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Blue tongue skinks new home

Ozzy

SirKristoff is a poopiehead
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I think my blue tongue skink has gotten tired of his current home.

Here he is sitting on top of his current home.
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Lately he has been pacing and rubbing his snout on the side of the tank. Both signs that he is unhappy. I have been wanting to try my hand at building a habitat made from fake rock. There is almost no info about how to do this online, so I pretty much had to come up with my own design.

My plan was make the 3 sides and the floor out of plexiglass. The front would be made of real glass.

I would cut and glue styrofoam to the three plexiglass sides. I planned to place ceramic tiles on the floor.

I would fill in between the styrofoam with spray foam. After all that was done I would paint on tile adhesive to the foam. Give it a day to dry. and put on enough coats until I had the effect that I wanted. Then paint that with non toxic acrylic paint. Over the paint I would put a coat of varnish on it.

Well after I got to Home Depot, I went to get the plexiglass and after seeing the price I realized that I would have to change my plans. I went to the lumber dept. and looked to see if I could find a replacement for the plexiglass.

I found peg board for $12 a sheet. They had about the same thing as peg board except no holes in it for $6 a sheet. I had them cut all the pieces I needed from one sheet. I bought some L brackets to hold it together.

I got home and screwed the hole-less peg board together. Started cutting the foam with my zallsaw and glueing it on. The best glue to use is a hot glue gun. It sticks almost instant.

I then sprayed the foam between the pieces of styrofoam. I let it dry over night.

Next day I painted on the first layer of tile adhesive. Let it dry over night

Here is the pics of what it looked like with one layer of tile adhesive.

Just as a reference, the dimensions of this are 3' X 3' X 2'

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I repeated that until I had 3 layers.

I let it dry overnight and I put one layer of paint the next day. I matched the paint to the tiles that are on the bottom. The color is soft wheat. I don't think I'll choose that color next time.

After the first coat dryed it cracked. I think all the uneven surfaces caused it too crack as it dryed. The paint seemed to have stuck it just cracked. It was really a cool effect. The next day I put on a second coat. This time the paint didn't crack and it filled in the cracks from the first coat.
Here are some pics just after the second coat was applied.

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After the second layer dyed you could see the cracks from the first layers. I think it makes it look more like real rock.

I have to put the varnish on and then build the front part and I'll be done.
 
Pretty! I hope your skink likes it :)
 
That's no fair Niki, you're not suppose to be nice to me.


Anyway here is a small update.

I have two coats of varnish on it. I also have the glass and all the hardware to install the glass. I have the frame cut and one coat of varnish on the wood. I will see tomorrow if the the wood or the fake rock needs another coat of varnish.

Here are pics of the enclosure after the second coat of varnish.

In some of the pics I leaned on piece of the frame to see what they would look like together. Most of these pics don't show the true color. In the pic you can see through the varnish somewhat. On the frame and the fake rock.

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Ok I won't be nice anymore....Jeff thinks the 3rd pic (in your last post) looks like some type of feces covered in paint, he also said something else but I can't say that here :p
 
Reminds me of the Flintstones. Looks good.
 
have been wanting to try my hand at building a habitat made from fake rock. There is almost no info about how to do this online
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geez Oz yah should have asked, i know a bunch of dart frog nuts who love playing with that foam............coulda directed you to some info :grin:
 
Well direct me to it.
 
I too would like the directions to said people/references if you do not mind, rattler. Have my eye on something that might like such a set up.
 
im at work so give me a bit of time for digging.................
 
  • #10
please keep in mind these are designed by guys looking to create rain forest type backgrounds, some of the links may not be exactly what your looking for but you can prolly get ideas fron the techniques

using concrete binder for covering foam

making trees and vines PDF

another tree

all i can find really quick but i you search the construction forum that the first and the last link above are from you should find a ton of stuff
 
  • #11
GREAT!!! 20 pics of ugly!! But at least its nice to know there is another Kelly's Heroes fan on this forum. After all, Don't make with the negative ways, Moriarity!
 
  • #12
Gracias Rattler,

Very informative. Somthing to tinker with one of these days
 
  • #13
I'm close to finishing this. I built the frame today and installed the glass.

I ran out of screws so I had to stop on the frame. I'll Finnish that tomorrow.

When I finished working on it today I took some quick pics.
Here is what it looks like right now.


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Here are some close up on the detail of the rock.

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I didn't get the color like I wanted. I learned a lot of better ways to do the next one. All in all I dont think it's bad for my first attempt.
 
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  • #14
I like it, good job! Hey, were you wearing a hat when you took that pic?
 
  • #15
Thank you, and what did I tell you about that being nice thing!

No I wasn't wearing a hat.
 
  • #16
Ok I'm done with it for now. I Still need to build a top but that can wait.

Here is the final product.

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I think he likes it because within 15 mins of moving into his new home he left me this present.

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  • #17
sweeeeet skink turds rule!

cool looking set up, but does it really need to be that tall though? unno just looks kinda big to me, but you know more about skinks than I do....
 
  • #18
No. They are ground dwelling species. He likes to climb over stuff, but it doesn't have to be that tall. I made it tall incase I ever want to use it for geckoes, snakes or anything else in the future. Also the bigger it is the more range you have in temps. So it'll be easier for him to regulate his body temp.
 
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