I read the NEHERP guide a while ago, although I could use a refresher and will read it again. I have some Jungle Dawn lights ready for the terrarium, if they are a wise fit for it. I probably won't be able to mount one of the vertical strips because of the cutting I've already done (all the circles made for a specific size of lamp), unless the lights I have are entirely inadequate, in which case I suppose I can seal those holes.

I have the materials to create drainage; I only have had reservations about doing so because of my experience with bulkheads in the past. In my previous large-scale terrarium, which was also wood-built, I was preeeeetty darn sure I had tightened the bulkhead to the point that it could not possibly leak. But 6 months later I noticed the wood on the outside starting to rot. In this terrarium's case, I have taken pretty good precautions against leaking in the drainage layer, so if I can install a bulkhead safely, I have no opposition to doing so. Only I fear the consequences of a not-perfectly-installed bulkhead.

On the subject of ventilation, I think that that will not be as impossible as I thought, if the PC fans that I can buy are easily hooked up to a power source and are as small as I'm thinking they are.

The misting system won't be bad, either, if I can get by with the basic Mistking system or, at most, the Ultimate. I looked up some videos on how to install it, and it doesn't seem too bad.

I agree that smaller-leaved plants will probably look better, especially because the non-plant imagery in the terrarium already requires people to squint to see what's supposed to be going on. That's part of the reason I wanted moss in the background.

 

In my previous large-scale terrarium, which was also wood-built, I was preeeeetty darn sure I had tightened the bulkhead to the point that it could not possibly leak. But 6 months later I noticed the wood on the outside starting to rot.

A cheap insurance policy is to carry your epoxy or other waterproofing from the inside of the viv, right down & out through the bulkhead penetration, and lap it around the bottom/outside of the hole about 2".

 

A silly question: where am I putting this bulkhead? The one I have doesn't appear to have a stopper to prevent it from running all the time, so I am assuming that it's supposed to be run as a preventative against the water getting too high, and thus is positioned above the desired water line. But, of course, I have the rectangular pump access chamber that already performs roughly the same function.

Should I put this just above where the water is supposed to go to, or should I find one with a stopper on the outside and just put it "underwater" so to speak?

Also, which dimensions / stats should I look for in a PC fan, and how many do you think I will need considering the dimensions of my terrarium (roughly ~250 gallons of non-substrate open space)?

 

I'll leave the fan thing to others, as I do not use them. I keep snakes; active ventilation would literally be the death of them. Passive ventilation and plenty of it, is how I roll.

I prefer bottom mounts for bulkheads, period. That way you have very little dead pool - gravity alone will just about empty you out. If you want to maintain some depth you can just install a standpipe. When I do this, I like the bulkhead out in the open (like, in the bottom of an exposed pool, and not hidden away inside the false bottom) and the standpipe not glued in, so I can just reach in & pull the plug, so to speak, and get a full-volume dump. I have even seen some guys (fish guys, in their formative years I guess?) have a strainer atop the standpipe and also some little holes or slits down near the bottom and half-way to the top, so they were pulling off different elevations of the water column. Dirty water would be skimming off the surface, and also sucking in off the bottom. This is more for hyper-messy animals like turtles. But it's also cheap insurance against clogs & overflows - there's another route out for the water, somewhere along the length of the standpipe, until the top-most strainer is also clogged & then you're done for.

I have done some tanks with rear-or side-mounted bulkheads. Those were accommodations to the shelving I was using. Since then, I always go bottom mount, and if need be I will now lift the tank on rails or stilts or whatever, so there's room for the hose and such coming out the bottom. It's just where experience has got me to; I'm sure there are plenty of guys still happy with their side or rear - or even front - mounts.

If it helps, imagine the water pressure imparted by different depths. That pressure is always working against your waterproofing materials & methods. Less pressure is better - no pressure (just humid air!) is best. At an extreme, you could form the bottom of your viv like the bottom of a shower - everything sloping towards the drain. No standing water, period. I don't go that far, but I do now shoot for minimal standing water in all new builds.

cheers

 

Unfortunately, I am just about not going to be able to avoid having a standing water supply if I am going to have a waterfall working at all. If I can install a standing pipe that happens to be above the level of water necessary to maintain the waterfall, I will consider a bottom-of-the-box drainage system, although there isn't much room under the armoire to put that kind of thing.

Really, I'd like to have drainage only present beyond the water level, because of how afraid I am that a drainage port located within the "normal" water level will screw up and perhaps render the entire terrarium unusable. (And certainly render the waterfall unusable.)

Is there an inherent problem with standing water in a non-vivarium, a problem that isn't related to leaking? I've put so many layers of waterproofing agents that I would find it hard to imagine leakage occurring once the armoire is back on its feet. Does the water fester if it sits for too long, and become dangerous to the plant life?

I must say, I am very interested in the idea of a safe snake vivarium. I, too, own only snakes as far as herps go --- a ball python and a BCI --- and my history of trying to build an attractive terrarium for them is a lengthy chronicle that ultimately ended in just putting them in plain acrylic enclosures with newspaper floors, plastic hides, and no plant life whatsoever.

 

Oh, I'm sorry - in looking at the pictures of the armoire I imagined the "floor" of the display space (not the "working" space) being suspended above the void where you've got your access hole cut in the back.

