Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ive found a good site about making these but have 2 ?s hopefully somebody can answer them
1 can i use tile grout to cover the Styrofoam
2 after this dries do i have to seal it or not
i will be using these in either a bearded dragon cage and or leopard gecko

websites i found
http://www.reptilerooms.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=34&page=1

http://gallery.reptilerap.com/showphoto.php?photo=810

thanks

Hey there,

There are many ways of creating fake rocks, each being suitable if they look good... As for sealing the rocks, if you do choose to use a grout- which I would recommend using a mortar or a portland cement/sand mixture, if you are going to get into the heavy duty building materials. Cement looks waterproof and watertight, but it isn't, it's actually very porous, so moisture and water can slowly leak through, damaging furniture, the rest of the cage, carpeting, flooring, etc. So, in your mixture, I recommend that you use a cementitious sealer product, such as xypex, which you simply mix into the origional cement mixture, and when moisture is applied, it activates crystaline chemicals that react to fill in the spaces between the cement particles, thus sealing it up and waterproofing. I hope this helps,

bob mendyk