Fishfur
New Member
I started this last fall and at the rate I’m going it may not be done until next fall but such is life.
The enclosure is an 18”x18”x24” ZooMed terrarium with a screen top & front opening door.
What I can see in my mind’s eye is a deteriorating stone cliff face with a trickle of water running down to a little stream that will run along the back and then along one side where it will widen into a sort of pond.
I’ll use rubber membrane & butyl tape to build the support for the water & the pond will be a few inches deep at least.
There will need to be a water reservoir on top of the enclosure plus a smaller one with a pump in it (a LocknLock box with barbed bulkheads to let water move and will sit on the bottom glass with the drainage layer) I’ll use RO tubing to conduct the water.
I wanted an actual stone wall, not a replica. So I cut an inch thick slab of dark grey foam insulation to fit the back of the enclosure snugly.
I’m carving out chunks of it to allow me to partially embed chunks of slate in it, using brown gorilla glue to keep them anchored.
I sucked up the glue into some 50 ml slip tip syringes, which gives me very good control over where glue goes & how much I use. It’s a vast improvement over using it from the bottle.
The syringe also prevents any air from getting at it - I cap the slip tip on the syringe after pushing out any air bubbles - so I expect I won’t lose any because it started to cure in the syringe - an annoying problem that happens with glues like this.
Some of the stones had to be pushed all the way through the foam and this dark grey insulation foam board is a lot softer & less dense than the pink stuff - but I really wanted this dark grey colour in case any of it showed later.
I’ve determined that I will have to glue a slab of the stronger & denser pink foam insulation board to the back of the grey stuff to have any hope of installing the wall in one piece.
I’m hoping a few strategically embedded largish Neodymium magnets will serve to keep the wall in place once it is installed. It’s going to weigh something like 15 kg or so, I think.
Once I get the wall in place I can start working on the land features & the waterfall/stream/pond & plumbing.
Pics don’t show much. But it’s enough, I hope, to show how the wall will be. Sorting out which pieces to put where takes an awful lot of time - like assembling a puzzle without being able to see any of the colours in the scene!
Below is one section with glued in stones.
The enclosure is an 18”x18”x24” ZooMed terrarium with a screen top & front opening door.
What I can see in my mind’s eye is a deteriorating stone cliff face with a trickle of water running down to a little stream that will run along the back and then along one side where it will widen into a sort of pond.
I’ll use rubber membrane & butyl tape to build the support for the water & the pond will be a few inches deep at least.
There will need to be a water reservoir on top of the enclosure plus a smaller one with a pump in it (a LocknLock box with barbed bulkheads to let water move and will sit on the bottom glass with the drainage layer) I’ll use RO tubing to conduct the water.
I wanted an actual stone wall, not a replica. So I cut an inch thick slab of dark grey foam insulation to fit the back of the enclosure snugly.
I’m carving out chunks of it to allow me to partially embed chunks of slate in it, using brown gorilla glue to keep them anchored.
I sucked up the glue into some 50 ml slip tip syringes, which gives me very good control over where glue goes & how much I use. It’s a vast improvement over using it from the bottle.
The syringe also prevents any air from getting at it - I cap the slip tip on the syringe after pushing out any air bubbles - so I expect I won’t lose any because it started to cure in the syringe - an annoying problem that happens with glues like this.
Some of the stones had to be pushed all the way through the foam and this dark grey insulation foam board is a lot softer & less dense than the pink stuff - but I really wanted this dark grey colour in case any of it showed later.
I’ve determined that I will have to glue a slab of the stronger & denser pink foam insulation board to the back of the grey stuff to have any hope of installing the wall in one piece.
I’m hoping a few strategically embedded largish Neodymium magnets will serve to keep the wall in place once it is installed. It’s going to weigh something like 15 kg or so, I think.
Once I get the wall in place I can start working on the land features & the waterfall/stream/pond & plumbing.
Pics don’t show much. But it’s enough, I hope, to show how the wall will be. Sorting out which pieces to put where takes an awful lot of time - like assembling a puzzle without being able to see any of the colours in the scene!
Below is one section with glued in stones.