• I saw what I suppose is the framework for a drawer (2 "rings" of 1x2 looking millwork) and assumed the upper "ring" (or something in that neighborhood) was going to support a sheet of plywood.
• That is where I'd put a bulkhead.
• The access hole would permit access to the pump/filter, and to a sump/drain bucket or other vessel (even just a plastic shoebox could work, if it would hold enough water to produce your stream; it is critical that your vessel be large enough to hold the entire volume of system water).

Hmm. I suppose something like a vertical partition, running across the width of the armoire in that lower area, could serve your needs. The front could hold your reservoir of water. The back could house your pump (not a submesible pump, more like a canister filter). If the pump sits lower than the top of the water, I think that would keep it happier. You'd have to break the suction every time you service the pump, otherwise you've got a mess on the floor. And you'd need a dependably self-priming pump, to get the water up over the partition. But...it could work. Maybe we need some more pictures (better than thumbnails?) of the bottom end of the armoire, and some more guidance on how you hope to use it?

Is there an inherent problem with standing water in a non-vivarium, a problem that isn't related to leaking? I've put so many layers of waterproofing agents that I would find it hard to imagine leakage occurring once the armoire is back on its feet. Does the water fester if it sits for too long, and become dangerous to the plant life?

Oh, this is a tiny naughty bit humorous. Many would answer that the inherent problem, is the water feature itself! But I would answer "no, not really". Many might also imagine a smart-assed crack like "don't let your limited imagination fool you into hoping for the best!" (Water is kind of a bastard, I will admit.) I'd say water that doesn't have stuff leaching into it, and that is being used and acted on by aerobic life forms, does not tend to fester. Particularly if there is some agitation, and plenty of air contact. You could, if you wanted, put in an inline charcoal canister (or use a canister filter for your pump). That would remove odors and colors from the water.

cheers

 

I'm going to attempt to link photographs with Imgur, although that hasn't worked well all of the time, because of some stupid crap Imgur does in which it doesn't let me load images from my laptop or phone. (it's the main reason I use the in-forum system of photo linking.)

Some of these photos will probably be unintentionally sideways, but I can't change that because I can't re-take some photos.



^This is the armoire when the only things that had been done to it were cutting out the shelves (which is what I assume you mean by "drawers") and using the boards from one of the shelves to create a barrier to contain the drainage layer / substrate layer. Some notes to clarify what you're seeing:

• The three open circles you see cut into the back wall are NOT in any way related to the project. They were presumably created by the armoire-builders in order to allow power cords through the different shelf layers (which makes NO sense given how old this piece of furniture otherwise appears to be). Since the time of this photograph, they have been sealed shut completely and waterproofed several times over.

• The rectangle that allows access to the waterfall pump has not been cut yet.

• I assume what you mean by "rings" are the remains of the shelves, which had to be jig saw'd out because they were neither removable nor desired. If that is what you are referring to, there are two of them. The lower of the two --- which closely lines up with the vertical barrier that I put up in the front of the armoire --- is more or less the demarcation line for the substrate.

Now, the next photograph --- which is not that good, but which couldn't be any better considering that the armoire is on its side right now --- has the waterfall pump's rectangle-shaped opening:



(Okay, maybe that photo could have been taken a little bit better, but my hands are shaky right now.)

What you see in this photo, at about the middle, are the waterfall pump dangling by its serrated hose, and the power cord dangling from the pump. That rectangle that the serrated hose is passing through is the rectangular opening I'm referring to. It starts about ~4.5 inches off of the floor of the armoire (to the left of it in this picture) and ends about 3 inches below the first cut-out shelf.

Now here are front-and-back photographs of what the eggcrate / PVC pipe / mosquito netting part of the false bottom are going to look like:




It's a basic eggcrate + PVC + filtering material setup, but I created an extra box to protect the pump from the substrate while also allowing water to pass easily into it.

(I'm waiting for the "holy crap, you need to start all over" shoe to drop!)

I can see how, if water purity is the goal, this is not a perfect solution. I will say that I've zip-tied several layers of mosquito netting to each segment of eggcrate, but I am not so foolish to think that that means no particles, ever, will make their way to the waterfall pump. That's why I left the serrated hose loose, so I can pull the pump out and clean it out once in a while.

I'm not quite sure how I could create a vertical partition in this particular terrarium even if I started all over with the drainage layer and scrapped everything drainage-related that I did so far. My reason for saying this is that the whole surface of the ground is going to be ground, and even though the waterfall is only supposed to land in one place, likely the water from misting and from whatever else is going to seep into the drainage layer from every part of the substrate. I may be misunderstanding, though.

Thank you again for another detailed response. I know dealing with all these questions must be trying, and I am very grateful for your indulging my concerns and answering them. Have a good one !

 

Oh, these pictures & text are most instructive, thanks.

(I'm waiting for the "holy crap, you need to start all over" shoe to drop!)

Nope, not gonna happen! I can definitely see your setup working. I would strongly recommend some energetic leak-testing ASAP however - does your sealed wooden basin hold water? If you discover you have a problem, might I suggest "going nuclear" - go get yourself a piece of pond liner e.g., EPDM.

