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My huge DIY viv For unsure reptile

R

ReptiHabitat

StyroFoam Artist
This is giant 10ft wide by 8 ft high by 3 ft deep viv i am building in a old bedroom/office. I have been building this style viv for myself and other for a few years, but this time I am going HUGE. It has a waterfall a few caves and selves to climb on.
 

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First layer only a few more to go well like 10 more layers lol. Then paint and clear coat and plants. ughhhh I never said it was easy. But it will be a sweet ass huge wall viv. when I am finished.
 

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When your life is full of reptiles and DIY faux rock viv's you get used to getting inside and dirty to keep them clean. I used to have a 220 gl fish tank that took a whole day to clean out the cichlid crap. I would be in it almost to my neck reaching in the bottom. Thought about buying a snorkel for that tank. Now Im making it a boa tank.
 
All the posts you've made of your vivs are amazing. It totally inspired me to go out and start making my own for my little guys. Thanks for sharing pics of your work. :)
 
plausibledenial said:
All the posts you've made of your vivs are amazing. It totally inspired me to go out and start making my own for my little guys. Thanks for sharing pics of your work. :)
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Thanks, They are really not that hard to do. Your house will be trashed and you will be vacuming up little tiny pieces of styrofoam for months. So if you can do it in a garage. Then it just takes time and patience. If you rush it, it wont be what you expect it to look like. Dont try to plan what you are going to do. Just get an idea and start carving let one rock make the next rock and so on.
Now comes the dirty part that takes for every. Coating it with cement. lots of layers and let them somewhat dry in between but make sure you spray it down with water from a water bottle. If it dry's to fast it will crack. Then paint it and make sure you seal it. Then add plants and wood.
 
thats sick man. just noticed you live so close. cant wait to see it done. but i was wondering if i could get a materials/tools list and just a simple run through lesson on how you do the carving. i have been drawing up ideas for a whole wall of vivs and now i think i might have found what i want to do. thanks for any info.
 
Ok, that is amazing. Are you going to post any new pictures soon, I am interested to see what it looks like when it's finished.
 
I know I have been busy building two small viv's and tearing apart my atv for paint. I also just got a new baby pastel ball python. But as to what I am going to put in there. I would love to do a nice GTP or GTB setup. But, I havent read anything about them to see what they need as in temp and humidity.But, I think I would have too hard of a time controlling the temp in a viv this big. The temp gradient would be big. I could keep one side warm but the other side would be real cool. I am guessing 15 degrees cooler maybe even 20deg in a tank this big and then the humidity would be high with the waterfall pond. So I am lost as to what I would like to do. Maybe I can find a P. Dart Frog breeder and trade him a nice viv for some frogs. That would be sweet, a lot of frogs in it.
I'm up for advice what would be cool or work.
As for heating I am redoing part of the floor with a glass inlay and under the floor heating mats. Then above that I will build some light cages for night viewing heat lights.
The piece of glass I had was a nice dual pane huge piece but it was in my hallway and we had a storm and the windows were broken and the wind blew over the glass I had and it exploded in a million pieces. So now I have to find a new piece of glass.
 
This is one of the small ones I just built for my Leopard Gecko.
 

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Whoa...that viv is going to be fantastic! I secretly hope to aspire to building a viv of that scale and detail one day...barring any conflicts with time and schedule, of course. ;)

Your little leopard looks like he's proud to survey his kingdom, hehe. :D
 
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