Foam background enclosure tutorial

Rhino1 · Apr 29, 2020

moricollins said:
@Dorifto here's how my build looks: great stuff spray foam, gorilla glue and peat moss . Need to do drainage and then barrier, substrate, plants, then stock it View attachment 342428

Mate, that looks like a legit, creek embankment. Very natural, I like it.
Seems it must be the time for it, I've been doing one for my tree frogs, but I only get a bit done each day after work, I tried something new with this build and have made hollow logs from PVC pipe, need to just get it finished so I can plant it out and cycle it.

Dorifto · Apr 30, 2020

moricollins said:
@Dorifto here's how my build looks: great stuff spray foam, gorilla glue and peat moss . Need to do drainage and then barrier, substrate, plants, then stock it View attachment 342428

Looks Nice!!!

What's going to be inside?

moricollins · Apr 30, 2020

Dorifto said:
Looks Nice!!!

What's going to be inside?

Dart frogs are going to be in inhabitants. I was going for a side of the river look.

Dorifto · Apr 30, 2020

You can post your build in this tutorial too, if you want! The more information, the better!!

moricollins said:
Dart frogs are going to be in inhabitants. I was going for a side of the river look.

I'm having my frist mushrooms!

It's a symphtom of a healtly substrate. I hope that you will see them in your enclosure too.

Two days ago we had a huge storm, and yesterday had the first one. It means that micelios are growing well in the substrate, so it's a good sign of a healthy substrate.

Poor porcelio leftovers and the cleaning crew in action. You can se two mushrooms too.

View attachment Video_20200506_011858.mp4

They grew at the same time in both enclosures. So could be the storm the ignitor?

Ps: is ignitor the correct word to use? XD

Rhino1 · May 6, 2020

@Dorifto in my experience those shrooms will eventually take over the entire terrarium if you leave them in there to spore.
Yes, the rain definitely triggered those, I live in a tropical area and every year during the summer rains/wet season all of my bioactive vivariums will break out like crazy. I've also found if I leave the fungi to do it's thing, the shrooms and mycelium will take over. Sadly Ive had to pull apart many beautiful enclosures over the years and have found taking them out before they spore is the key to keeping the balance, they are so quick too, I will pull out shrooms in the morning and when I get home from work the vivarium will be loaded with full sized shrooms again.

The shroomery.

Rhino1
Feb 15, 2020
6

Another mushroom outbreak,
I live in the tropics and our wet season is in full swing, daily...

Dorifto · May 6, 2020

Yes they grow very quick, you can note the difference in minutes

It was so bad in you case? I read time ago that even taking them from the enclosure they will grow again to time to time, since the mycelium is stablished in the substrate, and the mushrooms are "the fruit" and the spores only contribute to propagate the mycelium to other areas.

In my case I just mimicked a storm in the enclosure, watering the enclosure and they thrive near the driftwood. They will die eventually when the organic wastes end, because they help to decompose that wastes.

I'm going to check how will they develop and I'll take a decision. People from dendroboards freaking out that they want mushrooms and we here taking them out hahhahahaaha.

Wich kind of enclosure setups did you have?

Rhino1 · May 6, 2020

Yes, the storm is the ignitor that's good enough English for me.
The bulk of my bioactive enclosures have been entirely feather moss on the sub, the first few times I left the mushrooms to do their thing/release spores, the mycelium seems to fill the substrate then start covering the moss and it looks really bad

Dorifto · May 6, 2020

Rhino1 said:
Yes, the storm is the ignitor that's good enough English for me.
The bulk of my bioactive enclosures have been entirely feather moss on the sub, the first few times I left the mushrooms to do their thing/release spores, the mycelium seems to fill the substrate then start covering the moss and it looks really bad

Thanks for the info!
It was live moss or the dry one. In my vivariums there is no mycelium where the java moss grows. Maybe the springtails and the isopods do they work hahahahaha or too much humidity?. Did you used springtails on them?

In my previous setup I used dry moss and after some watering I had a lot of mold on them. Maybe it could be that the dead/dry moss is a perfect enviroment to mold or mycelium to thrive in?

moricollins · May 8, 2020

Dorifto said:
You can post your build in this tutorial too, if you want! The more information, the better!!

Here it is. there's condensation on the glass from my misting system.