I assume what you mean by "rings" are the remains of the shelves, which had to be jig saw'd out because they were neither removable nor desired. If that is what you are referring to, there are two of them. The lower of the two --- which closely lines up with the vertical barrier that I put up in the front of the armoire --- is more or less the demarcation line for the substrate.

Yes, I see now. They looked like the sort of wooden rails old-school chests of drawers used. I assume when you say "demarcation line" you mean the top or "finish" elevation of the substrate.

Here's what may be a jarring few questions. Do you need an organic substrate? Heck, do you even need a particulate substrate? Using something inorganic will help maintain water quality - "don't make tea!". Could you get away with something as simple as a centimeter of TurfAce? Or maybe even something like artificial turf right atop your screen? If weight is not a concern, how about pea gravel or larger cobbles? Or angular stones of...whatever size seems right for your application? Many cliffs have a steep colluvial deposit below them - a talus ramp, if you will.

Something motivating the questions - that height (even with ZERO intervening objects like branches, leaves etc) is hard to light adequately for ground-stratum live plants. And, as your upper-strata plants mature and grow, the shade down low will deepen into a true gloom. What if you let that problem just go away? Just have plants mounted on the background, sides (if you wish) and maybe on some branches? And turn the bug (the gloom) into a feature (some fantasy Hell-land, or where the Dwarves or Gollum live, or some such?).

cheers

 

Glad to hear the eggcrate doesn't need to be re-done Cutting all those eggcrate pieces to the unusual contours of the armoire's interior was a hassle and made a huge mess in what is not really even my living room to make a mess in.

As far as surface plants go: it is true that I could make an inorganic surface feasible except for one feature of this terrarium that I only briefly touched on: the ficus retusa.

[I can't load a non-thumbnail pic of the retusa because I'm typing on my laptop and it is mysteriously impossible for Imgur to load images, even though my laptop and my PC are virtually the same in every meaningful way.

There is a sideways pic earlier in the thread, though.]

The very original premise of this terrarium, which preceded all others, was of a ruined castle being consumed by a living plant. I was advised on this board to get ficus microcarpa, but I settled on retusa for price-related reasons.

Because evidently retusa dislikes being saturated in water, I was going to build it on a mound inside the castle ... it's kind of complicated to explain, or to convey a faithful mental picture of what it's supposed to look like. Basically, I wanted the tree to grow through the intricate interior of the castle under a Jungle Dawn "mega spotlight" (or two), and the mound of earth would both aid in the tree not being saturated by the water in the rest of the substrate and aid also in it getting enough light from the Jungle Dawn light.

That's 100% theory. I recognize that that isn't exactly a scientific strategy for making the plant grow safely. I had also heard recently, from you or someone else, that fertilizer isn't a good idea.

I could make the entire substrate except for the tree part just be river stones, the relatively inexpensive kind that I photographed earlier in the thread. Although that would be attractive in some way, I don't know if that's really the look I'm going for. Besides, I already have something like 10 gallons of ABG mix* ready right now. Plus many gallons of already-frozen magnolia leaves for leaf litter / springtail food.

*I wanted to say, I have NO IDEA about whether or not ABG mix is suitable substrate for a ficus tree like the one I am going to put in. I wasn't able to find that information, probably because not that many people want to put bonsai trees inside their terrariums.

EDIT: I should clarify about the water testing: I think I said something misleading about the waterproofing testing that I've done. I have tested it two separate times, but I haven't done the final test for ~48 hours that confirms it's watertight. In both of the tests, I discovered leaks, which I then siliconed and epoxy'd. I will see what's up in the final test.

The good news was that it was hole-related leaks, and not water seeping through the wood. Well, I guess that's good news.

EDIT: Not to make a long post longer, but I wanted also to acknowledge the point about lighting substrate-level plants. I was planning to create the "sunken" look that my other terrarium has, by which I mean, I was going to cheat and use a tradescantia / wandering jew-like plant that just about can't die and covers the ground quickly. My other terrarium has this plant growing all the way from the ground, 4 feet down, and it's using a bulb with less than half the illuminance that this Jungle Dawn bulb evidently has.

Not a long-term strategy, clearly, but I can always remove it if it truly takes over.

 

OK, you're going for some kind of Angkor Wat / Tikal look, with the banyan coming out of the ruin. I get that. Should be fun.

No woody ficus I know of likes wet feet.

Nope, I didn't say anything about fertilizer. I'm not sure - given there will be no animals - why that would be a terrible idea. If used lightly - ideally, only apply as much as the plant will consume. I expect you'd like some rapid growth up to desired size, then you'll back off the food and prune aggressively, so as to +/- bonsai it.

*I wanted to say, I have NO IDEA about whether or not ABG mix is suitable substrate for a ficus tree like the one I am going to put in. I wasn't able to find that information, probably because not that many people want to put bonsai trees inside their terrariums.

I think it'll love it. Non-compacting, moisture holding, and well drained? Few plants don't appreciate those attributes. Certainly not terrestrial ones from the humid tropics.

Idea - most woody ficus have pretty assertive aerial adventitious roots. You could build into the background, suitable colonization sites (pockets of terrestrial substrate, or, some cork mosaic with moss packed between the cork bits). Eventually you could wind up with a very exotic "strangler fig" kind of look, with woody, weaving, barked roots creeping all over.

