ArachnidSentinl
Arachnoknight
- Joined
- May 26, 2009
- Messages
- 299
I've been in the hobby for a little over a decade -- on and off at times due to grad school, life, etc. I spent a lot of those years working evenings, nights, and holidays, lurking AB/Reddit/whatever, telling myself that I'll finally get around to some of the exotics projects I've been wanting to do once I graduate, buy a house, and have the time/space. Long story short, it's time to cash in on that delayed gratification!
I recently renovated a space in my basement for a hobby room, and now that it's mostly completed (just need to add some trim and baseboard), I moved my inverts in and have started construction on my first rack of enclosures. The rack itself is a ULINE H-1750-86 48 x 24 x 86" black wire shelving unit, with usable shelf dimensions of approx. 44" x 23.5". I have it extending perpendicular to the wall, the idea being that I can run a row of enclosures on each side (gives me about 12" of depth). My goal is to fill the two tops shelves with planted/bioactive, glass arboreal enclosures, maximizing the shelf space and achieving some semblance of seamlessness and symmetry (terrestrial enclosures to follow and fit below, but I'm not 100% sure what I want to do with that yet). I've decided on 8x vertically-oriented 10 gallon aquariums on the top shelf, and 10 vertically-oriented 5.5 gallon aquariums beneath.
I've done plenty of sculpted backgrounds in my day through all conceivable means. My impatience has made speed a priority (I want to get these up and planted asap), thus I've settled on the good ol' fashioned spray foam technique. I headed out to several nearby Petcos, cleared the shelves of 5's and 10's (dollar per gallon ftw!), and got to work. I've never done a mass batch of these before; it's murder on the back! At any rate, some shots of the initial silicone applied, then after spray foam, silicone, and coco fibre:
Since speed is the name of the game, here, I got lazy with carving away the hard shell of the Great Stuff. It turned out it wasn't much of an issue, though I did go through and add some Zoo Med Terrarium Moss with some bronze-colored (brown) DAP silicone. It covered some of the patchy spots and added a nice bit of dimension:
Note that 4 of the 10 gal tanks are on the opposite side of the rack. You'll also notice that there are acrylic fronts on the 10's. Originally I had planned to construct fronts myself using pieces sourced from TAP plastics. I've built 1/8" acrylic fronts before and had trouble with warping in higher humidity enclosures. I looked into using polycarbonate, but by the time I sourced all the necessary hinges and clasps, it was beyond budget. I decided just to purchase some 1/8" 10 gallon vertical conversion kits from I Heart Geckos. They look slick, seem to have sufficient ventilation, and they're well constructed, so fingers crossed! I've never used them before, but keeping exotics is all about trying new things.
That smaller rack on the side is a ULINE H-2420-72 24 x 12 x 72" black wire shelf unit on which I house my current and regrettably meager collection (I blame grad school!) in a distastefully motley assortment of tubs and kritter keepers. That just won't do, and as this project develops, all will be rehoused in more display-oriented enclosures. Also, that larger enclosure in the back is a custom PVC snake enclosure I purchased from D.W. Geckos that currently houses my juvenile Drymarchon melanurus; he's moving to an 8ft Animal Plastics enclosure soon, which will be another big build project (stay tuned).
So at this stage of the game, I need to wait for the silicone to fully cure on everything, then I can start the hardscape on the 10's. I went to our local expo here in Chicagoland, the All Animal Expo in Wheaton, and picked up some giant cork tubes that I'll be sawing down into 14-16" pieces for hides. I also picked up some pothos, philodendron, and ivy from a local greenhouse today; I'd like to get my hands on some Ficus pumilia if I can, though. Oh! And each row will be lit with a Finnex Planted+ 24/7 HLC LED light bar, which arrive in a few days. I'm a big time fan of the 24/7 light cycle feature, but the old models never had a sufficient period of darkness. I'm told this new model is more customizable, so I expect this to look amazing when it's all lit up.
