Cool vivarium – an epic wall

They may say that one who is waiting for something good can never wait too long… but I am starting to feel the time crunch now… I have a lot of plants coming from Peru in a few weeks and I am nowhere near ready for them. I have ordered a lot of gear for the new cool vivarium, but two weeks have passed and only about half has arrived. The viv. has been standing like an empty gaping hole for weeks…! Ok, so I am known for my patience… he he…

I actually did make some headway this week. First of all I really wanted to seal the bottom of the vivarium so it would not leak once I crank up the incoming rain system. First I tried using a hot glue gun since everyone kept telling me silicone won’t not stick to plastic or aluminum. Well, I have news for you… neither will hot glue!! It sticks to just about everything – except aluminum. I knew regular silicone probably would not stick either. So I got the meanest, strongest silicone glue I could find. Superfix. It said it would stick to anything, so far it looks like it might have worked. Ok, I know it won’t win any beauty contests, but as long as it holds water I am happy.

I also picked up the new glass for the top. I decided to have it split it into two pieces since trying to handle a 65x175cm large piece of glass really would be a pain – specially hauling it home on the tram. Luckily mom came into town and I could borrow her car for an hour.

Two huge packages did arrive from Dusk in Stockholm in time for the weekend, mainly loaded with the EpiWeb I am planning to cover the insides with. I had really hoped  I could have finished mounting all the EpiWeb (including applying the moss mixture) this weekend. But I did not get all the pieces I needed, so I did as much as I could. That included hand-sawing the huge panels into to the correct sizes with a hacksaw blade – I’ve got several blisters to show for it, but it did turn out great.

I’ve heard of some people using silicone to attach the wall material inside their viv’s, but I wanted to install mine so I can take them back down again if I need to. So, dear husband helped me to drill the holes and we used large carriage bolts to hang the EpiWeb with. Good thing the back wall is made from double walled polycarbonate, makes for easy drilling. For the sides panels we used the existing air holes for the bolts. First I had planned to put the wingnut on the inside so I could more easily get to it, but I did not like the look. So we turned the bolts around, and I like it much better.

At least I feel like the project is finally moving forward again. The epic wall is built! The panels are in, but they bow out a little bit and since I will adding even more weight to them mounting plants, I think I will get a few more bolts in further down  just in case. I am also going to add a few EpiWeb branches to the back wall (still coming in the mail), and also plant (ehm smear) on the tropical moss mixture. But more on this later.