 

Before I get going any further, I wanted to ask --- is there any problem with just using aquarium safe silicone to stick moss on the GS foam and create a moss-wall (with some epiphytes on cork bits) ? It seems kind of harebrained, and I haven't run the idea past anybody. It's not totally too late for me to just line the whole background with cork flats to support moss, if that's what's needed, but that would be tough and I'm not sure it would look quite right.

Anyway!

Thanks for the input, I'm much more confident about the ABG mix for the tree.

Yeah, I'm sort of going for the Angkor Wat look in concept, but not the exact banyan-over-asian-ruins kind. The castle is meant to look a tad more like a European fantasy castle. But yes, it is meant to have the plant peeking through the different cracks and ruined areas of the castle, and if the aerial roots want to take over the bottom parts, I have no problem with that.

I'd like the roots to do that, but I guess I'll need cork bark at the base to make it work. For that matter, is it necessary to have cork for the moss to stay stable and alive, or can the moss just be supported by silicone, get its light and misting, and survive? I want to know before I appear with a pic of a moss-covered wall and hear, "...yeah, that's probably all going to die."

 

is there any problem with just using aquarium safe silicone to stick moss on the GS foam and create a moss-wall (with some epiphytes on cork bits) ?

Well, no. I happen to think there are better ways to do it, though. More below. In short, I hate the way silicone shines through, once whatever you've stuck to it wears off. It's f*ckin ugly is all.

It's not totally too late for me to just line the whole background with cork flats to support moss, if that's what's needed, but that would be tough and I'm not sure it would look quite right.

Also not necessary, and I happen to agree with your aesthetic instincts. More below.

But yes, it is meant to have the plant peeking through the different cracks and ruined areas of the castle, and if the aerial roots want to take over the bottom parts, I have no problem with that.

I'd like the roots to do that, but I guess I'll need cork bark at the base to make it work. For that matter, is it necessary to have cork for the moss to stay stable and alive, or can the moss just be supported by silicone, get its light and misting, and survive?

OK, so, once again I'm giving this just a portion of my attention, and I'm also not quite able to resolve a picture of your final product in my imagination. Specifically, the relative height of the castle (halfway up the back? a third?) and how far towards the front it sticks (and how much light will get down there past it).

Anyway - of more immediate import - I suggest a "cork mosaic" using cork pieces, and intentional gaps just friction-stuffed with dead horticultural long-fiber sphagnum (LFS). For example the compressed stuff for sale on Glassbox Tropicals. Or the cheap bales you can get in the garden section of WalMart. Whichever. (The cheap stuff throws more "volunteers", the fancier stuff is pretty well killed dead, which gives you an easier blank canvas, if you like.) So you would silicone or otherwise adhere the cork bits, and just stuff the cracks a few days later with your LFS. The LFS, if adequately misted, dripped, whatever, will support live moss & other plants. It will also be happily invaded by adventitious roots of anything growing nearby (broms, epiphyic ferns, orchids, ficus, etc etc). You can mount many of those to the nearby cork. And, some mosses will venture out onto the cork. The margins at least, if you're niggardly with water. If you're generous some may cover most of the cork. But at that point, you're disadvantaging many other plants, so...I wouldn't aim for that. The LFS holds water great, if you just soak it once a day the moss will be stoked.

The key thing to remember is, moss needs light too! Hence my questions about overall layout, where's this castle going, etc. Another big thing - moss grows best on organic surfaces. Jeez, with enough light and frequent watering you can get it to grow on glass for God's sake, but do it a favor and offer it something more conducive. It will reward you with faster growth, better coverage, better resilience to vagaries of watering etc etc etc.

Hope this quick note is more helpful than confusing.

cheers

 

I'm also not quite able to resolve a picture of your final product in my imagination. Specifically, the relative height of the castle (halfway up the back? a third?) and how far towards the front it sticks (and how much light will get down there past it).

That's a good question for the both of us! I really don't have a clear idea of how the light will interact with the whole castle installed, and that's because:

1. Part of the castle had to be installed while the armoire was on its back, and it hasn't been on its feet since then.
   
2. It's not reasonable to lift the armoire all the way up to standing without someone else's help.
   
3. The JD "mega spotlights" that provide a crapload of light can only really be tested over the castle while the armoire is standing, because they're in wire fixtures that don't fix to the hole in the wall like the broad floodlights + solid fixtures do.

What I suspect is that about 4 of the 6 ceiling lights will reach the right wall (which is the wall most blocked by the castle) in some capacity, some being blocked by some castle bits but not by others, others passing through those castle bits but being blocked elsewhere.

It is unfortunate, though, that without taking very good video footage (with a tripod or something) that curves around the castle, it is really hard to give a good idea of what the castle looks like. It is a thoroughly three-dimensional object. I wouldn't want someone to bore themselves, either, scrutinizing a video of ... a clay castle, moving back and forth.

