TheChubbyMermaid
Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
- Messages
- 13
Howdy! Thought I'd give an update to the status of our mid-centuryTortoise Table creation. It's all built, waterproofed, substrated and fancy.
So here is the scoop on style- It's an Ikea bookcase flipped upside-down with a piece of ply on the bottom for structure. It's 2'x4' which seemed adequate for now, the babies are about and inch and a half long currently. Steel hairpin legs with the bottoms painted blue. The exterior is a walnut veneer treated with stain and urethane- properly degassed. The interior was rubberized and caulked for moisture protection and then papered over with a walnut vinyl film (like a drawer liner). It's pretty cool stuff, easy to work with and it looks just like the real thing! I made a little modern house for them out of birch. My husband painted and added the fake stone while I was away in Europe on business. What a guy!
For the substrate we wanted them to have a variety and also we wanted it to look cool (artists- ugh, can't ANYTHING be simple?!). So we started off with lining the entire bottom with a thick black plastic tarp so that removal of the substrate was an easier process. On top of that we used acrylic boxes of varying heights for terrain. We attached a reptile grass mat to a few of the boxes and filled in the gaps with smooth river rocks. After that we filled in the rest of the habitat with moistened coco coir. We shlepped over to home depot for rock tiles... these are awesome! They have all the rocks attached to this mesh and it's super easy to drop onto the coco coir and fill all the gaps, we cut holes in it to recess their water dishes. The little babies have a halved flower pot as a hide in their fancy modern house that they can dig into and snooze.
What we have left to do is add living forage plants. They can be dropped in both in the rocky side of the habitat and at the sides of their little house. I think once we get to that, the habitat will look super swanky. I'm almost sorry I am posing the photos without it, but I am too excited about it finally being done and having the babies out of their sweater box.
They have a UVB light and a basking lamp on the rocky side and we're adding their heating rope on a thermostat to heat their night area. Currently in southern California it's been SO hot that it's not gotten below 80 at night. Cold snap is coming though, so we're prepared.
The babies prefer the rocky side. They don't seem to like walking in the coco coir much. They seem to be having a great time exploring their enclosure. As soon as they get big enough we'll create their outdoor habitat.
Bonus baby pics! Of course with their first salad in their new villa.
So here is the scoop on style- It's an Ikea bookcase flipped upside-down with a piece of ply on the bottom for structure. It's 2'x4' which seemed adequate for now, the babies are about and inch and a half long currently. Steel hairpin legs with the bottoms painted blue. The exterior is a walnut veneer treated with stain and urethane- properly degassed. The interior was rubberized and caulked for moisture protection and then papered over with a walnut vinyl film (like a drawer liner). It's pretty cool stuff, easy to work with and it looks just like the real thing! I made a little modern house for them out of birch. My husband painted and added the fake stone while I was away in Europe on business. What a guy!
For the substrate we wanted them to have a variety and also we wanted it to look cool (artists- ugh, can't ANYTHING be simple?!). So we started off with lining the entire bottom with a thick black plastic tarp so that removal of the substrate was an easier process. On top of that we used acrylic boxes of varying heights for terrain. We attached a reptile grass mat to a few of the boxes and filled in the gaps with smooth river rocks. After that we filled in the rest of the habitat with moistened coco coir. We shlepped over to home depot for rock tiles... these are awesome! They have all the rocks attached to this mesh and it's super easy to drop onto the coco coir and fill all the gaps, we cut holes in it to recess their water dishes. The little babies have a halved flower pot as a hide in their fancy modern house that they can dig into and snooze.
What we have left to do is add living forage plants. They can be dropped in both in the rocky side of the habitat and at the sides of their little house. I think once we get to that, the habitat will look super swanky. I'm almost sorry I am posing the photos without it, but I am too excited about it finally being done and having the babies out of their sweater box.
They have a UVB light and a basking lamp on the rocky side and we're adding their heating rope on a thermostat to heat their night area. Currently in southern California it's been SO hot that it's not gotten below 80 at night. Cold snap is coming though, so we're prepared.
The babies prefer the rocky side. They don't seem to like walking in the coco coir much. They seem to be having a great time exploring their enclosure. As soon as they get big enough we'll create their outdoor habitat.
Bonus baby pics! Of course with their first salad in their new villa.