Need to Pick Your Brains on a Water Feature for a Terrarium

[Learner]

Originally Posted by Wy Renegade

Good idea. I've been considering/wondering if I exposed it to controlled heat, say like with a heat gun, if I could kind of control the warpage and mold it into the shape I desire? Then I could add foam and maybe try the titebond method to make the foam look more natural on the edge/outside and add sand and rock to the bottom.

I have done this a couple of times and used GS to make the edges look more natural. You wont even have to heat it at all, jsut carve it to look good. I kept the lip on mine since most tupperware will warp. You can insert small, flat slate rocks to the almost dried GS along with small driftwood pieces to further its natural look.

I have an ultrasonic fogger and it will be devastating to any critter. The frequency is intense and the water is quite warm at the source of the vibrations. It takes some work to conceal them since most of them have a bright red light when turned on that radiates in every direction. They are mostly used inside fake waterfalls where they are completely hidden. I did a little DIY project to try and keep one in my newt build. I used a a 2" piece of PVC with a notch cut out for the cord. I kryloned it black and then hot glued a thick plastic screen over the top to keep the critters out. Also kryloned black. Trick is to only hot glue one edge so that you can lift up the screen like a flap to access the fogger. It worked well.
I hvae some of that weird screen left. I have no idea where to find it. It works perfect for this application and I hvae never seen it since. I found it in my classroom one day in the deep dark recesses of the science stock room. Who knows.........its probably 20 years old. I can easily put a piece in an envelope and send it to you if you want. Just pm me if your interested. good luck and keep us all posted!!

JD

[lochaber]

Originally Posted by Learner

They are mostly used inside fake waterfalls where they are completely hidden. I did a little DIY project to try and keep one in my newt build. I used a a 2" piece of PVC with a notch cut out for the cord. I kryloned it black and then hot glued a thick plastic screen over the top to keep the critters out. Also kryloned black. Trick is to only hot glue one edge so that you can lift up the screen like a flap to access the fogger. It worked well.
I hvae some of that weird screen left. I have no idea where to find it. It works perfect for this application and I hvae never seen it since. I found it in my classroom one day in the deep dark recesses of the science stock room. Who knows.........its probably 20 years old. I can easily put a piece in an envelope and send it to you if you want. Just pm me if your interested. good luck and keep us all posted!!

JD

Something similar that I have done to keep critters out of waterfalls/homemade filters is to use a piece of pvc like you mentioned, and instead of gluing the screen/mesh directly to it, get a pvc coupling, and glue the screen to that, it should slip-fit over the other piece of pvc, making a lid that's accessible, yet keeps the critters out. As to plastic mesh, I've used the plastic canvas that they sell in craft stores, I think it's made of nylon and typically white/natural colored, though I have seen black (and other colors) numerous times. pretty inexpensive and pretty useful.

[keithy]

what about using clay, like pottery clay of some sort? that way you can shape it however you want.

[Fishies_in_Philly]

Originally Posted by keithy

what about using clay, like pottery clay of some sort? that way you can shape it however you want.

It would have to be fired in a kiln otherwise it will melt and turn to slop. But still doable. I made mushrooms in my mantella tank out of oven bake clay from walmart, then sealed it with clear nail polish. That may work as well.

[Learner]

get a pvc coupling, and glue the screen to that, it should slip-fit over the other piece of pvc, making a lid that's accessible, yet keeps the critters out.


what a great idea.................cant believe that never came to mind!

[Wy Renegade]

Excellent suggestions folks, no final plans as yet - I'm planning to do some experimenting over the Holidays and we'll progress from there.

In the mean time, as promised here is an updated picture of the carnivorous terrarium;


Might have to try again when the lighting is better.

[Taari]

Might be too late, but the way I did my dart frog tank is with a false bottom made of egg crate and made it like an inch or so smaller than the bottom of the tank all the way around. We built a top and 4 sides and held it together with zip ties, then covered the whole thing with fiberglass screen and used zip ties to hold that on too. We cut out just enough to allow a piece of tubing to go through the egg crate and fiberglass at the point we wanted the water feature, then attached the pump from the underside.

Once it was in the tank, we filled in around the sides with pea gravel and covered the top with ABG substrate. The water feature is a piece of cork bark turned concave-side up with a hole drilled into it and another smaller piece of cork bark over top of the outlet to baffle it. The water collects in the curve of the cork bark. I put some java moss on it and it's growing nicely.

This is an old pic, I've changed it a bit since this was taken, but you can get the idea on the water feature.

[Wy Renegade]

I saw your thread, you got a nice build there. Unfortunately, I can't use the terrarium as a water collection feature as there are soil heating pads and probes buried down in the soil. If I were working with an aquarium that method would work great. Thanks for the input though. Perhaps something similar in a tub as was suggested would work.

[schoolzoo]

Hi, I just tried the heat gun and plastic trick to control the warping -Worked great. I'm sure that it would work for what you and your students are trying to achieve too. I had one of the shop students help. I'll post some pictures of what will become my stream on my thread.