Anyway - of more immediate import - I suggest a "cork mosaic" using cork pieces, and intentional gaps just friction-stuffed with dead horticultural long-fiber sphagnum (LFS). For example the compressed stuff for sale on Glassbox Tropicals. Or the cheap bales you can get in the garden section of WalMart. Whichever. (The cheap stuff throws more "volunteers", the fancier stuff is pretty well killed dead, which gives you an easier blank canvas, if you like.) So you would silicone or otherwise adhere the cork bits, and just stuff the cracks a few days later with your LFS.

I had done a little research into the cork mosaic a year or two ago, whenever I mostly lurked here. It seems like a neat idea, and I have a great supply of cork flats and LFS to work it, but I ran aground trying to understand it, both then and now:

The LFS, if adequately misted, dripped, whatever, will support live moss & other plants.

I'm not quite sure I understood how a bunch of loose strands of sphagnum keep a patch of moss in place?

[I should clarify something I had been meaning to post about, that is: I'm planning to use the many mosses that live naturally around Louisiana, which I put in a large pot, clean for 24 hours in water, and wring out and put in sealed plastic bags (which are put under light, of course).

So my moss is mostly in living patches, not the Dusk slurry, etc. if that's a problem?]

It just seems like the moss --- the desired moss, not the LFS that roots it there --- is likely to just plop out of the mosaic cracks, which are going to be already partially filled by LFS.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. The mosaic has always sounded wonderful, except for this one hangup.

[Another sidenote if you care, which I'm going to find an interesting color for in order to delineate the different thoughts in this big post:

I have an old "moss bank" I've mostly forgotten about, in completely airtight / watertight Ziploc-brand plastic boxes. They are outside, but they get pretty limited light, being stacked on top of one another. This is where I am confused about the moss / light matter: even with limited light, they EXPLODED in growth. Like, I have never seen moss anywhere in real life that has done as well as these mosses. I'll post a photograph later if that will clarify why this is the case.]

 

The crevices one forms by adhering the thick cork bits fairly close to each other should be about as wide as the cork is thick. So, between two pieces of 1" thick cork, would be a gap about 1" wide.

Into those crevices, you just stuff the bejeezus out of that LFS. I like to take a bucket and use that for rehydrating my LFS. Just toss in the dry LFS, add a pint or two of water, and go away for 15-20 minutes. Then pour off the excess water, give the moss a bit of a squeeze (not back into the bucket - elsewhere) to wring out the excess. and chuck the limp wet moss back in the bucket.

I like to grab handfuls of the wet LFS, twist them into "sausages" or "units" or "cigars", and then stuff those bodily into the crevices. Pack it hard. If the crevice depth isn't filled flush, I like to push on the end(s) of the "unit" so as to reduce its length and thicken it up, until the outer surface of the LFS is flush with that of the cork. The next "unit" goes right next to, and butted up against, the last one. Pack them all hard. You want water squeezing out of every push on every "unit", and when you're done emptying your bucket, which may take 20-30 minutes, sore tired fingers.

Continue until all the crevices are full. You'll be amazed how much LFS this consumes. A lot, OK? Ha ha. About 100g dry weight of LFS, to a gallon of cork pieces is my consumption rate, given my crevice width. 100g of dry LFS - which can compress to a little dinky flat-pack, expands to about a gallon of wet LFS.

Now, about establishing moss on this stuff. There's several ways to go about it:

• if you use the cheap stuff, you'll probably get volunteers
• if you use the expensive stuff, you'll definitely need to "seed it"
• to "seed it" you could use a commercial slurry, and just "paint" it right onto the LFS, once you've finished packing
• however, you (like me) seem interested in harvesting local wild moss - in that case, I think maybe you want to collect some of that first, and chop it up into maybe BB-sized pieces, and stir that into your wrung-out bucket of LFS, before packing it
• alternatively you can make your own slurry and paint it on, just like you would with a commercially-sourced moss mix
• finally, you can toothpick pieces of wild moss (maybe your "moss bank"?) onto your LFS; some growth forms readily facilitate such "farming", while others are more prone to falling apart and being a PITA - those forms might be better to chop & mix as described above

I have an old "moss bank" I've mostly forgotten about, in completely airtight / watertight Ziploc-brand plastic boxes. They are outside, but they get pretty limited light, being stacked on top of one another. This is where I am confused about the moss / light matter: even with limited light, they EXPLODED in growth. Like, I have never seen moss anywhere in real life that has done as well as these mosses. I'll post a photograph later if that will clarify why this is the case.]

When I collect moss from the wild, I use ziplocs with wet paper towels in them. Grown chunks of moss will tolerate surprising amounts of manhandling and neglect. Establishing new moss is a whole different proposition. As is maintaining long-term survival. And finally, the sun is bright as hell. Even "shade" outside is relatively bright as hell. No matter how intense your indoor light, I doubt you'll be providing what those baggies were getting outside. And, the 100% humidity provided by the bags no doubt has buffered other difficult circumstances like being stacked. All this is a long way to say, don't expect similar performance indoors in your armoire, as outdoors in those baggies. You could get lucky...but I wouldn't plan on it. You're probably going to have to put a little effort into it.

Hopefully this helps!

cheers

 

This is very good and helpful information, and I'll get to work on it. I'm not sure how I'll mount the cork, except by putting the armoire back on all the sides I thought I was done putting it on. (Unless I can somehow safely silicone the cork pieces onto the walls while the armoire is vertical by use of wires and such.)

