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KC's DIY'd Vivarium.

Well, my crazy week/weekend is over and I can begin doing more with the vivarium, finally!

My burrow looks to be fully dried and is likely ready to paint and seal up, though, speaking of seal, I was wondering if I should be thinking about sealing my driftwood.

Obviously, the driftwood will need to be cleaned regularly and I do not want to damage it because I picked the pieces by hand and put a lot of work into them to prepare and sterilize them! I don't want them to get potentially damaged. Is there a risk there for leaving them in their natural state?

Also, I have to share a story from this evening, even though it is a bit off of the topic and I do not yet have a progression thread for the baby that I don't even have yet!

I don't like going to pet stores, especially chain stores, but my brother and I were in the city and he had to stop at Petco for a reason that I can't even recall because I ran out of there jumping and skipping!

I headed straight for the reptiles hoping to browse and watch them. I love to watch them! Well, what do you know, the reptile attendant had the snake drawer open. I asked her if they had any corns in one of the tanks and she said they sure did! I was so excited that I didn't even ask the girl before bothering to sift through the aspen shavings, looking for hatchlings in hiding. I really surprised myself because I went into the tank with absolute confidence and no fear of any tiny velcro snakes!

It only took a few seconds to unearth a coil of hatchlings. I immediately spotted an anery hatchling and scooped that precious thing up gently and brought it to my chest. It looked up at me curiously, tongue flicking away before it began to weave between my fingers and slither over my hands very calmly. Here I was expecting a flighty response, but it was so calm and seemed content to be handled. It even curled its tail around my pinky and lifted it's head up to prop on my fingertip for a bit to check things out. Then, it curled up in the warmth of my palm for a good five minutes before I was getting yelled at by my brother to come along and get out of there.

It was so heart breaking to put that precious thing back. I just wanted to hold it and be content until my girl hatches! It was such an adorable, tiny, and CALM little thing. I can only pray that I manage to find a hatchling with such a great personality.

Now I really have the drive to get this vivarium done!
 
I didn't want to give the impression that I disappeared, so I wanted anyone that cared to know that I am still here and slowly but surely working on Maya's vivarium!

She is ready to come home now and I am planning on picking her up next weekend, so I really have a fire under my bum now!

Today was more work on the rock background. It is the biggest project of the entire vivarium by far and is the only thing that really must be completed this week so that she can go into her vivarium right away. I can work on other small projects like more hides and decorations once she is here and settled in.

Pics to come!
 
Looking forward to pics!

I always find that wherever I go, my mind is seeing tank decor possibilities in every little thing. I love your 'peekaboo' hide. I've done something similar with with clay for my snakes, but I like the look of yours better. I might have to go get some clay now!
 
Thank you, hypno! I think the little hide will end up getting covered in styrofoam to blend in with the background, so appearances won't matter much. The only thing I'm hoping for is that the general concept works out! We'll see!

An old fish tank decoration caught my eye at the thrift store the other day that I brought home to paint and see if it can be worked into the vivarium in some way. I've got those "I can use this for (insert anything and everything here)!" goggles as well.

Alright, well, the first stage of the background is finished! All of the foam is cut, carved, glued, and fitted.

Here's a picture halfway through the process:

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By the time I was finally done, it was dark out and my cell phone was having a hard time getting a decent picture, but here is a fuzzy one with the background sitting flush inside of the tank:





I have a little room at the top because I was working with the width that the foam panels came in. (I'll get a picture of those later, probably, but I can't remember the dimensions off the top of my head!) I will probably just fill that with greenery.

Tomorrow, I start grouting!
 
Here we are with two coats of grout! I knew that I would lose detail with each layer which is why I really dug into the styrofoam and exaggerated the rockiness. It's filling in like I thought it would, so hopefully I don't end up having to go in and sand down some points.

I'm not sure how many layers of grout I'll end up with, but the rain only let me get two coats in today!

 
Alright, the newest picture is here! The final layer of grout was applied earlier today (Or I suppose yesterday now that it is past midnight here in EST.) and it's very interesting to go back and compare it to the first picture.

I knew that I would lose a lot of detail as the grout layers accumulated and it looks like I was right. I carved and carved to the point where I thought I had done too much, but it ended up just right in the end. The grout really adds up and you lose a good deal of detail with each layer. Now that I'm happy with the grout, I'm let it sit all day today and all of tonight before I apply a layer of spray-on grout sealer.

The grout sealer is not a step that is in any of the tutorials I read, but I'm adding it "just because". I saw it when I bought the grout and the idea to seal the grout separately before applying paint sounded like a good one, so we're going to give it a try. I'll spray the sealer on in the morning before I go to work and hopefully start painting the base layer of color tomorrow night so that the entire thing can be painted, sealed and dry with enough time to de-fume before I install it in the vivarium at the very last minute before Maya comes home!

Whew!

 
Two layers of paint on now! It's outside to dry and then I'll look at it in a few hours under different light to see where I still need to add highlighting details before I seal.

