Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i came across this photo on this site and thought taht would look excellent in my corn snake enclosure. how do you make it?

ive heard of this "great stuff"? and that you add something lke sand or other substrate over it is that ow this might be made? if so is that sand? and can you make the selves and everything with it?

Wil;l the corns appriciate that kind of texture? or at least not hate it?

There are some really great post about how to do this. Google how to make fake rocks or faux rocks and you should get a ton of info.

In a nutshell it is styrofoam and great stuff foam insulation as a base. Then you cover with tile grout, tile adhesive, cement, etc. Paint and your done. (takes a bit of time to actually do)

Greatstuff and styrofoam work great to build backgrounds. I would suggest using more sculpted Styrofoam and greatstuff to fill in the cracks as greatstuff is hard to sculpt. When I made my background i used 5 coats of vinyl concrete at about an eighth on an inch each coat. It has stood up well for 8 months but I'm about to coat it with drylock and paint it with latex paint to be able to clean it easier.

I used 5 coats of vinyl concrete at about an eighth on an inch each coat.

Your concrete is about 5/8" thick in total? Really? Does the whole thing weigh quite a bit?

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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

yeah it weighs a ton but its also in a solid welded steel sunglass display. two able bodied guys can move it no problem. Me and my roomate kept lifting it after every coat to make sure lol! I'm probably being generous on the actuall thickness of the coats and I think the first coat was 1/8 and the last few were closer to 1/16"
Nate

Have you had any problems with the vinyl concrete? I keep thinking about trying to use vinyl concrete, but I'm worried about using it in contact with my animals without sealing it with something. If you did seal it, what did you seal it with?

I havn't had any problems with it except the fact that its impossible to clean. I plan on pulling out the tokays and coating it with drylok and then painting it with a latex based pain to smooth it out. fumes wise I left it outside for a month this summer.

That's been my worry, as well . . . I want to make some home-made rocks, and I HATE the look of them when they're painted, but I think I'm going to end up painting mine, too.

I keep seeing people make fake rock decorations that look simply impossible to clean, and wondering what they're thinking about it, but . . . I guess I'll give it a shot, and see how it works!

I've been thinking about making mine so that all of the flat perch areas are pieces of slate fit into the styrofoam & cement, so that it would be easier to clean- smoother & easier to scrub.

I'd love to do something similiar, since I have a bunch of slate pieces. How do you recommend securing them in the styrofoam?

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Holly

0.1 Lavender California Kingsnake (Lizzie Borden)
1.0 Bearded Dragon (Charley Manson)
1.0 Orange Marmalade Cat (Oliver)
1.0 Egyptian Arabian (Bagan)

2.0 Toddlers (Justice & Trevor)