Lucy's new home, bio-active, planted, custom background

[jjhill001]

For as long as I've been keeping reptiles and amphibians I've always wanted to be one of "those" people on the forum with a truly ambitious and awesome enclosure.

I feel like I managed that.

For the substrate I used a product called Terra Firma from thebiodude.com . I spoke with the owner at length about the product which claims to need no false bottom layer and is entirely breathable soil as long as you have the micro fauna (springtails, isopods) which will dig in the soil and aerate it.

The plant is a Korean rock fern. I think it looks pretty good and matches my inspiration well enough.

I did a run down on the hardware specifics in the enclosure forum so without any further ado I present Lucy's new slice of nature.

http://i.imgur.com/J67KygV.jpg

She wouldn't come out of her hide so I just set the whole thing in with the lid off, she's pretty bold so I knew she's explore pretty quickly.

http://i.imgur.com/mOydQIv.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/k3Ugjmq.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/teg3HHt.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/jXNBbUH.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/i2q4U8U.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/IoXiL1D.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Fzds4t8.jpg

Thanks for looking everyone.

[dave himself]

Very nice mate, amazing setup ;)

[regi375]

Looks really good!

[Tiny Boidae]

It looks great! Nice to see the queen finally has her palace ;)

[dannybgoode]

That's really nice. Excellent job. I have a few new vivs to plan - how did you make the rocks etc.

[jjhill001]

That's really nice. Excellent job. I have a few new vivs to plan - how did you make the rocks etc.

I used white construction foam in 1 or 1.5 inch this sheets (don't remember) (similar to packing foam), I used a hot knife from hotwire foam factory, I used the one with the bendable blade, but if I was doing it again I'd probably just use a straight blade for more control even though the bendable blade allowed for more random, and thus more natural looking in my opinion.

I used something called Foam Coat which is also sold at hotwirefoamfactory.com I know people will use grout and that would probably work, but this stuff is white and I wanted control of the color which I changed while mixing by adding a few drops of black/brown acrylic paint to the mix to make sure I had a decent base color. Then I went back and painted it with acrylic paint.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUwZGfHMALM

This was the tutorial video I got much of my base strategies from even though I was going for a much different look.

This gentleman seals his entire structures with a clear acrylic. He said it's to protect the background from lizard claws and so they are more durable against water and such. Personally, my snakes don't have claws and since it's a temperate species and not tropical despite having to water plants I don't think that it's going to affect the durability of the structure at all. Also that clear acrylic gives the rock a very unrealistic sheen to it.

I also didn't paint with a spray bottle, I just used acrylic craft paint and brushes.

The primary reason that I went bioactive with this enclosure is because there are quite frankly tons of nooks and crannies and spots that I just can't get to in order to clean. The bugs will have a much easier time of it. This, combined with how not environmentally friendly the substrate industry can be and as expensive as the bags of substrate have become I'll be killing two birds with one stone. If this works out I won't have to replace the substrate ever or clean it ever lol.

If this is working in 6 months I'll have no reason to not switch every animal and future animals over to this method. It's price is expensive at first but in the long run, I'll save money, help the environment by not buying wood substrate all the time and save time cleaning the dang thing.