Ok, so you guys all know about the sweet deal I got on these little guys and their tank, right? Well, I've been finished with it since Monday or so, and I figured it was about time to post the build log.
Ok, so I'm not going to post the ton of pictures I took and uploaded, but you can find the others in the Gallery in my album titled: New Anoles.
Here's the tank the way it was when I got it:
First, I took out all the fake plants and swapped that tank for the one my FBTs had been in. All of the stuff in the tank and the glass tank itself all smelled weird... Like he had sprayed cologne or maybe febreeze in the cage.
Then I masked the tank off and spray painted the first coat of black paint on the back, sides, and the bottom of the front. I used some cheap black paint I had laying around, and it didn't really have good coverage, but it served to work as a primer for the final coat of the Krylon Fusion I used later.
I played with the placement of the plants I bought for a while. Here's a shot of them in the bin I was holding them in:
I wanted to use the really cool piece of wood that came with them (you can see more pics of it in the gallery), and I noticed that it looked cool and held up well with one of the vines holding under a lip on the front of it:
Next I laid the topper on it's back on a piece of foam (I didn't have any wax paper to line the back with, and I knew I could easily peel it from the pink foam):
Then I started foaming it. I did the back first, and decided to try a new technique (for me, anyway). I have read about people just putting the covering (in my case the mix that they came with, it was mostly coco fiber with some carbon and other bits in it) straight on the uncured foam, and I thought I'd give it a try since I didn't want to have to wait for silicone to cure or even long enough for some of the other methods I could have tried with things I already have. So I piled it on thick as soon as I covered the entire back with foam and gently patted it down:
I don't recall how long I let that side cure, but I think that one was only about a half hour or so. I stuck my broms in the wood to see what it looked like, then took a closeup pic of the BG so you can see the coverage. The side I took a pic of was the side I started foaming, and it didn't stick quite as well as it did to the other side. Also, in the picture it looks like the coverage is worse than it is in person. In person you can barely see any of the foam showing through.
For the other sides of the topper, I sprinkled a layer of the soil mixture on the foam I was resting the topper on so that the GS wouldn't stick to the foam as well. I think this worked BETTER than wax paper, since you are able to pick it up and move it. I thought I had a pic of this, but I apparently didn't upload it. I do have a pic of the topper with the broms in place after foaming the other two sides. I was checking to see how the light would fall on the plants.
Now, I wanted a waterfall in the bottom, but I didn't want to do a FB. So, I got to brainstorming and looking around the house for something I could use as a reservoir. I settled on a water jug:
I ended up cutting two jugs because I cut the first one smaller than I wanted. I decided on a corner placement in the tank, then taped the jug in place with foil tape and foamed behind it to hold it in place. Then I set the plants in to see what it would look like:
Next I foamed some "roots"onto the back of the glass tank, covered them in the soil mix, and started foaming and covering the jug (you can see the wood I used in the bottom of the tank really well in this shot):
After that, I tried out the plants again, and had to move them around from what I had originally intended due to how much the foam on the jug expanded. Here's a pic of all the plants in place with the topper on, before planting and before painting the outside of the foam and glass tank.
Now, making the damed waterfall was a PIMA... I apparently didn't take a pic of the rocks I foamed together BEFORE they started breaking into pieces, but I do have a pic of them in the finished waterfall. Before I post that, I'll go over what I did a bit.
I had my rocks foamed together with GS, which I carved away for the most part. I did leave some of the foam on the rock in the hope that it would grow algae or maybe moss, if I decided to put some there. The opening I left in the jug for the rocks hadn't been tested out with them because the foam had been curing, so I knew beforehand that I would have to trim some of the jug away. I ended up having to cut away quite a bit of the jug, and because of that I had to foam over it again and cover in the soil mixture. I ended up breaking my rocks (I think they might be shale... I horrible choice, but all I had at the time) several times, and having to improvise to keep them in place while still having them removable. In the end, the waterfall got clogged because I was having trouble getting all of the soil mixture out of the jug from when I had to cover the foam. It's currently not running at all, but I do plan to fix it sometime soon. Here's the pic of it running before it died. I had to use the seashell to direct the flow of water so that it didn't spray all the way across the tank:
Here's a shot of the finished tank (sorry for the reflection):
And here are some pics of the guys enjoying their new home! (and yes, they are both guys... I'm going to have to sell one sometime soon... I guess I'll wait and see if they start having territorial issues).
What do you guys think? If you have any questions, let me know!
Bahama Anole 10G w/topper build log w/pics
Linear Mode