If every form of moss can be chopped-and-mixed without certain death from the chopping part --- that is to say, if every form of moss can be chopped into bits and still survive and grow --- then I have no opposition to cutting up my many gallons of moss and stirring them into LFS in order to create a mix that grows out of the LFS in the cracks.

I am a wee bit concerned that as complicated a background as mine will be able to support without losing the parts of the design. The driftwood dragon may become hard to discern for a while, what with cork bits between its ribs and arm and wings. I guess I will just have to take it on faith that the moss will grow onto the cork bits and hide it. I suspect it is already difficult for viewers of this thread to distinguish the dragon from the surrounding images and textures.

I meant to post images that would illustrate what my background looks like up close, but I'm a tad fatigued from a dodgeball playoff last night. Besides the driftwood and the clay castle, it's basically just fields of cut-up black GS foam interrupted occasionally by cork flat bits and selenite crystals.

 

Oh yeah, I should have mentioned -

1) WEAR GLOVES. There's a yucky little fungal disease you can get from moss. I forget what they call it. Rose gardener's disease or something. It's rare but you don't want it.

2) Layout. I spend quite a lot of time - say, 20 minutes a gallon of cork pieces - just playing jigsaw puzzle with my pieces. Arrange, and rearrange, and rearrange them, until you've got them laying like you want. There's big pieces and small pieces, long skinny ones and squarish ones, maybe some triangular ones. Plus some are thicker, some are thinner. The thick ones allow for bigger gaps, whereas the thin ones require closer spacing. Also, some pieces don't look good along the margins. Or, a piece will have a clearly superior "outside edge". Some pieces are real flat, others are quite cupped. The cup ones are great at the top, or along the front edge, as planters. My point is, there's a ton of options for how to fit any population of cork bits together. Give it some time. You'll be looking at your work for years. Regrets kind of suck...

• Part of this is aesthetic - do the ridges and shapes of the bark "flow" harmoniously - maybe even flowing in an arc or curve, or together from 2 streams into a bigger one - like they do on a real tree, or do they look like some demented clown vomited them onto the viv? (Obviously I have an opinion on the right way to do this...ha ha ha. But do as you like!)
• Part of this is functional - how is water going to flow, or be restricted from flowing, through the LFS? Even something as simple as having the pieces going vertically, or horizontally, or diagonally, will have a big effect on how easy it is to get water to everything rooted into that LFS later. Google some pictures of brick bonds. Think about water flowing through the mortar cracks. Then think about your cork layout. Obviously you're not going to do something as regular and monotonous as a bricklayer. But I find it helps, in imagining the water movement through my LFS, around my cork pieces (mostly around - some water, a minority of the total volume, will ooze out and just drip straight down off or over the cork, hopefully running into the LFS below, maybe falling all the way to the substrate).

It's WAY easiest if you've got your viv laid back so the cork can just lay there. You can tape it up, but that's a damned hassle. For one thing, cork is perversely resistant to masking tape stickiness! It does not stay stuck, it just slips down. You really have to support it from below, not just across, if trying to tape it

Note that the cork pieces may lay there nice and firmly, or they may want to rock around on e.g. 3 points of contact. You can improve (enlarge & flatten) your contact points with judicious trimming. I like an oscillating multitool for this job. (I don't try to eliminate gaps behind the cork, as I can fill these with LFS during packing, or with ABG mix if it's a top-edge piece, and support more roots there.)

Once you've got your layout, leave everything in place. Take your black fish-safe silicone and squirt blobs or lines onto the contact points of one piece. It may or may not matter which piece you start with - figure that out before you begin! I like to whip through this glue-down phase, as I find the fumes pretty nasty. When you're done you can toss some wet paper towels, or some wet LFS, atop the cork to provide curing moisture for the silicone.

Once again, I hope this is more helpful than confusing or annoying. Obviously I love the subject...man I gotta get another build going!

 

It looks like most of this silicone-the-cork-mosaic-into-place process is going to have to be done while the armoire is standing up --- I can't within reason continue to ask my friend to come all the way over here to move it. Tomorrow has to be the last move, and that move has to be to a standing position.

My strategy for holding the cork pieces up while the black silicone dries is to use a length of steel wire as a platform. It will be poked into the foam at a diagonal direction that will make it so that the weight of the cork won't push it out from its lodging.

My #1 concern with this is that the black GS foam layer covering the terrarium isn't level at all due to the fact that this is an armoire, not a tank, and it has various contours. Trying to "plane" it with a knife or whatever would result in wood getting exposed, plus it would be a huge amount of work that might not even, well, work.

I imagine, though, that the way water travels down the LFS in the mosaic is that it doesn't really drip straight down, but is, for lack of a better immediate term, sucked into the adjacent LFS. So a part of the LFS that is jutting out a little, will not drip water straight down, but sort of move it into the adjacent LFS that is lower down.

(It is also a concern of mine that LFS that is on the underside of the "jutting out" spot will just plain out fall out if the friction holding it in the crevasses isn't strong enough.)

