RETF Custom Terrarium background - Advice and tips needed/welcomed

[DigitalPunk]

Thanks Bill!

Ok So a small update. Things are moving slowly with the TiteBond III portion. Remaining patient and giving the glue time to dry has been the hardest part of this whole thing. My test section of glue on Silicone was a success. I moved to applying glue on the Silicone on the sides of the tank. This ends up being a weird sort of race.... You have to apply a small section of glue and then immediately apply the coco fiber. The glue doesn't stay where you apply it and will start to separate but putting the coco fiber down before that starts seems to be the key. Another interesting aspect to this is that once you have some glue with Coco fiber on it and go to put more glue down beside it you can not get them to over lap. So I ended up with small lines all over the side that I will have to cover when I do my 2nd coat. This isn't a major issue as I was planning on doing 2 coats anyways.

I will have more pictures tonight. Last night I got the glue on the back of the Terrarium and both sides. I applied the glue to one side and let it dry for 2 - 3 hours then turned the tank and repeated this process for all the sides. I did not attempt to remove any loose fiber from the sides as I turned it and did not notice any negative impact from doing this. When I get home the tank will have had over 24 hours of drying time with this last coat. My plan is to very very carefully remove excess five from the tank without disturbing the glue that is drying. The purpose of this is to remove the thick layer of fiber to allow the air to get to the glue more quickly.

I figure I have about 3 or 4 days of watching glue dry before I can access how much of a 2nd coat I need or not. Then we move onto testing the waterfall... I am not super excited about the water fall at the moment and have some additional planning to do on how i want to pull it off now that the small pond has been scrapped.

Here is the single photo i took last night before I wrapped up the gluing for the evening.

[deranged chipmunk]

Looking good!! My one piece of advice on doing titebond, patience. It simply cannot be rushed. Give it more time that you originally planned on.

You may have an issue with the titebond permanently adhering to the silicone. It is most likely going to peel off eventually.

[DigitalPunk]

That is my big worry too. I may run out to HD and pick up one more can of spray foam and do a thin layer over the sides, but I am going to give the glue a chance to dry real good so I can see how it is looking. I plan on giving the Titebond around 7 days to fully dry before I start brushing all the excess fiber off. Only thing I had planned to do between now and then was to tilt the terrarium and let the excess fall out so the stuff that is actually stuck some can breath better.


I will add that buying the big gallon thing of Titebond is the way to go. Initially i bought 2 little tubes and blew through that super fast. So I bought the gallon figuring I have many more tank builds in my future and will use it all eventually. I do think I like the Titebond more than I did the Silicon. I hated spreading the Silicon on the glass and how hard it was to get an even coating. I can only imagine how difficult it is to cover all the areas of a background with it good.



As for the waterfall. My current plan is to just let the water run down the back wall and then create a little barrier to block the water from the substrate as it goes down to the false bottom. Not entirely sure how it is going to play out but I have a couple ideas I will try.

[deranged chipmunk]

i only buy titebond in the gallon size. it is much more cost effective. and i never run out that way. lol

[DigitalPunk]

LoL, Sounds like I should of picked your brain more before I started my build lol.

Though one thing concerns me, its seems Bill must of been in my home today. I got home and all the glue had pulled free from the Silicone and fallen into the tank. I walked into the door and so Bill's prophecy come true and turned right around, walked through the -25 degree air to my car and drove to HD and bought more stay foam lol

[Mentat]

...The vine you made was pretty inventive, except, unless you removed the copper core from the coax cable, with the humidity inside the tank, the copper is going to slowly corrode and poison the tank, no matter what you do. Water vapor has a tendency to get in places you wouldn't believe...

Good tip Bill !

[DigitalPunk]

Spray foam was applied to the exposed silicon on the sides last night. I'll stick it with a tooth pick when I get him to check for gooey parts. If everything goes good I will begin applying titebond 3 to it tonight.


Also on the list tonight is getting quarantine ready for the two baby RETF that will be delivered on Friday and getting a container setup for the 500 crickets that will be delivered tomorrow morning.

[Heatheranne]

Looking great so far...just take your time. I let my foam dry at least 3 days, especially if its chilly.

Might want to sand down those wood areas that stick out. Red eyes will leap across the whole tank with one hop... Yikes! Just to be safe.

FYI, I too use paper towel bottom. You can do a false bottom but you have to keep it very clean. They tend to get sicker and easier than many species. The goal with them is prevention .
Red eyes and most tree frogs don't like substrate on their feet. It makes it hard for them to cling onto things and climb. Large leaf litter might help.

