My 180 Gallon Vivarium is Taking Shape

hey everyone welcome back to another for very and build without any delay let's get right into making the new 180 gallon for varium as they typically do we'll start out this build with the false bottom if you recall this enclosure previously housed my king snake Houdini so I already had an egg kay false bottom made however I needed to make some modifications so that this false bottom would be suitable for the nouveau varium that said I removed the planters and filled in the holes with more egg crate attached to a zip ties you'll notice that the egg crate is already covered in a layer of carbon fiber glass window screen match as many of you know this is my preferred barrier in most cases originally I used this barrier to keep mulch from falling down into the main false bottom area so I used a relatively coarse mesh because it was cheaper at the time that being said this mash is just too coarse for the substrate that we will use in just a moment so I covered the egg crate in an additional layer but this time with weed control fabric this isn't the same thing as weed blocker which I've advised in the past is not the best solution unlike weed blocker this allows water to readily pass through it while also retaining the substrate you might be wondering why I use this instead of a finer mesh well I wanted to try something new and I believe this could be a better option than mesh moving forward anyways I cut out a piece of the barrier and covered the existing mesh then I zip tied along the top corner leaving some excess on the sides with the false bottom completed it was then placed into the enclosure from there I proceeded to put the coke cause Kleiner backgrounds into their respective locations if you recall these are the same backgrounds from the previous build they are essentially just a sheet of insulation foam with a few protrusions of expanding foam covered in cocoa husk liner these could work as a decent background in their current state but they don't have enough definition for my liking so I got a really large piece of cork bark and propped it up in a good location using some bags of substrate with the cork bark in place a few additional elements were incorporated including planters and accent cork bark pieces to attach the planters I simply wedge them in place or stuck them onto the background with a thumbtack the cork accents on the other hand were stuck on to the background with a nail next I got some great stuff pond foam and applied it to the background my goal here was to add a lot of definition to the background and create a canopy area of sorts using the cork bark this will become even more apparent as we progress through the build after applying off the pond foam I let it cure for around eight hours or so then I remove the bags of substrate thumbtacks and nails and carved out the foam with a razor scraper doing this step correctly is pretty important by carving out the foam you not only get a better aesthetic but you also expose the spongy interior of the foam itself whenever we add the silicone in just a moment it will more readily stick to the spongy surface than the glassy smooth surface of the newly cured phone with the foam completely carved out we'll move on to the next step which is applying the 100% silicone to do so I like to call a generous amount of silicon and globs and then disperse it with the paintbrush I find that this is easier and makes less mess next I've got a few handfuls of bark and threw them at the silicon normally you could get away with simply dropping it in place but since I'm building this valve area Min the upright position I don't have much of a choice otherwise the same thing was also done with some Coco fiber however as I added the Coco fiber I pressed it into the silicone with my hands this is really important for the longevity of your background because otherwise the Coco fiber is prone to fall out of the silicone over time these same procedures were then repeated for the entire background I should also mention that you could use Coco fiber alone for this process but using bark creates more texture and a better climbing surface for arboreal animals such as geckos after the main part of the background was complete it was time to add some additional hard scape elements in this case manzanita wood using a board I propped up the branch on the background I also snipped off a few branches to create a better aesthetic then I repeated the same process for another branch on the right side with these branches secured some accent branches were then stuck directly into the phone this works really well for small branches but I don't recommend it for larger elements next I got a can of great stuff gaps and cracks expanding foam and applied it over top of the manzanita wood I ran out of pond foam and didn't want to buy more so I used this foam instead it works just as well but I must use black silicone you may end up seeing the yellow foam through the silicone and Coco fiber layer anyways after the foam cured for good 8 hours or so I removed the support boards and carved it out like before using a razor scraper after getting it all carved out I covered the foam in silicone bark and Coco fiber just like before now we'll make some jungle vines you may have seen one in the previous clip saying wondered what it was hobbyists have been making DIY jungle vines for years using various methods I wanted to keep it simple using materials that I already had so I got three different thicknesses of cotton rope on that if you're going to take the time and money to make jungle vines be sure to get different thicknesses doing so will allow