Thought I would show how I make my backgrounds for my Crestie vivs!
I’m currently making a new one for some females.
So I took out the fake background and the substrate that was in there.
So this was it when I got it…
Now waiting for it to finish drying and can add substrate, and my plants! (Though need to go get some more)
Since this is a female viv I have climbers, and I may add 1 bottom plant in the left back corner but that’s it since they lay anywhere and don’t want to be pulling them out all the time again
You’ve just got to wait until it starts ‘foaming up’ stick too soon and it won’t work!
Also need to mist the foam first as needs water to start activating properly which a lot of people don’t realise!
The 2 before this one I used wood glue. Which you actually mix with the substrate and then mould it onto the background! That’s also another way of doing it
After misting I literally just squirt the glue everywhere and it expands and foams up. What I will do is use my hand with a glove on obviously, and will make sure all spread evenly and covered. Found that using a brush, the glue sticks to it and then gets hard and is a pain to do, so it’s better to do with a glove! But there was a lot of places where this wasn’t needed as it will proper foam up and expand anyway and cover all the foam!
What glue did you use? And did you carve all foam first? You want no shiny top layer
With gorilla glue and making these for years now we’ve found misting first, then adding glue is the best way. We weren’t even misting when we made our first ones! A couple are still going today and are nearly 4 years old but being redone as some patches now.
We were also misting after the glue too, but then found misting first so foams already wet worked the best!
I’ve even seen silicone being used and my gosh, if you want to change your viv good luck getting that off!
We used Gorilla Glue. And we wanted kind of a flat surface with just a small half of a plastic pot imbedded in it, so we used flat foam sheets instead of the expanding foam. Plus if we decide to change it up, all we have to do is remove the foam pieces. But the next one we are doing will have the expanding foam. We need to move our littles crestie up to a larger enclosure.
Ah that may be why.
With expanding foam you are able to foam around the pot and then when all dry, take the pot out so you will just end up with a handmade one in the background!
The 2 bark bits either side of mine above are actually for plants. I’ll be planting my climbers in them! I’ve done the pot holes before or I make planters with the bark itself.
Also with expanding foam if you don’t want it anymore it does come off. Just gotta pull! We’ve actually just stripped out Red our Chams viv as he passed last week bless him, but all foam and everything gone now.
It’s being redone now for the dart frogs and williamsi
… I’m gonna pin it at the top of the Gecko category for a week to make sure everyone sees it!