It’s been a lot of slow progress.
I caulked the interior with Alex paintable latex “silicone” waited 7 days and then painted the interior with 6-7x coats of drylok, you can see there was some leaking from pic 3 on the first coat.
I did one coat per day, cut an XPS piece and siliconed it in for the front substrate barrier.
Cut the interior XPS for the background, cut down some dead oak by hand, went back and cut some more (pic 2).
The past week I’ve done water tests, I had a leak, patched it, found another patched it, and today it passed!
Added hardwood lump charcoal for my drainage layer (pic 5,6) , cut the egg crate for the false bottom (7), lined it with screen x2 (8,9,10), cut a piece of tubing for a quick access drain in case the bottom floods- has a suction cup blocking it (11), got substrate mixed up, added it (12,13) and put the XPS background in and then started laying out the hardscape (1).
I watched a video that Serpa Design did- I’ll link it in the comments, that changed my plan considerably, because it included research on what section of the forest Crested Geckos live in.
So it’s going to be a jigsaw of wood on the inside, with less plants than I was planning. Due to this I may work on the background in place- not sure yet.
Ordered a clip lamp for the light which will be here tomorrow and I can fiddle with the hardscape more!
by One-plankton-
4 Comments
I would like to see the final product when finished. I’m really interested in these ikea builds. I may do one myself soon.
[Video](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O81sXpMMzcc) that changed my whole plan, if you have or want a crestie I’d give it a watch
I’ll be waiting to see a more finished post. Looks good so far.
I am in the early stages of a Fabrikor enclosure for a crested gecko. Just did the second leak test tonight and we are good. Need to figure out if we’ll add an automated misting system or stick to hand misting.
Looks great so far. I would be worried about the zero airflow and thus lack of ventilation in the enclosure though. Is there a reason why you didn’t add any?