you to create a much more natural look which is probably why you're making the vines in the first place anyways creating the vines is quite simple all that you have to do is get a length of rope coated in silicon and then knead it into some Coco fiber with the thicker rope like this it's a little more challenging because you can't do the entire rope in one go even the next thickness down is much easier because you can roll the rope into a ball to apply the silicone either way just make sure you do your best to squeeze the Coco fiber onto the rope after you're done making the vines be sure to let them sit out for at least 24 hours so that the silicone can cure with the vines cured and ready to go let's put them into the vivarium in doing so I wanted to twine as many together as possible much like you'd see in nature I also wanted the vines to look like they've competed against the tree and won the battle what I mean is that in nature vines are competitive they will climb up and over trees and oftentimes kill them since the branches are from a dead tree this will help create the aesthetic that I'm going for you'll notice that I'm using superglue to attach these vines together and on to various surfaces before you get all up in arms about it cyanoacrylate superglue is totally safe to use for applications like this if you love for the proper dry time in fact it's often using aquarium applications I really wanted these vines to look like they were stuck to everything and super glue allowed me to pull that off quite well now it's finally time to mix up the substrate I do this all by sight and feel because I've mixed it up so many times but if you want to get more information on it be sure to follow the link to start I'm using about one part of Coco fiber then I added roughly two parts of sphagnum Moss next I added one part of bark and roughly one half part of lump wood charcoal finally I topped it off with the substrate from my eight-year-old four variant I did this because that substrate is extremely well established although I did have to add additional substrate to that for very him over the years the oldest portion of it is around eight years old there are also old roots leaves and other organic components that will serve as a quick food source for our microphonic all things considered a good substrate will serve as the foundation to your fervor you if you want your plants to grow well and your microphone o to thrive the substrate comes first now let's put the initial layer of substrate into the vivarium there's about 20 gallons of substrate here and in the end I used all 20 gallons that said I like to add it as I go rather than all at once as I've explained in previous videos I also recommend sloping the substrate up toward the back of the variant meaning that it's much thinner in the foreground than it is in the background this will create a greater sense of depth and allow you to provide an adequate amount of substrate for those large background play [Music] from there it was time to pin the his team y'all into the background at first glance this might seem like a total waste of time because the majority of ficus leaves died off later on that's not a big deal though because the stems and roots are still completely intact although I think ficus premia is an easy plant and it's portrayed that way by others it can be quite temperamental in short this plant hates change whether that be a change in temperature a change in humidity or something else there will be some amount of acclamation die-off guaranteed the severity of this of course is dictated by the amount of change so for those of you who have commented about having issues of this plant give it time just because the leaves died off doesn't mean that the plant is dead once it becomes accustomed to its new environment it will come back stronger and more dense than ever the main thing that you want to avoid is having the stems dry out or mouth back in this instance I had issues keeping the heat at the correct level I accidentally left to Dinis heat lamp in the light compartment and it was getting upwards of 86 degrees Fahrenheit which is just way too hot and much different than what the plants were used to so a lot of the plants and the ficus included were actually melting back because they were literally being cooked by the light it took me a day to realize what was going on and once I removed the light everything has been good since also I'm keeping the humidity in this setup between 95 and 99 percent which is much higher than it was before anyways most of the plants that experience declamation issues have since bounced back and are showing off some new growth that being said it's a real shame that the ficus didn't stay as it was but as time progresses it will quickly grow to look as it did before after I got the ficus in place and then gave the vivarium a decent spray down to start getting the humidity up to speed next we can plant and set up the rest of the vivarium rather than run off all the plants names as I typically would I'll put their names up at the end of the video so stay tuned for that if you're curious you may have wondered why didn't put much on the left side of the setup well I wanted to give ample room for my larger plants to grow and this was the perfect spot so I began putting the majority of my background plants in the left corner during this part and the entire boat for that matter I like to move the plants around until I get the placement just right so you see me doing a lot of that throughout the build as I've said many times before when choosing your plants be sure to choose a good variety more specifically plants that