clay is easy and fun ... especially when it comes time to start planting stuff. instead of trying to dig holes in foam and tie/wire things to the walls, you just mush them into the clay and you're done!

It's very simple, as well ... here goes.

Go to your local pottery store (if you can find one) and pick up sodium bentonite and redart clay. If you can't find the clay anywhere, you can go to petco and buy "dr. elsey's 100% clay kitty litter (non-perfumed)". This is just sodium bentonite clay, and if you soak it, it turns right back into mush again...

If you have the sodium bentonite and redart, you'll want to play with them some and mix the two until you get the right color (totally to your preference). When you're mixing it up, you want to mix in some milled sphagnum moss and peat moss. The organics help hold things together, as well as start coloring up and growing live moss right out of your clay which looks great. Final ratio should be about 3/4 clay 1/4 organics. If you put in too many organics, they will decompose over time and your clay might fall apart...

Mix it up and work the moisture out of it until its about the consistency of modeling clay, then just slam it in the viv. If it's too wet, it'll slide right off, if it's too dry, it'll crack and fall off. Since you're building for darts, you'll already be keeping the humidity up high, and the clay will be in good shape. If you leave the tank open and let it dry out, it'll crack and fall off...

One thing to note, after you set it up... You'll want to let it sit for a while before you run water directly over it. It needs time to develop "biofilms". But eventually you can slowly increase the amount of watering and turn it in to a continuous flow if you want a drip wall or something like that...

here's an old photo of a clay wall viv i did before it was completely covered in plants...


a lot of people have done lots of cool stuff with it. one guy i saw broke up a bunch of cork into little pieces and mushed it into the wall like a mosaic ... it was really cool and the plants looked very happy. wish i could find that post... somewhere on dendroboard.

-brett