Custom Vivarium Build Thread

[Bluesandtwo]

For anyone who is interested, I'm currently building a custom vivarium for my son's corn snake. It's being made to measure over an existing piece of furniture, so not standard size, but going as large as I physically can.

I'm also aiming for a cork bark and coco fibre 3d background covering all 3 sides internally - so it looks natural. A bit like my paludarium build background.

Anyway... pictures so far showing some progress... and more to be added in the near future, if people show they're interested.

Base made..


Structure taking shape..


Starting to look like a vivarium..

 

[deeda]

Looking great so far and looking forward to more updates!

 

[Bluesandtwo]

Not much of an update, but as you'll see from the last photo above I had started sanding down the base unit. I've finished this now, made a few minor repairs, and given it a couple of coats of danish oil (inkeeping with rest of the house).





I'm still not 100% certain... but I think I'll paint the vivarium grey - so that it matches the grey boxes in the base unit. What do you think??

 

[Bluesandtwo]

I think 10kg of cork bark should do it for the back and sides. This will need to be scrubbed a few more times yet. A lot will be trimmed to make them more flat - so the background doesn't take over the vivarium!



Here is how I made my paludarium background...

 

[cockroach]

Nice build. Interested to see progress.

 

[Bluesandtwo]

So. All nails embedded into the wood... wood filler over them and any other imperfections to hide them... whole unit sanded smooth... and first base / primer coat added.



And a quick snap of the underside before it's never seen again. Demonstrating just how over-engineered this thing is!

 

[Bluesandtwo]

Paint job complete. Just needs to rest for a few days now. On the whole I'm pretty happy with the finish, of course there are a few imperfections showing but I'll leave them be.





In case you are wondering why I've sanded the primer paint off from the inside... I realised paint wouldn't make a good base for the adhesives and expanding foam for the background. I could see the whole background separating from the vivarium by pulling the paint away, eventually. Hence, the inside has been sanded down again, so the glue and expanding foam grips the wood and not just a thin layer of paint.. My mistake.

Also, if this were an aquarium it would have the volume of a humble 90 US gallons!

 

[Bluesandtwo]

Another minor update. LED lights added.

Purposely placed to be hidden when looking in, and illuminate the back wall. I wanted to really light up and show off the back wall, and not have the lights shining down directly onto the bottom - upsetting the snake.

 

[Bluesandtwo]

Another day, another development.

Lino floor added to bottom and sides. Glued down and will be siliconed later to make a waterproof base. It'll hardly be seen once the substrate is in, but I learnt the hard way that it's important. On a previous vivarium I had a lot of swelling from the floor when the bugger bathed in his bowl and displaced all the water!





One bathing corn snake (very old photo when he was young)

 

[cockroach]

It's all so NEAT and TIDY!!!!! Love it.