have different looking and different sized leaves this will help you achieve textural contrast which in turn will allow you to make a natural aesthetic quite easily of course the placement of the plants is very important as well when trying to pull this off that's said obviously you want to keep most of your larger plants in the background and the smaller ones in the foreground however I do recommend placing some tall plants in the foreground and vice versa this will break up the landscape and in fact is a natural aesthetic in nature if plants don't distribute themselves neatly by height as you often see in people setups in line with that I try to place the plants in a way that keeps you interested each plant acts as a focal point that draws your eye throughout the setup essentially you want to create visual attention there are countless ways to make tension in your composition but in this instance I'm mostly using the variation of plants to do so regardless there is tension in nature and that's exactly what I try to do in creating my naturalistic landscapes enough on that though I just wanted to give you additional insight on how I set up my enclosures you'll notice that I periodically spray the plants throughout the bill this is really important when building a large for varying like this because there's relatively no humidity yet doing so will keep your plants hydrated and help you get a jump start on the human [Music] since I have the majority of the vivarium hardscaped with the background I mainly need to add accent hardscape elements so throughout the build various twigs and other natural elements were placed among the plants if you have the chance to I recommend creating levels in the substrate with your hard scape elements for example I'm using this piece of cork bark to make this substrate higher in the background than it is in the foreground using the cork makes it look a little more interesting than simply sloping the substrate as I described earlier at a certain point I decided that it was time to start placing the leaf litter I don't really like the look of leaf litter unless it's placed in a way that looks natural that said I like to place it as I'm planting the enclosure so that I can make it look like the plants are growing up from underneath it however you'll notice that I planted a lot of carpeting plants long-term I want them to cover up a greater portion of the leaf litter [Music] [Music] [Music] for the last bit of planting I'm adding some bromeliads and air plants do you remember that super glue from earlier well super gluing these types of plants and desirable locations works really well the super glue won't damage the plants at all and don't allow you to anchor the plants before they do so naturally with their roots lastly I added some of the microphon including spring tales and dwarf purple isopods I'm just starting out with these ones for now but as we move forward I'll add various other species [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] we covered a lot of ground in this video but the varium is far from complete a lot of the plants really have to grow in and many of them also have to bounce back from the issues I had in the beginning unfortunately some of the plants died off completely so they will need to be replaced as well I also want to add a lot more plants including more bromeliads and air plants to name a few there's quite a bit that I still have to do on my end before I want to think about stalking this I will do a follow-up video in about a month or so and we can discuss more about stalking at that time however I did drop various hints throughout the video as to what I'm going to keep in this so hopefully you were paying attention finally I'll leave you with a few takeaways understand that you're not going to have 100 percent success it could be something as simple as acclamation die off from your plants or a few plants just don't work at all don't get discouraged though be patient with it nine out of ten times the plants will actually come back given enough time assuming that they were actually suitable for the vivarium to begin with I thought plants show up years later after I thought they were long gone so it definitely does happen also as you're setting up your varium take your time I bought this one over about a two-week span of time and I'm still not complete I want to make the thing as perfect as possible so that way I can enjoy it for a really long time in the past they used to jump into builds and really just rush through them the previous 125 gallon for varium actually was a product of rush it was not set up optimally at all but even still it was going strong eight years later I didn't know nearly as much back then as I do now so you definitely don't need to be an expert when trying to set up a Bavarian experiment and have fun with it finally don't overthink your setup let it take shape on its own move the plants around for hours until you love what you've made on that I hope that you all find joy in making your masterpiece and were able to gain some insight from this video be sure to subscribe if you want to see the future of the so varium and more belts like it I thank you for watching and if you want mind giving this video a thumbs up I greatly appreciate it anyways I'll see you in the next one and peace

Channel: SerpaDesign

Views: 586,575

Rating: 4.9456983 out of 5

Keywords: vivarium, bioactive vivarium, bioactive, naturalistic vivarium, naturalistic, terrarium, terraria, topical terrarium, large vivarium, diy, do it yourself

Id: ISy54oWgLIE

Length: 20min 28sec (1228 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 02 2018