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I posted this on the Grey banded kingsnake forum a while back, and someone suggested I post it here.

Here are a few pics of an artificial rock-cut insert I made for my '08 grey banded kingsnake aquarium. I'm planning on making a larger one for my '07 Baird's ratsnake. I saw a post months ago on this forum where someone had made something similar for a suboc, and it inspired me to give it a shot. It's made almost entirely out of styrofoam, and is actually quite light.

Here are some shots of it finished and partially assembled outside of the aquarium, with and without the snake

This piece serves as a hide, and is removable for access to the snake, and for cleaning

Here is the piece inside the 15 gallon tall tank she is currently in, and a shot from above.

This is a drawer hide that slides in and out of the middle section, again for ease of cleaning and access to the snake.

Here she is going into the drawer

Here is a shot of my Baird's shoehorned into the tank just for a photo op. She will get one for her 40 gal breeder when I find the time to make one.

Here is a shot of the 3-sided fiberboard frame at the beginning, with the naked styrofoam base

and another shot in the process of building

The alterna really seems to love cruising around on the cuts. Unfortunately she will eventually outgrow it. I knew this going in, and consider this one a working prototype, done mainly to give me experience. I'll have to make her a new one for a larger, permanent enclosure. Besides, having this one will give me a good excuse to get another hatchling alterna someday.

Thanks for looking.

MZ

Beautiful and, more importantly, functional! Love the hide places on your project.

Too often we worry about a "realistic" cage looking realistic, but not performing realistically on any level. But you actually made an aesthetic rock wall that provides hiding opportunity among the rocks. Well done. (I saw the post you referred to, he did an awesome job too.)

Now that I've told you how capable you are, can you enlighten me on something - what did you coat the foam with?
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Mark

Thanks for the compliments.

When I made this, I tried to put function before form, which is why I made sure to incorporate several hides. Having vertical climbing area also increases the living area of the enclosure by providing the snake multiple levels to occupy. She also gets a lot of exercize climbing on the wall. She is much more active than she was when she was in a plain aquarium with aspen bedding and a hide.

To answer your question, I covered the foam with multiple coats of grout, and sealed it with a non-toxic multi purpose sealer available at any craft store. There are numerous tutorials on the web which deal with making artificial rock for reptile enclosures, and I pretty much followed their procedures. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I came up with this procedure on my own. I just tweaked the process in a few ways to make it work better for me.

I'm currently working on version 2.0, which I hope will be large enough to be a permanent enclosure for either my Grey banded king or my Baird's ratsnake. I'll post pictures of it when I'm done - most likely a month or so.

Cheers,
MZ