P.S.: I'm probably going to install my bulkhead, but I'll have to do it above the desired waterline and just let it spill through when it gets too high; I don't have any stopper with this bulkhead and besides, I don't want to risk a malfunction below that desired waterline and never be able to hold enough water to run the waterfall.

 

My strategy for holding the cork pieces up while the black silicone dries is to use a length of steel wire as a platform.

That should work, with some tinkering perhaps. Tinker first, tinker much, silicone later, once you've found and worked out all the kinks. It's important to not have the cork sag or slide while the silicone is curing. Especially if you have multiple pieces curing at once. I have found balled-up pieces of newspaper also serve well as "spacers" to maintain separation. The uncured silicone prevents a cork piece from actually pulling off the wall, but sag is a bitch. So if you start siliconing at the bottom cork pieces, and really wire them up solidly, you can then work upwards, using "spacers", and not have to fight your way through a growing forest of wires. At least one of which you will surely knock out of place, and have the cork piece crash down through your work getting silicone who-knows-where. Besides the wires and the spacers, you can probably get some masking tape action going too. Remember, it doesn't stick to cork, but it sticks great to wood furniture.

I imagine, though, that the way water travels down the LFS in the mosaic is that it doesn't really drip straight down, but is, for lack of a better immediate term, sucked into the adjacent LFS.

That's right; it depends somewhat on the application rate however. Also on how much you let the LFS dry out between wettings.

• If you let it really dry out, it's slower to start absorbing. Water just runs down the face at first, if applied to the surface (mist) and not from above (drip). After a little bit it starts absorbing though.
• If you apply too much water too fast, the absorbed water does then go straight down.
• If the LFS isn't too dry, and you don't apply too much water too fast, it will start to absorb right away, and also wick nicely in all directions.

I use both misting and drip hose to wet most of my cork mosaic walls and water the plants. I just run each twice a day (~10 AM & ~3 PM), about a minute for the drips (takes a bit for them to even start dripping) and more like 15-20 seconds for the misting. And I do a little hand-watering maybe 2x/week also. I find it best to use automation to provide most needed water, but not all of it. That way I don't overwater, and I also don't over-ignore. I just add a cycle to the timers for long out-of-town trips. For weekends away, I don't have to do anything. Just top off my reservoirs.

(It is also a concern of mine that LFS that is on the underside of the "jutting out" spot will just plain out fall out if the friction holding it in the crevasses isn't strong enough.)

Not if you pack it like I described. No way, no how, huh uh.

P.S.: I'm probably going to install my bulkhead, but I'll have to do it above the desired waterline and just let it spill through when it gets too high; I don't have any stopper with this bulkhead and besides, I don't want to risk a malfunction below that desired waterline and never be able to hold enough water to run the waterfall.

Bulkhead placement is a fine way to set your control elevation. You should be fine. Hey, remember this mantra - "water features - what could go wrong?" Ha ha. Seriously though - there's nothing like experience. Nothing.

cheers

 

You should get a medal for "helping a new guy through the entire process of making a terrarium." Like a forum medal. But I guess a real medal is fine, too.

An update: T9 (which is a code name I give to my large-scale Terraria, in the order I've made them) is standing again!

A couple notes:

The bulkhead looks ... more difficult to place than I thought it would. Check out this photograph:



^This is a view of the left half of the bottom-back wall, but the problem is the same on the right half, too: the part of the back that seems to be exactly the right vertical point to install the bulkhead --- not too low that it accidentally drains too much water but not too high that it doesn't drain water at all --- is two different level-surfaces. Bulkheads, as far as I can tell, need a completely flat surface, at least on the inside of the tank where water is being sucked in.

What do you advise in this regard? I'm not in a rush to solve this problem, because I have to do "watertight testing" right now anyway. Although I suppose I have to do it with the bulkhead, too.

Also of importance: now that T9 is standing, I got to test the lights!



^This is with three Jungle Dawn spotlights in the back (in order to light the back wall's mosses more effectively) and three Cree "100w replacement" floodlights in the front. I know that some Cree bulbs from Home Depot aren't exactly hobbyist-grade choices, and I couldn't find the PAR ratings anywhere for them, but I'll be damned if I was going to spend another ~$250 for those Jungle Dawns that will fizzle out in less than a decade.

[You can also see the rough contours I was referring to, which I guess aren't really that rough after all.]



^This is the Lux at the substrate base level, 12,500, although repositioning it can make it go as low as 9,600 or so. I don't know if that's enough to grow ordinary terrarium plants on the substrate level, but it should be good for the moss higher up, I guess?

Thanks again for the advice about the cork mosaic. While I'm waiting for the watertight test to pass (which should take some ~48 hours to be reasonably certain I guess?) I can test the steel wires and arrange cork bits and, if both work, I can start siliconin'.

 

By the way, you may have noticed a patch of bare wooden wall by the dragon-skull driftwood piece, untouched by spray foam. This is intentional, but it may not have been a wise idea, now that I'm going the cork mosaic. My intention had been to have a bit of less-raised space to put moss in, because (and this may or may not be evident from pictures of it) the skull is very close to the wall and spray foam might choke it.

[This would be a good time to bring up the "planter" within one of the skull's "horns." It's a cupped area that can hold about a pint's worth of substrate without it spilling out, and even has a little hole for drainage. I intended to put some kind of terrestrial trailing plant in at some point, and I don't want to have too much spray foam for that reason: it would make planting that plant impossible.

