Making a self efficient ecosystem. Help please?!

[DanSB]

I've seen where people use it for waterproofing wooden planter boxes on rooftop gardens and growing food in the planters. The membrane referenced is also EPDM sheet. Quite a few people use that. I think the liquid will seal better because it soaks in and bonds to the substrate. No staples or glue to hold it in place like the membrane.

I use it to line the inside of rocket motors as thermal insulation. Versatile stuff.

I just did a google search, liquid EPDM is used commonly for bonding pond liners and is considered fish safe... I would suppose if it is safe for fish there should be 0 issues. I will be using this on my next project thanks for the tip!

 

[Mike Fisher]

I just did a google search, liquid EPDM is used commonly for bonding pond liners and is considered fish safe..

Oh yeah, I forgot about that! I have a koi pond with it.

 

[TnEvs]

Any advice on just using plain soil on the bottom of the enclosure then?? Or would that be too much of a compaction risk. As I live on a farm so organic soil is easily accessible.

What about the yaght varnish or resin??
Which should I use and how much of it should I uuse to waterproof my timber for my vivarium?

 

[johnnyev]

I use soil collected from my local forest & mix it with a little organic compost. On top of this i add a layer of oak, beech & magnolia leaves. You will need to add a drainage layer & a way to drain off excess water or the substrate will just become a swamp & your live plants will most likely die.
If your putting substrate directly onto the floor, then yacht varnish will rot at some stage. Dont forget your enclosure (floor anyway) is going to be in constant contact with water/moisture. Epoxy resin, once cured is 100% waterproof. As others have said, you can also look into pond paints. But they will need to be compatible with wood. Most i have heard of, are suited to use on concrete/masonry.

 

[ibdragons]

Good luck on your project. I would keep all the lights outside the cage the uvb one won't burn him but when you misting it can get real wet and brake . I would also make sure there is wooden dowels or vines going across and through plants at all levels. One thing I see is some owners have a large cage with a large plant in the center. That's for but you want skittles to roam around at all levels throughout the cage. I like to put dowels or vines in an angle going down and when that one ends have another at the same level going down also and so on so he can go from the top to the bottom with ease. I hope I made sense. Also I suggest you put large turtle pebbles inside the pot to cover the soil so he doesn't eat soil. Make sure you clean those rocks often.i hope this can help . Oh yes they have water based varnish or polyurethane. That stuff is just as hard but less toxic good luck

 

[Mike Fisher]

Any advice on just using plain soil on the bottom of the enclosure then?? Or would that be too much of a compaction risk. As I live on a farm so organic soil is easily accessible.

What about the yaght varnish or resin??
Which should I use and how much of it should I uuse to waterproof my timber for my vivarium?

Sand and peat moss is cheap and once wetted down and compacted does not pose much impaction risk for your chameleon. Regular soil will have a lot of things in it you don't want like mites. Mites also love cages made from wood. Once they get into the wood, good luck ridding your self from them.

I also would not recommend making the bottom planting base from wood no matter what you finish it or line it with. I once had a wood enclosure that was sixteen feet long, five feet deep and eight feet tall with the front being all glass. It was fully planted and looked like a jungle inside the house. I lined the bottom with pond liner before planting it. It held up ok I thought. When I remodeled that room of the house and removed it, it not only had rot under the liner, but there was black mold and all sorts of nasty critters living under the liner.

I did seal all of the exposed wood with Thompson's water seal for decks. That held up just fine except for the parts under the liner.

Hopefully you will give this some consideration since I have actually done what you are proposing.

 

[DanSB]

Sand and peat moss is cheap and once wetted down and compacted does not pose much impaction risk for your chameleon. Regular soil will have a lot of things in it you don't want like mites. Mites also love cages made from wood. Once they get into the wood, good luck ridding your self from them.

