30 Cube Build - Custom Foam & LED

[TJ_Burton]

Well, I have decided to start up another enclosure (seeing as I love to wait at least a month after setup before adding any amphibians). This is hopefully going to be the home to a trio/quartet of Camo/Panama 'Green & Bronze' Auratus, or a small colony (6 or so) Mantella madagascariensis, whichever becomes available to me first. I am going to do a few more enclosures after this anyways so I know I will end up with both eventually!

- The enclosure is an Oceanic 30gal glass aquarium - I am not a big fan of working on enclosures from top-access, but the tank was sitting in the basement and had never been set up as the aquatic planted tank it was meant to be, so why let it go to waste?

- Lighting is a Marineland Reef Capable LED (likely overkill and might need to be downgraded to their Double Bright LED fixture).

- Background is going to be constructed from Malaysian driftwood, Tetra Waterfall Sealant (Black Expanding Foam), black aquarium silicon, and a mixed substrate (yet to be decided).

- The cover to the aquarium was custom made by myself from 1/4" glass, black stripping, and standard screening for windows and doors.

This is my first time working with this expanding foam, and I quickly learned layering too much in one shot will cause the first hardened layer to rupture somewhere and start "bleeding" the wet foam underneath. This created some interesting effects though so I am not too worried about it. It just means the foam doesn't cure as densely as it should have.

Here are some cruddy pics of how it is coming so far (obviously not sitting upright):







I will post better pics after it has cured, and as it progresses.

[BethInAK]

i rather like the drippy down bit - is that the "bleeding" part? I think its interesting and could be really interesting.

I like the cube thing and think a front door interferes with the "cube aesthetic" if you know what I mean? I'm sure its more of a paint to manage, but it looks cool!

Whats in the incubator down on the left?

[TJ_Burton]

Originally Posted by BethInAK

i rather like the drippy down bit - is that the "bleeding" part? I think its interesting and could be really interesting.

I like the cube thing and think a front door interferes with the "cube aesthetic" if you know what I mean? I'm sure its more of a paint to manage, but it looks cool!

Whats in the incubator down on the left?

I'll have to post another photo when I get home - it looks pretty cool and I will likely keep some of it (just trim it down a bit).

As for the incubator,
Right now it has a couple clutches of leopard gecko eggs (my housemate breeds them) but it will also have a couple clutches of western hognose eggs in the near future

[TJ_Burton]

Here it is from the front before carving - the pile of foam in the bottom right corner will be dremelled into a bowl shape for water to collect.

[TJ_Burton]

I spent a couple hours carving the foam last night. It is coming along quite well, even though it isn't turning out exactly as I had envisioned (although it never does).

After carving into the top portion of the background to create a ledge for the frogs to give them more space to claim territories, I found the background to be very hollow and porous. This is obviously not a good thing for both structural integrity and for the possibility of frogs or food getting stuck behind the background.
I also decided to create more floors pace on the middle level by patching up a whole between the driftwood and the cork bark using some plastic mesh “Gutter Guard” and more spray foam. It worked like a charm and turned out very strong.

I now need to do a bit more carving and rinse everything off before starting the silicon/substrate coverage of the foam.

I will post pics of the progress later today!

[TJ_Burton]

Photos for previous post!

before carving:


before & after shots:
Left side


Right side


The porous & hollow portions of foam:


Gutter guard platform before foam:

[TJ_Burton]

Here are some updates:









And here is the new Aquatic Life HOT5 4 bulb fixture, only the LED moonlights on

[Dalton]

It's looking good. Out of curiostiy, are you going to try to have your water run down the branch on the left into the "cup" or something else. You just mentioned that the foam at the bottom was going to be a water catch and I thought it would look cool that way, but I didn't know if there was a channel the water would stay in and if it would land in the bowl.