EDIT: I do have a pic of it! Here goes:



The "planter" is that shadow-cast area towards the middle of the photo. To its left is a hole (the "eye") and a little further left (and a tad down) is the jaw. All backwards, of course.]

Also, although there is one selenite crystal that is super-prominent up top, and is probably close to impossible to hide attractively --- yet if the other ones look rather ugly and clash with the setting, I am not opposed to covering them with cork or whatever. Just thought I'd air that thought.

EDIT: To save e-trees, I may as well include this other stuff in this post:



^This is (some of) my hand-gathered Magnolia leaf litter, which were frozen for 48 hours and will not be removed from their bags until they need to be put in the terrarium(s).

My understanding of springtails is that they munch on dead leaves, which made me think it might be a good idea to water down my ABG mix with leaves in between so the subterranean springtails can feed on something, instead of just the leaf litter on top.



^This is an example of a 24-hour moss-cleaning process, although this is neither the normal pot used nor the usual amount of moss cleaned at one time. Even if the moss is going to be chopped up to bits, I still am fond of a good cleaning. (I'm basing this practice off of a YT video I saw a long time ago that suggested this.)

 

Really starting to doubt the possibility of carving up cork in a way that allows as little as a 1" gap for LFS.

My main reason for saying this is that there is already so much crap on the walls that there are a ton of areas that just can't get cork bits in. Take the "ribs" for example. How will I fit cork in there such that LFS can be jammed inside? If I were dealing with a flat surface that had no decorations on it, no driftwood, no castle, no nothing, I could easily start with the cork mosaic.

It's looking like part of the walls will need some other strategy, or perhaps resorting to the "directly siliconing moss to foam" method.

EDIT: I did have an idea, which won't work as well as a cork mosaic under ideal conditions, but might function here.

The foam wall is already pocked with holes from the carving process, a large part of which involved just ripping bits of foam out and leaving what were, at the time, unfortunate holes.

Now, I think I can stuff LFS into them without it being pulled out easily. That won't cover the whole wall surface, but it will grow outward and leave few gaps. And anywhere I just can't fit LFS in, I'll silicone cork bits together as support.

I haven't completely thought this through, just thought that I'd air the thought.

 

Not to quadruple post, but I think I may have found an answer here:

Do you see the green wire?



No? I can't either, even taking that close-up photo of wire-bound LFS hanging comfortably over the abyss.

It isn't stuffed into a crack; if I take out the wire, it will fall right now.

Now that I'm done with this test piece, I can start dicing up mosses and mixing them into LFS.

 

Hey, you've been busy! Isn't it fun!!! Ha ha, seriously, I just LOVE working on these things. All of it, even the stuff you'll never see again, like waterproofing wood.

the part of the back that seems to be exactly the right vertical point to install the bulkhead --- not too low that it accidentally drains too much water but not too high that it doesn't drain water at all --- is two different level-surfaces. Bulkheads, as far as I can tell, need a completely flat surface, at least on the inside of the tank where water is being sucked in.

What do you advise in this regard?

Yeah I see the issue. You are correct - you need a flat plane for the bulkhead - definitely the wet side, but really, both sides. There are 2 options - add wood (or solid plastic I suppose) to the thin part, or remove wood from the thick part. Adding is simple if you have a table saw or even just a chop saw. Removing might be even easier, with a Forstner bit. Since you need to make a wider excavation than the ultimate full-penetration to pass the neck of the bulkhead through, you can't use a hole saw. You could use a spade bit, but...for good seating of the bulkhead I suggest something tidier. A Forstner bit would be my go-to tool for this job. The spade bit could make a mess of things for you.

 

Now, I think I can stuff LFS into them without it being pulled out easily. That won't cover the whole wall surface, but it will grow outward and leave few gaps. And anywhere I just can't fit LFS in, I'll silicone cork bits together as support.

Great. Honestly I think some gaps look better than full coverage anyway. And, if you really roll up the LFS in your fingers, roll it up tight, and quickly stuff it - like, it barely stuffs in there, it's so big and dense - into cracks and gaps, it will want to puff back up and it'll wedge itself in real good.

Silicone works very well to adhere cork to glass. Probably works fine to adhere cork to cork. I was thinking, if you let the LFS dry back out, you could also use Gorilla glue to adhere it to...anything.

Great progress you're making, well done. There's nothing like just hucking yourself at it. Thinking and planning are essential, but they don't change facts on the ground.

 

Thanks, although I think I'm just going to drill through the thick part that lies in the "sweet spot" between eggrcate and waterfall pump. The threaded neck of the bulkhead is just long enough to go through the entire thing and still be fastented on the other side --- at least, it looks that way right now.

Another thing that would make this easier is if I understood waterfall pump mechanics better. Mainly, does the the intake part of the waterfall pump have to be completely submerged in order for it not to malfunction? I ask this because I'll have a lot more vertical space to work the bulkhead into, if the water level doesn't have to be quite as high for the waterfall to flow. Like a centimeter lower. I don't care if it slightly affects the speed / volume of the waterfall --- I just don't want the waterfall pump to screw up.