” is great for any salt water or environmental applications – Once these products (Apoxie Sculpt or Fixit) are cured they become an inert material and do not leach anything out. They withstand all temperatures up to 350 with Apoxie Sculpt and 500 degrees F with our Fixit products. All of our colorants used in the products are food grade materials – again safe to use vs paints. – you may find for a highly abused water dish you want to coat it with a a sealer of some sort but it is not necessary. You can marble the colors together if you like to make really neat rock like colors and effects. (mix your colors A+B first and then marble the colors together)



I would recommend trying:

Apoxie Sculpt

Fixit Sculpt

FIXIT

And compare them for yourself which you like best.



I believe you will be quite pleased with our products. If you have more questions please advise. Its been a very busy week here so I do apologize for the delay in my reply – normally we get back to you the next day ; )



Erin Gerlach

Sales & Marketing Director

Aves Studio LLC.