Caveat: Don't bother trying to use Picasa web albums. I just switched to photobucket, and did what I needed in like 5 minutes.
Started by sizing up all my bits, including the PVC piping I plan on using to enable easier access to electrical and whatnot in case I ever need to replace the pump:
http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/u..._loglayout.jpg
Finally got settled with a basic idea of where I wanted stuff to be by laying it all down on the front of the tank:
Once I was happy with the layout, I mocked up a little template that I could refer to once the messy stuff got underway. The hard part was going to be hiding the pump under the waterfall while maintaining access:
Then the fun part starts. Started with applying a good layer of silicon to the sides to hide the eventual buildup of Great Stuff expanding foam:
The view from the top, with the waterfall path being held in place by the cap of the GS:
Once I marked out exactly where the hose for the waterfeed would have to go, I zap-strapped it to the back of the tank before I started to apply the expanding foam. I left a good 8 inches spare on the top so I could cut it back once the 'upper pond' of the water fall had been created. (I would find out later that this method would prove to be a mistake, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.) I also tacked into place a space holder for the waterfall elevation using the shell of a pen cut to length:
With the bottom end of the waterhose sealed off with plastic, I layed down the backwall. At the time, I couldn't find Great Stuff near me, so I used "Mono Foam", which -- as it turns out -- doesn't expand any where near as much, but leaves a great 'organic' texture.
Once that had cured overnight, I continued on with a second coat in areas where I planned on having the first bits of cork bark attached. I also layed the PVC pipe down in the back corner and after stuffing the bottom end of the pipe with a plastic bag, finished the first layer of Great Stuff:
At this point, I needed to start to define the negative space behind the front of the waterfall area where the pump would hide. I figured a plastic bag filled with crumpled up newspaper and the wrapped in saran wrap would be easy enough to extract after filling around the outside of it with Great Stuff.
I also got the first of the little 2" pots inserted for where the bromeliads are going to be mounted:
You can see from the bottom that it appears to be working out. (In the future, I would make the negative space much much larger.):
Now we're getting somewhere. I put the tank vertically again and taped a piece of string to the lip so I could hang and mark out where the big chunk of cork bark would sit.
It's kinda hard to see from this angle, but from the top down there was a larger gap than I expected where I'm expecting the waterfall to start from. The little pen wasn't going to work:
So, I cut off the pen and sprayed a thin bead down of Great Stuff, hoping I could slowly build up the height required. Once the first 'thin bead' expanded into a big fat sea cucumber, I realized that THAT wasn't going to work, so I needed to channel the expansion somehow. I grabbed some bamboo skewers from the kitchen drawer. Turns out they work perfectly to use for elevations, and the sharp ends pierce the cured Greatstuff nicely, and you can basically pre-engineer the channel:
Bottom view of the same:
Pressing tinfoil into the shape I want the upper surface of the waterchannel to be:
Another series of bamboo skewers for the bottom limit, and some more tinfoil held in place with crumpled newspaper:
Spray down the bead along the inside of the foil...
After about 1/2 hour, while the great stuff was still tacky but mostly set, I pulled the foil off:
That was pretty much the first little bit done. I realized that once I got the corkbark in place and mounted, I'd have a really hard time getting my arm into the lower half of the tank to silicon and coco-husk, so I got that part done. Using the GE II Black silicon, and dried coco-husk, I plastered the bottom half that will be under the waterfall area.
-- By the way, I bought the brick of coco-husk and soaked it. Of course, you end up with a huge bucket full of very wet husk, which totally won't stick to the silicon. It needs to be BONE dry. I found the best method was to spread a relatively thin layer on a couple of cookie sheets, and leave them in a 250 degree oven for about an hour. Opening the door of the oven every now and then to stir it around and let the humidity out seemed to help.
At this point, it was time to finally mount and seal up the front cork bark of the waterfall area. The channel from the bamboo skewers worked quite well, and I only had to sneak the nozzle of the Great Stuff in under the cork. I used an empty toilet paper tube to apply enough pressure from the front wall of the tank to keep the cork in place:
Of course, at this point, I realized that I forgot to place the rest of my little planter cups, so I brought out my trusty Dremel to cut into the back wall:
Once the Great Stuff behind the waterfall cork, I used the dremel to cut down into it for the initial pond area that the water would fill into before (hopefully) coursing down the bamboo skewer path way:
Also Dremeled little flattened steps along the bamboo so that could more easily place some black slate steps:
After going chimp-with-a-hammer on some black slate tiles I got from the local tile place (they usually have a bin in the back with broken tiles they can't sell. Got them for free.) I had enough little chips to work with. I layed them out dry first to see where they'd be happiest fitting:
Out with the trusty silicon again, I totally slathered on a thick layer all along the inside of my drilled out waterfall area, and all down along the waterway. I squished the slate chips into place, and then sprinkled black sand all over it, pressing it into the silicon with my finger tip.
After that, I coco-husked the rest of the back, and pressed some rocks into the back of the waterfall area...:
And that's as far as I've got so far. We went up to Hawaiian Botanicals on the weekend and picked up 3 Broms, a handfull of airplants, some live sphagnum moss and a couple other plants that I'll mention in my next post, but I am super excited to be moving on!
Custom sized terrarium build log with pics
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