I've asked a couple questions about using cement for different things in caging, and the general consensus advises against it for a variety of reasons. The ideas I've had for using cement so far have been- fake backgrounds similar to the whole Great Stuff background, but with less organic material on it to rot, slightly more permanent. Hide boxes, water dishes, combos of the two. Faux rocks to use as basking spots(which, could also be turned into a hide). I'd also like to do some hardscaping for my cages.. Something that would look fairly similar to this type of thing, except I'd try to make it look a little more natural.
Cement has been tossed out because:
When dry, it flakes & makes a silica powder which is toxic when breathed in. You don't heat of many people dieing from this, but people who work with cement are cautioned about it because they're in close contact with it constantly- I don't think subjecting my animals to it and forcing them to be in close contact with it is right.
When wet, lime leeching out of the cement causes alkaline burns(compared to acid burns- just on the opposite spectrum. So, can't use it to make water dishes, or dividers for paludariums, like I wanted to.
Grout, a cement product, is susceptible to cracking when spread over large surfaces. It's designed to be spread between tiles. Now, I was told that if applied with a slurry coat first, then several thicker coats over it & time to cure in between coats, and then sealed with a high-quality grout sealer, it'll work. But this then becomes expensive, and very time consuming, since you have to let each layer cure for 8 hours. Turns it into a week long job of working on it a few hours every day, and it's probably going to cost $50. The cheapest grout I can find is $15 a bag, and the cheapest sealer is $15 a bag, so I'm expecting $30 just for those, add in any cement pigments used to vary colors & such, and that's starting to get pricey.
So, I'm back to square one, and thinking of using Great Stuff or a similar product. This will work, and wouldn't be too bad. Making backgrounds would be simple, and since it starts out soft & liquidy, I can even push pieces of slate into it to make ledges & such on the background, and a series of ledges could even make a waterfall. But, all of the backgrounds I've seen call for it to be covered in either sand, or coconut fiber. I hesitate to use either of these, because coconut fiber will rot, and sand would be too rough for any of my animals. So, are there any alternatives to using these covers that would be safe? I was thinking about acrylic paint, but people seem to say that it won't hold up well in a really high humidity environment. So, that cuts out the crested geckos, and it makes me hesitate before using it with the boas, since they spill their water constantly, plus the added problem of scrubbing urates & such from it. Any of those would work well enough for a background, but they limit the use of it for other decorations, like the hide boxes & such, where animals would be on top of them.
So, does anyone have any solutions to any of my cement problems? If not, do you have any solutions to the Great Stuff problem, of what kind of covering material would work well?
