Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I did get your email the other day but I deleted it before I got a chance to reply. To answer a couple questions, in my experience, for water dragons, hands down the most durable is luuan laminated with fiberglass panels. However, I am a big fan of more natural looking cages, and I have one waterdragon cage that has held up great for going on 6 years that I used tile grout sealed with a 50/50 mixture of water and white elmers glue. I mix it up and use a spay bottle to apply it, several coats worth.

send me your email ady agian if you would like to talk further. I know I always like hearing what you have to say, I have always valued your experience with construction methods/materials.
Paul

Hi,
Not Chris Harper, so hopefully you'll excuse my jumping in here.

I'm curious about that tile grout interior and sealing with the white glue and water mixture. I'm assuming it's quite humid and/or wet with what you're keeping in there, this would be my only concern with a white glue being used. I would think offhand that the glue would breakdown or almost wash away, but obviously not since you've had such success and longterm at that with it.

Are there any tricks to using it, as in a minimum amount of coats, or extra drying time etc?

Very neat idea at any rate, something i never would have thought of. Do you think it would work well in a desert style enclosure with a deep diggable substrate? The only real humidity will be in the underground part of the cage.

Anyways thanks for the great idea and any input is always appreciated.

Spanky

Well I'm not Paul either, LOL.

I have mixed elmers glue in with concrete and made faux rocks out of it. As far as I can tell the glue did not break down and I did make small pools this way as well. They held water constantly with no leaks so I guess it was okay.

I eventually found an acrylic-latex concrete additive that worked much better. I don't remember specifically which product that was, unfortunately.
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Current snakes:

0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

7.6 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

0.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

Ah good info regardless of who it's from haha.

Thanks for the reply Chris, it was most helpful.
I'm gonna try a grout background in the new enclosure, any tips on that? I thought i recalled someone in the past posting that they stuck some pieces of styrofoam on the back to make some rock shapes and then covered it with grout for a more realistic look. I thought there was something about using screen or chicken wire to help hold the grout in place but i'm not 100%. Sort of similar to how stucco guys work with walls.

I'll search and see if i can find some old info on the process.

Spanky

I have never used the styro technique but it's what I would try if I were doing any rockwork.

There a several posts and website so it might be worth starting a post with "styrofoam faux rockwork" or something.

I think it's pretty straightforward, though. Mix up grout to the consistency of peanut butter and smear it on.
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Current snakes:

0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

7.6 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

0.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)

Those fiberglass panels are quite durable but I'm also not a fan of their looks.

If you'd like to know what I'm up to in the world of sealers you can read this recent post:

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=786071,787657

Don't know if this will interest you or not. Will keep you posted.
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Current snakes:

0.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

1.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

7.6 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

0.1 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black & Tan)