 
If it looks like I am decoupaging Eco Earth on my clay hide, then yes, this is exactly what it looks like.



Paint wasn't sticking to the slick surface of the clay and the idea of covering it with EE and then sealing it came over me before I had the chance to go sand the thing down and try again. As soon as it dries, I'll seal the entire thing over so that it's water-resistant. Or at least hopefully.
 
Sitting here waiting for you. I'm looking forward to seeing her in her new home; it looks like Corn Manor Estates going on there lol.

I may as excited as Kirsten, but maybe not ;)
 
Looks great! I have a couple questions though, if you don't mind :) What kind of clay did you get (saw it was air dried?) and where did you get it from? I'm not imaginative enough to go to craft stores often, so I'm kinda clueless when it comes to stuff like that. Does it say non toxic or something on it? And the what kind of sealant and the foam and grout stuff did you use? Looking at this thread makes me want to spruce up my guys vivs and make them even nicer, but want to make sure I get the right stuff so I don't accidentally poison my snakes! :( would be awful if that happened. Can't wait to see more updates :)
 
Christi, you definitely need to go for it! It's a blast to work on these little projects! I'll be putting more pictures up soon, but I can do a run-down for you!

First, the clay I used was Crayola brand air-dry clay. This can usually be found at Walmart and doesn't need a special trip to a craft store. Make sure it's just air-dry clay and not their "Model Magic" product. It is non-toxic. The trick is to not make anything too thin. Thicker pieces obviously take longer to dry out, but I don't regret waiting two weeks for my cave to dry out! It's very sturdy. The surface ended up being a bit slick, so if you want to just paint the outside, it needs to be lightly sanded so that the paint will stick. Instead, I just decoupaged Eco Earth on it and sealed it in.

The sealant (for everything!) is Mod Podge. You can get it in several different finishes. It's just a non-toxic sealer. It isn't water tight, but it is water resistant. You don't want to make a water dish with it, I don't think!

For the background, you just get styrofoam sheets from a home improvement store. It's in the insulation section. While you're there, you pick up a bag or box of unsanded grout. I bought a can of "grout sealant" as well, but I highly doubt it's necessary. I guess I just wanted another layer between the grout and the paint job.

The paint I used is just plain acrylic paint from the craft store (or craft section of Walmart) which is non-toxic as well. Then, sealed up with a few coats of matte Mod Podge! The matte finish Mod Podge is still a bit shiny, but much less so than their gloss. I still haven't decided if I am going to do another coat of that and sprinkle sand on it before it dries like some of the online tutorials suggest. Apparently that takes shine off.

Just go for it! It's fun to play around with clay, rip foam up, make a mess, etc! It really helps put a personal touch on your vivarium if you have tanks rather than tub set-ups.

I hope that I answered your questions! If not, ask anything! Anyone can do this, really. It doesn't take much money, time, or skill. Easy-peasy.
 
Thanks so much!! You def answered all my questions and I really appreciate it! I really want to try this now. I think I'll do the clay first and see how that works and go from there! Sounds like a lot of fun and will be really cool to have special stuff I made for my guys :) We've used the excavator clay zoo med makes before (well my bf did lol) in one of our beardie tanks and in the leopard gecko's tank, so maybe we can incorporate some of that in too :)
 
I'm really glad that you are giving it a go! The clay is very easy to work with and behaves a lot like regular potter's clay and you can use the exact same techniques to do pretty much whatever you want. As long as you don't make anything too elaborate and no thinner than 1/4", it's really great stuff. I also let it sit way longer than the directions on the tub, obviously, but that's mainly because my cave walls are maybe closer to 1/2".

I read a lot of reviews on the clay before I bought it (even though it isn't expensive at all) and some of them were really negative, saying that it breaks so easily, cracks, etc. They usually follow that up with stating that they were trying to make a pendant for a necklace or something like that! Well, duh!
 
Now that the hide is done and just needs a bit more time to "cure" (It's already dry to the touch, but I just want to be sure that it's nice and hard throughout since the coats of sealer were thick!), I snapped a few pictures with my cell phone.

For reference, here is that first picture again when I coated the clay with Eco Earth:



Then, another coat of sealer (Mod Podge) leaves it looking like this:



As it dries, the coat gets clear and less shiny. Even after it is dry to the touch, this continues to happen as that thick layer cures throughout. This is honestly best done outside as long as it is warm and isn't raining or extremely humid. It really speeds the process up.





I have a close-up of what this whole process does in terms of the "finish" that you'll get. I think it's kinda cool!




After it cures for another day or so and I get it installed, I'll end up "dusting" it over with some fresh Eco Earth so that it becomes more of a burrow like I designed rather than just a hide. As neat as the final texture is, I really only did that to make it water resistant for easier cleaning and to help it blend in better as substrate shifts and whatnot.

Rest assured that there will be more pictures once it's installed! As everything gets put together, I'll get my "real" camera out so that we can be done with these crappy cell phone pictures!
 
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