Stay tuned for more developments! As always, I'm open to comments and feedback. Any ideas what I should do with the hardscape for the 10's aside from cork rounds? Those tanks are for pokies and violaceopes, btw.
I recently renovated a space in my basement for a hobby room, and now that it's mostly completed (just need to add some trim and baseboard), I moved my inverts in and have started construction on my first rack of enclosures. The rack itself is a ULINE H-1750-86 48 x 24 x 86" black wire shelving unit, with usable shelf dimensions of approx. 44" x 23.5". I have it extending perpendicular to the wall, the idea being that I can run a row of enclosures on each side (gives me about 12" of depth). My goal is to fill the two tops shelves with planted/bioactive, glass arboreal enclosures, maximizing the shelf space and achieving some semblance of seamlessness and symmetry (terrestrial enclosures to follow and fit below, but I'm not 100% sure what I want to do with that yet). I've decided on 8x vertically-oriented 10 gallon aquariums on the top shelf, and 10 vertically-oriented 5.5 gallon aquariums beneath.
I've done plenty of sculpted backgrounds in my day through all conceivable means. My impatience has made speed a priority (I want to get these up and planted asap), thus I've settled on the good ol' fashioned spray foam technique. I headed out to several nearby Petcos, cleared the shelves of 5's and 10's (dollar per gallon ftw!), and got to work. I've never done a mass batch of these before; it's murder on the back! At any rate, some shots of the initial silicone applied, then after spray foam, silicone, and coco fibre:
Since speed is the name of the game, here, I got lazy with carving away the hard shell of the Great Stuff. It turned out it wasn't much of an issue, though I did go through and add some Zoo Med Terrarium Moss with some bronze-colored (brown) DAP silicone. It covered some of the patchy spots and added a nice bit of dimension:
Note that 4 of the 10 gal tanks are on the opposite side of the rack. You'll also notice that there are acrylic fronts on the 10's. Originally I had planned to construct fronts myself using pieces sourced from TAP plastics. I've built 1/8" acrylic fronts before and had trouble with warping in higher humidity enclosures. I looked into using polycarbonate, but by the time I sourced all the necessary hinges and clasps, it was beyond budget. I decided just to purchase some 1/8" 10 gallon vertical conversion kits from I Heart Geckos. They look slick, seem to have sufficient ventilation, and they're well constructed, so fingers crossed! I've never used them before, but keeping exotics is all about trying new things.
That smaller rack on the side is a ULINE H-2420-72 24 x 12 x 72" black wire shelf unit on which I house my current and regrettably meager collection (I blame grad school!) in a distastefully motley assortment of tubs and kritter keepers. That just won't do, and as this project develops, all will be rehoused in more display-oriented enclosures. Also, that larger enclosure in the back is a custom PVC snake enclosure I purchased from D.W. Geckos that currently houses my juvenile Drymarchon melanurus; he's moving to an 8ft Animal Plastics enclosure soon, which will be another big build project (stay tuned).
So at this stage of the game, I need to wait for the silicone to fully cure on everything, then I can start the hardscape on the 10's. I went to our local expo here in Chicagoland, the All Animal Expo in Wheaton, and picked up some giant cork tubes that I'll be sawing down into 14-16" pieces for hides. I also picked up some pothos, philodendron, and ivy from a local greenhouse today; I'd like to get my hands on some Ficus pumilia if I can, though. Oh! And each row will be lit with a Finnex Planted+ 24/7 HLC LED light bar, which arrive in a few days. I'm a big time fan of the 24/7 light cycle feature, but the old models never had a sufficient period of darkness. I'm told this new model is more customizable, so I expect this to look amazing when it's all lit up.
Stay tuned for more developments! As always, I'm open to comments and feedback. Any ideas what I should do with the hardscape for the 10's aside from cork rounds? Those tanks are for pokies and violaceopes, btw.