Snake rack gains new life as RETF vivarium

[MCampbell]

I apologize if some of you have seen this thread on other forums. I'm a member of two other forums where I've posted this - however those two forums see little traffic whereas this forum seems to have a far livelier community. Additionally I made some MAJOR mistakes along the way so I hope some less DIY-experienced members may benefit from seeing what I did wrong and what I did right.

Here are some pics of a conversion I'm performing on a vacated snake rack of mine. I got rid of many snakes in order to concentrate on amphibian breeding. This rack is being converted to hold a group of four Red-eyed Tree Frogs. The rack was built using a stock utility cabinet sold by Home Depot. I forget the exact designation - maybe U51? Anyway the measurements were roughly 56 inches high x 28 wide x 14 deep. The tubs were underbed storage boxes made by IRIS and sold by The Container Store. Note the additon of pegboard to the back along with heating cable which was used along the back - it didn't work very well.

This photo shows the rack before the conversion started.


This photo shows the rack after the major reconfiguration. Note the lengthwise seam going through the side pieces halfway down. This was to facilitate easier moving of the unit once constructed. I live three floors up without an elevator and didn't look forward to the idea of carrying a fully set up vivarium down three flights of stairs. Note also how I've lined the inside back with a layer of 3mm Sintra glued on with Liquid Nails. The inside bottom is lined up to four inches deep with Sintra as well. All seams will be sealed with silicone except where background materials cover the seams along the back.



Finally, this shows the positioning of some of the branches before I began attaching pots for live plants and before I began applying spray foam to build up a textured background.



Made some headway on the interior by applying Great Stuff spray foam to the walls and around plastic pots. Plastic pots were hot-glued to the walls of the vivarium depending on where I wanted plants. Some plants are broad leaved and will grow upwards and outwards to hopefully provide egg laying locations over the lower aquatic portion of the cage. Smaller plants and those with a trailing habit will be placed in smaller pots higher up on the walls.

Here is the vivarium after the first couple applications of foam. Note how I've tried to create a trailing almost vinelike appearance with the foam. Later layers will be built up to achieve a multilayered look. Rather than going for a bubbly look, I'm hoping that applying the foam to different depths will ultimately acheive a more naturalistic look.



Here is yet another day and more foam applied. This day also saw the addition of three more pots bringing the total to 8 pots altogether. The three pots just are smaller pots placed higher up for the most part.



Here is a close up of one of the smaller pots that was added later. Once the foaming has been completed the drainage holes in the bottom of each pot will be punched through to allow water to drain out of the pots normally. Of course besides potted plants there will also be the addition of bromeliads which can be attached to branches with moss surrounding their roots thus allowing more live plants without needing more pots. There will also be live moss of a couple different varieties which will be grown on the larger surfaces around pots and on branches.



Right now construction is at a standstill because I have to wait for a drip irrigation manifold to arrive. This little piece will allow the addition of several water seeps throughout the vivarium. However, I can't move any farther forward because I have to lay in water lines of 1/4 inch vinyl tubing which will then be covered with foam.

Well, after a major screw up, the project is back on track. To make a long story short - the spray foam coated with silicone and peat yielded a completely fake-looking result. Not at all what I had hoped. So, I removed all the foam, threw out the branches that had gotten silicone and peat on them and started from scratch. This time I used cork bark which I had to order back after T-day which meant it took forever for the order to be processed and shipped. Anyway, I also took the time to revise my plan for the bottom of the vivarium as well. I chose instead of a totally aquatic bottom to go with a 50/50 land water setup utilizing a false bottom. I'll still have an over flow into a reservoir underneath but I haven't decided whether the filter will remain in the reservoir or if I'll put it into the actual water feature in the vivarium.

So this pic shows the disastrous results of the foam and peat experiment. Other frog keepers have seemingly had success with this method but I think the large majority use cork bark or coconut fiber mats to line the walls of vivaria.



This shows the false bottom part way through construction. I chose to make it a two-level setup with the forward portion being slightly higher allowing more room for substrate behind.



Since I was using cork bark, I was bound to have spots I couldn't cover with background so I chose to put in green contact paper for a more natural look than the glaring white walls. It has numerous wrinkles on the back but I'm not concerned since 95 percent of the back will be covered with cork bark.



This shows the cork attached to the walls and also shows that the largest portion of the false bottom can be removed if I need to for some reason. I've never liked false bottom setups that would neccessitate breaking down the entire vivarium for any type of cleaning or maintenance.



This shot shows where another piece of cork will go along the edge of the land portion of the false bottom. This will also allow for more depth of substrate behind the piece of cork. There will likely be at least one or two larger live plants potted into this area.



This final shot shows the various bromeliads and tillandsias that I purchased for the project. I also have some assorted small tropical plants for the vivarium as well. -Note- The tupperware container contains Ant plants I've raised from seed that I've been working with for a while. They're not slated to go into the frog vivarium - they're just a little side project I've been working on. They're neat but they grow so slowly!



So, there you have it up to this point. I have some synthetic tree-fiber-like material that I will be cramming into various gaps inbetween pieces of cork in addition to laying it drip lines. I also used leftover smaller pieces of cork to fashion "pots" to hold plants that will be going into the vivarium. Those have already been added in and I'll post photos of that stage shortly.

[Superfly]

Im about to start work on my viv. this weekend for a pair of RETF. What did you not like about the Great Stuff setup? It looks like it wouldnt be bad at all with the rest of the spots covered up. I liked all the branches you had in there. I hadnt seen a cork bark setup yet, that should be pretty interesting. How do you plan on waterproofing the rest of the tank, or do you have a plastic sheeting lining the walls? Im anxious to see how yours turns out. Good luck!

[MCampbell]

I didn't like the result I was getting from the foam/peat method because even if I filled in the thin spots the best result I could hope for would have been an appearance resembling something like a mud bank. I originally chose to use the foam because I had a large area to cover and I thought cork bark would be too expensive. Instead, I found that after buying three cans of foam and two tubes of aquarium silicone, not to mention the peat, I had spent as much as I would have had I just bought cork to begin with. The only vivaria I've seen that used foam and looked realistic were those that used it in conjunction with large pieces of some natural material like cork or other pieces of wood or rocks. I also think that natural materials like cork have the advantage or being a much better substrate for plants and mosses to grow on than semi-natural substrates like the foam/peat method. If you can use foam and make it look realistic, more power to you - however most of the results I've seen make me skeptical that it can yield a realistic result.

[Greg H.]

I think that part of the reasion it was looking like a mud bank, was due to the nature of the way the foam expands, in a fairly smooth rounded organic look to it, while rock and trees have a roughness / texture and more angular look to them that the foam does not have.

I bet that had you used a rasp and some carfull use of an electric carving knife, would have gone a long way to eliminated the appearance of "mud".

Thoughts?

[MCampbell]

I could have probably gotten a more realistic result if I had spent more time actively shaping the foam as it set up and after it had dried. However, at the point I chose to remove the foam I'd already decided that I wanted to use a more natural material. My sole reason for using foam to begin with was that I thought cork bark would be too expensive. Obviously the time and money spent on the foam method proved that for this size of enclosure cork bark was no more expensive than the foam method. Also, at the point I'm at in the construction I am far more satisfied with the cork bark than I feel I would've been had I stuck with the foam method. I've seen several examples of foam/peat vivaria and with very few exceptions I think they've not looked terribly realistic. The best examples are similar to the tutorial on the Black Jungle website in that they use large pieces of wood with foam accounting for a small overall percentage of the background material.