new to the world and am having problems

[NavyNate06]

hello everyone, i just subscribed about a week and a half ago and have been reading around a lot. i decided to undertake the task of building an elaborate viv for my wild caught green tree frog (girlfriend found her on the flightline at NAS Jacksonville in a pool of oily water, poor thing, but shes doing fine). my false bottom is turning out fine but my problem is the GS background. the GS went down fine and i was planning on using coco bark to cover it. the problem is the silicone. i'm using GE silicone 1 like what is suggested throughout the forum, however i'm using clear instead of black thinking it wouldn't make much difference. tried it, spread it over the GS and nothing seems to stick very well. i'm wondering how much everybody uses. i used most of a can on the back of a 20 tall so that should be enough. how thick should it be, or is it the clear vs. the black.

[Jason]

PPl just use black so you can tell if you've covered it well enough and makes no diff for sticking potential. the problem is if you take to long the silicone tends to skin over makeing it much harder to get the Coco fiber or anything else to stick properly, try only doing small sections of the background at a time as it only takes 5 min for the skin to take over and screw up your day, another reason ppl use black Vs clear is the clear will turn cloudy over time and makes spots you missed stick out like a sore thumb where black wont attract the eye as much. Fans or any other thing that would cause the air to move to rapidly will cause the silicone to skin over faster... hope this helps

[smaug]

Check out my viv build pics in the members galleries.I have pics that show how much sil to use.I was spreading it at least 1/16th inch thick.Good luck.

[janelc]

I have used three different colors-and I prefer the brown and/or black. It does need to be spread on pretty thick. The coco bark or moss needs to be bone dry as well to stick to the silicone. After I spread out the fairly thick layer of silicone (I or II) I take cupfuls of the coco bark and pile them on the silicone. When I used moss I took fist-sized chunks and really smooshed them down with my hands. So far, everything is sticking very, very well!!! (Including of course the silcone to my hands, my hands to anythings else, etc....)!

[froggsong]

Ugh, I used white, and if you can't get it to stick well, the white shows through... I couldn't get black at the time, but now I wish I had just gone with the black!

[NavyNate06]

well, its been a few days and i took these suggestions and put them into good use. i didn't like my background anyway so i ripped it off, cleaned the glass and redid it all. this time placing the large pieces in as it was curing (which i neglected to do last time and it didn't work at all), then used the black silicone and put plenty on(2 tubes for the back of a 20 tall). it worked out great and i need to add a few more plants. my tree frog seems to love it, also i rescued a brown anole from the cats the other day and threw it in with him, they seem to got along okay, we'll see. thank you for the help and keep the knowledge flowing. us neophites need it.

[janelc]

Allright NavyNate-sounds like you need to post some pictures!!!! We love pictures!!!

[froggsong]

That should be enough room for the anole and the GTF, they should be fine together, they inhabit the same habitat, and I have seen anoles and GTF's in the same bush before. I kept an anole with my squirrel frogs for years and they got along fine, make sure you have a nice leafy plant for the anole to hide in that will support it's weight.

[NavyNate06]

well here are a few pics. i love it but it needs a few more plants.

[froggsong]

Looks good, definitely needs more plants though. If you don't mind pruning regularly, dieffenbachia is good for GTF's and Anoles, mine always loved it (I'd stick it inthe back left corner there, looks like a good spot for one, and they like it if it's in the corner). It was my anoles favorite place in the whole tank. Your background is awesome. Just a suggestion, if I were you, I'd get a digital thermometer/hygrometer combo. They have one at walmart that is a little cheaper that measures the ambient temp and humidity, and that should be fine for the frog and anole. I think it was 6 bucks or so. I have a set of those dial ones in my dragon cage, and the humidity gage is off by like 20%. The temp gage isn't off as bad, but it isn't accurate either, and a few degrees can be a big deal.