my first vivarium/paludarium - building process

[ori]

Hey guys! I'm building my first terrarium/paludarium and decided to share my experience. I'm not building it with any particular species in mind, I will only think about that once the work is finished. That's because there are no breeders in Brazil, due legal reasons and due the fact that I'm the only one who likes frogs here T_T
I will probably need to get one from the wild, or just go with a gecko.

The tank is 40cm x 56cm x 40cm (22 gal). It is made with 4mm "clear glass", which I glued myself.
The background is made of styrofoam and "cimento-cola", which is a mix of cement and glue. A friend of mine says he uses it in his fish tanks, so I guess it's safe. First I tried making it with grout, but it turned out being too much fragile. I think the grout i've used was of poor quality.
PS: If you are going to make something like this, give at least 2cm room each side. My background turned out being way too big and didnt fit the tank until I broke some corners. It's also too high, higher than the tank, not sure how I will put the lid in the future...



Back vision. (I'm going to pass the electric cables through this pvc tube)



Added a layer of silicone for the expansive foam to stick into.


The filter. Well, this is a idea I had and decided to try. The water will come from this larger tube and enter the plastic pot. (Is this called "pot", right? My english is quite limited so I'll call it pot). Inside the pot I will place some aquarium ceramic rings as filter media. Also I mean to put a water pump, a air pump and a ultrassonic humidifier.


Placing the expansive foam. God, that thing makes a mess, quite harder to use than ive thought.
These transparent tubes are for the water and the air pumps. I mean to use only one tube for each purpose, but placed one more as backup.


Ater curing & some trimming
Well, I didnt knew the foam was so hard. The plastic pot deformed a bit due the foam expansion and now its lid wont fit properly.



Now im trying to find a nice position for my driftwood.





Thats what I've done until now. Next step is sealing the foam with silicone.

[deranged chipmunk]

Interesting build. I look forward to seeing it go through it's various stages.


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

[DigitalPunk]

Following along as well.

[jarteta97]

I love the faux rock, consider me subscribed