Plants are a neon pothos, a peperomia caperata, a peperomia obtusifolia, a an episcia (unsure what species though),

Dorifto · May 8, 2020

moricollins said:
Here it is. there's condensation on the glass from my misting system. View attachment 343776 View attachment 343778
Plants are a neon pothos, a peperomia caperata, a peperomia obtusifolia, a an episcia (unsure what species though),

Plants added to my future colection xD

moricollins said:
Here it is. there's condensation on the glass from my misting system. View attachment 343776 View attachment 343778
Plants are a neon pothos, a peperomia caperata, a peperomia obtusifolia, a an episcia (unsure what species though),

Testing to solve that problem hahahaja, now I can control the temperature and humidity even better.

I'll make a tutorial as soon all the parts arrive.

I'm looking to were install them, inside or outside. They will have a custom grill installed, so there is not going to be any type of hazard to the T, and two, because the T couldn't reach the fans too.

They fit perfectly between the top mesh gap

Cully · May 18, 2020

Dorifto said:
Hi guys, seeing that some people are asking about how I made my setup, I´m going to make a litlle tuto about it. It may look difficult, but It was more easy than I thought.

The tools:
- A propper enclosure, I choosed the European style glass enclosures, since they are cheap, they have a great ventilation and are awesome looking enclosures.
- A cutter or a knife.
- Non expansive foam, they are different grades of expansive foams, take the less expansive one, the explansive ones can break your enclosure because of the pressure they can produce while expanding.
- Water based acrlilyc paint.
- Ultra fine grade joint mortar. I tried the regular one and doesn´t work in my case. I bought the ones used to seal bathroom tiles.
- Some rocks, I used volcanic ones, since they don´t weight so much. but you can skip this part.
- Some driftwood. I sourced mine in the shore after a big storm. You can find some awesome looking woods, and the most important, a lot of them are cured by de sun and the sea, but of course you need to clean and disinfect as much as possible.
- Some plants: you need to choose the right ones for your enclosure, looking to the needs of your T, humidity, substrate etc. In my case were: Chamaedorea elegans, some bromeliads, Nephrolepis, and my last addition was the java moss ( Vesicularia Dubyana).
- An organic substrate, whithout any types of fertilizers, pesticides etc, in my case I choosed, top soil, clay and sand. I also used some xaxim for the background.
- Bioactive agents, like springtails, dwarf isopods (trichorhina tormentosa), medium sized isopods (porcellios) and earth worms to maintain oxigenated the substrate.
- And the most important one, PATIENCE

Hey Dirifto, nice setups. What are the dimensions on these enclosures?

Dorifto · May 18, 2020

Cully said:
Hey Dirifto, nice setups. What are the dimensions on these enclosures?

thank you!!

They are 60x40x40 euro type glass enclosures. You can make them at home asking to a local glazier some glass panels. I made one for about 40€

Since there is people who asked me about the enclosures, and looking that they are hard to find outside Europe, here is a drawing of the enclosure, if someone wants to do it himself. The measures are in cm, I tried to draw it in proportion but it isn't exact.

You can make it out of plexiglass or glass. I much preffer glass since it doesn't get scratched so easily and are easy to maintain.

One is lighter, but the other is stronger.

Final results:

Moss (Vesicularia Dubyana)

Before:

After:

A little trick to help the moss spreading.

Take a chunk of moss, put it in a blender, add a little bit of buttermilk and water, 1-4 proportion. Chop it with the blender.

Take the small pieces of moss and spread across the remaining surface. Keep it humid.

After 2 month testing the fans, now I can recommend them without hesitation.

They can be helpfull for species who need great ventilation, like avics etc. Also they can help to decrease the temperature or to maintain a stable humidity levels.

Total cost of the system was 20 bucks, pretty cheap and effective. The fans are dead silent, since they are ball bearing fans, even at full power, you can't barely hear any noise. They do not vibrate, so less strees for the T.

They fit perfectly in my vivarium ventilation grill, without needing any adhesives or screws at all. Since the top gap has 80mm you can fit 80mm fans by pressing them in the gap. You can install them on your enclosures gluing them with hot glue or silicon. They can be installed to introduce new fresh air or to extract warmed air, by flipping the fan.

The system:

The fans: Gdstime 12v ball bearing
#Aliexpress € 5,52 20%OFF | 2 unidades Gdstime 5V 12V 24V 80mm 80mm x 80mm x 10mm ventilador de la caja de la computadora PC Latop CPU manga del ventilador de enfriamiento/rodamiento de bolas USB/2PIN/3PIN ventilador