A glass feeding bowl is very helpful too .

You're going to love them . They're so cute and silly .

[DigitalPunk]

Thanks Heather!

The wood will get sanded for sure. A few of them are a tad to pointy. I have cuts on my hands to prove it

The substrate will be covered by Sphagnum moss and that covered by leaf litter. I am also going to order some springtails to put in the ABG mix to help keep everything cleaner, but will continue to check daily for poop and clean it out.

We did a glass bowl for the last couple of days and it has been hit or miss. They don't seem to enjoy it as much as hunting so we might switch back to that. They very rarely if ever leave anything alive and on the off chance they miss one I have been collecting it and putting it back in the colony so it can tell stories of the 2 green giants that ate all his friends lol.

We already do love them. My Wife is the frog over, We got them for her and I have fallen in love with them as well.

[Riptide]

One thing that might help with the Tightbond is to mix the coconut and/or peat into the glue then once you have a nice slurry apply it to the background. I found that this gives it a much more consistent and uniform look, at least it did for me. This way might help you blend the sections together too.

The tank is looking great! :-)

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[DigitalPunk]

Bought a new soaking bowl for terrarium last night from LLL Reptile. It is designed to be buried in the substrate and has a rim around the top edge. My idea (if I can pull it off) is to mold the bottom of it using spray foam and then attach the mold to the side of the tank so the water dish can sit down in the mold and be elevated off the bottom of the tank as well. This of course will depend on how small the bowl is when it gets delivered and how heavy it is.

I covered one side of the tank in Titebond 3 last night at 5PM. I will let that all dry till Saturday days and then spot check it to see if it is cured. If it is I will clean off the excess coco fiber and then coat the other side and let it dry till Wednesday. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but it really hasn't changed since the last one. A bit more foam has been added and then seemingly endless Titebond lol. I'll add pictures on Sat before I put the next coat of Titebond 3 down.


Trying to get it to a resting point by this Sunday. I am going out of town for 3 days and would like to have a fresh coat of Titebond setup to dry the night before so the project can keep "moving forward" while I am out of town lol.

I am struggling with the waterfall concept right now. I am anxious to get the Titebond phase done so I can test the waterfall and see how it will function in reality. I am hoping no carving/shaping needs to be done to the back wall to get the water to flow properly. The only real question mark I have is if I am going to cut another pool into the floor of the terrarium for the water to flow down into or if I will just create a sort of false wall in the substrate and let the water run down between it and the wall into the false bottom.. I need to test it and see before I make up my mind.

Riptide - Yeah that is what i have been doing. I have found the thicker I make it the better it sticks to the spray foam and doesn't slowly run off the peaks of the foam into the small valleys. Hopefully this is the last coat on this side of the tank.

[Riptide]

Riptide - Yeah that is what i have been doing. I have found the thicker I make it the better it sticks to the spray foam and doesn't slowly run off the peaks of the foam into the small valleys. Hopefully this is the last coat on this side of the tank.

Oh cool, I misunderstood then. I thought you were applying the glue then just pushing coconut into it.

[DigitalPunk]

I do push more fiber into it. though hind site being what it is on my next tank will be applying several coats before I put more fiber on top of it. Noob mistake on my part I won't be repeating . I do appreciate your advice and willingness to offer it up. Love how involved everyone on this forum is!

[DigitalPunk]

Been a seemingly slow week on the build. I didn't see the point on posting updates about doing touchup coats of Titebond III + Coco Fiber. This weekend marked the last or next to last coats of Titebond III

I ordered a new water dish for the new terrarium. The idea I have in my head is to have it be removable but connected to the side of the tank and be easily removed for cleaning and refilling. It came in yesterday so I started in on seeing if I could make it work.

Here is the dish

Next I wrapped it in plastic sandwich wrap and then laid it top down on another piece of plastic wrap and then covered it in Great Stuff

I let it dry for 24 hours, but the plastic wrap was keeping the parts it was touching sticky still so I removed the plastic wrap to let the rest get some air. Here are several photos of it.

Later tonight I will start shaving the mold down to a much be much slimmer. Then I will work on attaching it to the inside of the terrarium. Though I might titebond it all up first then attach it so I don't have to fight to get it in all the angles with the vine and sticks in place already.