I also would not recommend making the bottom planting base from wood no matter what you finish it or line it with. I once had a wood enclosure that was sixteen feet long, five feet deep and eight feet tall with the front being all glass. It was fully planted and looked like a jungle inside the house. I lined the bottom with pond liner before planting it. It held up ok I thought. When I remodeled that room of the house and removed it, it not only had rot under the liner, but there was black mold and all sorts of nasty critters living under the liner.

I did seal all of the exposed wood with Thompson's water seal for decks. That held up just fine except for the parts under the liner.

Hopefully you will give this some consideration since I have actually done what you are proposing.

Mites can be removed from wood with a little time around a hot shot strip which many vets say are indeed safe for use around reptiles (with a limited time of exposure.)

Did you use Marine grade ply? In a pet store I worked at in the early 90s we had a marine grade ply epoxy sealed and siliconed sump for a saltwater set up last at least 6 years. It was still in good shape when it was taken down.

Wood will rot no matter what but I think it is still a viable solution as long as you are very careful with set up and materials. For example a pond liner set in the bottom will always create a nasty humid air gap. If the material is sealed and air proffed I would be willing to bet the wood would last ALOT longer. I really like your liquid EPDM idea and would like to see how well it actually seals to prevent incidents like you had with the liner.

 

[johnnyev]

Dan, epoxy resin is one of the only materials (i can think of) that's tried & tested, long term for sealing wood/ply. People actually make aquariums out of ply, especially over there in the states. Look at some of the builds on monster fishkeepers.com The product they use is by a company called West's. Here is a link in case your interested & hadn't heard of it.

http://www.westsystem.com/ss/

They also have it here in the UK TnEvs

http://www.restexpress.co.uk/acatal...ardener.html?gclid=CI2kg4KIgMMCFauWtAoddykAkg

 

[Mike Fisher]

Dan, epoxy resin is one of the only materials (i can think of) that's tried & tested, long term for sealing wood/ply.

I suggested the EPDM resin over tile backer board, not wood. And only for the planting tub portion.

I use composites for carbon fiber and fiberglass layups nearly every day for high stress aerospace applications. West Systems is fine, I usually use Aeropoxy. It's messy, expensive, you have to use gloves, weigh it correctly for proper crosslinking, and some people have allergic reactions to it. It also won't come to a full hardness cure without post curing at high temperature.

I still believe a rubber coating applied over a cement based composite will hold up better long term and because it will be under substrate, it does not have to look pretty.

If the OP decides to use epoxy resin, make sure it is not polyester resin. That stuff is a styrene monomer. Which basically means it smells like burning styrofoam while using and takes months to fully outgass.

 

[Mike Fisher]

Did you use Marine grade ply?

No I used exterior grade waferboard. I figured it would be fine because of the liner. I didn't consider condensation under it. I had millipedes and isopods living in the wood as well as a lot of other critters I couldn't identify.

 

[Mike Fisher]

Look at some of the builds on www.monsterfishkeepers.com

Thanks for the link, some of those builds are nuts.

 

[TnEvs]

Sand and peat moss is cheap and once wetted down and compacted does not pose much impaction risk for your chameleon. Regular soil will have a lot of things in it you don't want like mites. Mites also love cages made from wood. Once they get into the wood, good luck ridding your self from them.

I also would not recommend making the bottom planting base from wood no matter what you finish it or line it with. I once had a wood enclosure that was sixteen feet long, five feet deep and eight feet tall with the front being all glass. It was fully planted and looked like a jungle inside the house. I lined the bottom with pond liner before planting it. It held up ok I thought. When I remodeled that room of the house and removed it, it not only had rot under the liner, but there was black mold and all sorts of nasty critters living under the liner.

I did seal all of the exposed wood with Thompson's water seal for decks. That held up just fine except for the parts under the liner.

Hopefully you will give this some consideration since I have actually done what you are proposing.

uwwwwwwww

the cage is basically built now...so what should I put in the bottom of this to stop this kind of thing happening??