Making an outdoor frog house (will take a long time)

PAL said:
You are doing all of that for a BLIND frog!!!!! WHAT?
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LOL I know, that's why the texture is going to be so important.

jackiomy said:
I didn't know that frogs lived to be 20 years old?! That is amazing. You are one heck of a frog keeper.
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Vicious_Fish said:
Great job keeping your frog that long. I look forward to seeing this build!
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Ara said:
Wow.. so the little frog is 22 years old?? Impressive!!

The new enclosure looks amazing! Good luck!!
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Ta but she has had some close calls over the years. She's survived cat attacks, had a swim in a chlorinated pool, a fight with an enraged weta, and escaped countless times.
Once she was awol for over a week. When she came back I figured I'm stuck with her.


wespastor said:
Thats a way cool sketch... The real devil's in the details as the planning goes forward...

Check out my terrarium build for ideas on how you might build that habitat very inexpesively.

The threads are here: http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=220587

and here: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/v...-introduction-build-125-gallon-terrarium.html

Both of these threads and forums detail how I am building my terrarium (125 Gallon tank) Pay particular attention to the background ... it can be colored with tempura paint or concrete pigments (solids not liquids) to any color you could imagine, not just black like I chose to do. Using the pigments in the foam it will bind with and be encapsulated in the foam and will not leach out into your tank or vivarium. The textures one can achieve are limitless.

Best wishes

Wes
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Yeah I'm going to have to figure out a few details, like how to make and attach the door and screens. Rendered Polystyrene is much less forgiving than timber.

for the background and interior supports I want it to look a bit like this-
land.jpg

That's growing on tree fern, but for this new enclosure I'm going to grow the plants in irrigation fabric like this little wall I made for my raised pond-
P1210525.JPG

water is pumped to a spraybar on the top for a couple of minutes every hour by a pump on a timer.

for the fake wood I'm going to attempt to replicate hx's work that he kindly demonstrated here-http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/parts-construction/21034-how-were-these-constructed-6.html

I've made the basic shape out of polystyrene minus the top and side beams-
P1210523.JPG
 
So I haven't done much work on this build yet, but I've done a lot of sketching and planing. I want it to be as good as I can make it.
I spent way too much time trying to figure out how I'm going to irrigate the inside pillars and beams to grow moss.
I have an idea on how to do it, but I'm not sure it will work so I will build a test beam :uhoh:

I've also attempted to make some fake wood test pieces. I'm going for a living wood look, so its more like fake bark..
I also want the fake wood to be absorbent so it will grow moss and algae to look more natural.
I was looking at grout in the hardware store but couldn't figure out which type to get.
I've got cement, so I mixed 1:1.5 cement to powdered clay with a pinch of iron oxide.
I added a bit too much water to make a thick paint and painted it on some foam. It went on very smoothly (much nicer to work with than epoxy)
Then I dipped some string in the mix and stuck it to the foam. I tried to make it look more like roots by painting thick, wiggly lines with a bamboo skewer.
this is what I got-
IMG_2141.JPG

Its shiny because its wet.
I'm pretty happy how it came out considering I didn't really know what I was doing.
The next time I think I make it I will use 1:2 cement to clay powder. Plus I'll use varying thickness of string for the roots.
Fake wood/branches are harder to make than fake rock IMO.
 
Looking awesome!
 
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