Also I stood the tank up today and dusted most of the loose Coco fiber out. I saw a few more bare spots so I patched those with it standing up still. I also cut the hose back and disguised it with some titebond and coco fiber. Still need to test the waterfall, clean the tank, install the rest of the false bottom, plant the live plants, put in substrate, sand the points on the sticks down, and let it grow in for a few weeks. I would say I am a good 2 weeks away from planting this thing. Maybe 3 weeks.

Here it is as of this posting.

[DigitalPunk]

Oh and the new MistKing Nozzle arrived and has been installed into the tanks top.

[deranged chipmunk]

Looking good! I had one of those jacuzzis in my white's tank before I rebuilt it. They loved it, but seem to enjoy their more natural water feature they have now.

[DigitalPunk]

Be interesting to see which the Reds prefer the Jacuzzi or the water feature

[DigitalPunk]

I was out of town on a business trip and got back last night. Before I left I covered the mold in glue and cocofiber and let it dry ( I only let it dry for about 6 hours) then I attached it to the side of the tank. The reason for the short dry period is I was only aiming to cover the hard to teach areas good before getting it in the tank and fighting to fill in all the cracks. Here is how it looked while the spray foam was setting up.

I went to bed and woke up before my flight out of town and covered the spray foam in glue and coco fiber so it could dry over the 3 days I would be out of town. I snapped a picture of it on my way out the door.

So last night when I got home (after kissing the wife and kids and saying high to the 4 RETF and the MinPin. I sat down and cleaned the tank out some. Got all the fiber off the bottom of the tank and used a paint brush to knock most of the loose coco fiber off the walls. I naturally uncovered a handful of spots that needed some touch up so I addressed those. I then filled the bottom of the tank with water and began testing the water feature.

Now this is where I discovered the little pump i bought it more powerful than I gave it credit for. The pump made it look like the wall was peeing into the bottom of the terrarium. I adjusted the pump to the lowest flow setting and tested the valve to pump water out of the tank. Unfortunately I was right and I will need to plug the waterfall whole in order to force water to exit the tank. This isn't a huge issue, but a design flaw non the less. Next time I will put a valve on the waterfall so I can shut it off and force water out of the tank. To address the stream of water coming out of the wall I added a bit more spray foam around the whole and the plant pot to direct the water where I wanted it. This morning I tested the water again and it is looking much better. I took a short video of it, but will post a screen shot from the video here.

Over all I am fairly happy with the waterfall. I may do some carving on the foam tonight to try and control the flow a bit better, but out of fear of making it worse I might just leave well enough alone lol. I drained the tank and covered the new foam in cocofiber and glue. If all goes well I will be doing a final cleaning of the terrarium and will start installing the last of the false bottom and planting the tank.

[DigitalPunk]

Ok So lots of progress tonight

First I cleaned the bottom of the tank. By clean I mean i vacuumed it clean and then wiped it down.

I put the supports in and then filled in around them with Josh's Frogs False bottom. I then fit the egg crates into place. Sorry no pictures of that. I fail. I then put the Weed block down over the top of the egg crate.

To keep the waterfall water from coming into contact with the substrate I cut some of the Exo Terra foam back ground and siliconed it together to create a Dam of sorts. I then pined the Dam to the background using Tooth Pics. I found some at the local grocery store that were blunted on one end.

I then used silicone to attach some rocks to the top edge. The rocks server 2 purposes. 1. hide the top of the styrofoam 2. block off the top of the dam some to discourage the frogs from venturing down in the small void. and 3 It looks nice or 3 purposes.

I then tested the water flow to ensure the rocks didn't divert the water. Once that was done I put to bags of ABG mix into the bottom and spread it out. I then took some Sphagnum Moss and soaked it in dechlorinated water. squeezed the bulk of the water from the moss and covered the ABG Mix. I also attached the Bromeliad to the back wall just above the waterfall line using toothpicks.

Then covered it all in Leaf litter. Magnolia leaves mixed with Dwarf Magnolia leaves.

Here is a shot of the waterfallish feature with the bromeliad.

The rest will be waiting for a few days. One of the doors to the terrarium broke. The company i bought the terrarium from is sending a replacement door from the manufacturer. So we sit and wait. The Pothos and snake plants will be transplanted from the existing terrarium just before the frogs move in. I plan on letting the Bromeliad adjust to the new location for a few weeks and allow the roots to attach... assuming the toothpicks don't kill it.

[DigitalPunk]

New door will be here Monday. I discovered an issue with the waterfall and will be addressing it this weekend. The waterfall is slowly wicking water all over the background. I am going to do more carving and shaping of the waterfall and then cover that area in silicone... Not entirely sure how I will address this yet.