Martin21114
New member
This is my tank for Mr. Wu, my chinese water dragon. When she (named before sexed, doh!) gets an upgrade this winter I'm thinking about redoing it for newts. I can only have the water about 6-8 inches deep though because there is a crack in the back.
I got the aquarium for free (totally bare) because one of the rear panes of glass had a foot long crack in it. I put some superglue along the crack and some clear packing tape over it so seal it and keep it from spreading. Luckily the crack was only in the top half of the pane, so i haven't had to test if it holds water, nor do I plan to. In the 3 years I've had it the crack hasn't grown, so although the safe-lite repair man may be shrieking in horror it works well enough for me.
the crack was ugly as hell though, so I decided to add a background to hide it. I used great stuff expanding foam from home depot, black silicone, and peat moss along with some driftwood from petsmart.
to make the background I set the tank on it's back, cracked side down and positioned the driftwood over the cracked pane of glass. then I sprayed the expanding foam all around it and waited for it to set. once it was set I smeared black caulk over the hardened foam and while it was wet sprinkled (more like piled) peat on it. You need to work fast and do small sections at a time. Once it had set a few days and cured I got a plastic vine from petsmart and cut the leaves off. then i used a hot glue gun to attach the bunches of leaves to various knobs on the driftwood pieces. I also had plumbed a water feature but it never worked right for more than a week at a time so I dismantled it.
What I learned if I had to do it again:
1) keep the wood out of the water, it turns it to a disgusting shade of urine-tea. next time no wood below the water line.
2) If you can find a way to thin silicone caulk you're my hero. It is terrible to work with, doesn't want to spread, clumps and sticks to everything, then skins over way to fast for the substrate to stick to it as well as you'd like. the caulk is the worst part of this by far, the rest is easy. you need to work fast and small. an alternative may be worth investigating, like a spray adhesive such as the one used to apply cloth automotive headliners. Then again that may be more lethal than ghona-sypha-herpe-aids and napalm and kill everything in the tank, so don't be the first to try it.
3) peat is beat, use coconut fiber instead. it won't burn your amphibs like the blood in aliens. Peat has an acidic pH that amphibians do not love. peat is good if you are making a bog garden for carnivorous plants though. They like the acid. and blood. and singing. I'm not worried about it for this tank because Mr. Wu's been fine for years and by the time any newts are in it the peat will be several years old.
I got the aquarium for free (totally bare) because one of the rear panes of glass had a foot long crack in it. I put some superglue along the crack and some clear packing tape over it so seal it and keep it from spreading. Luckily the crack was only in the top half of the pane, so i haven't had to test if it holds water, nor do I plan to. In the 3 years I've had it the crack hasn't grown, so although the safe-lite repair man may be shrieking in horror it works well enough for me.
the crack was ugly as hell though, so I decided to add a background to hide it. I used great stuff expanding foam from home depot, black silicone, and peat moss along with some driftwood from petsmart.
to make the background I set the tank on it's back, cracked side down and positioned the driftwood over the cracked pane of glass. then I sprayed the expanding foam all around it and waited for it to set. once it was set I smeared black caulk over the hardened foam and while it was wet sprinkled (more like piled) peat on it. You need to work fast and do small sections at a time. Once it had set a few days and cured I got a plastic vine from petsmart and cut the leaves off. then i used a hot glue gun to attach the bunches of leaves to various knobs on the driftwood pieces. I also had plumbed a water feature but it never worked right for more than a week at a time so I dismantled it.
What I learned if I had to do it again:
1) keep the wood out of the water, it turns it to a disgusting shade of urine-tea. next time no wood below the water line.
2) If you can find a way to thin silicone caulk you're my hero. It is terrible to work with, doesn't want to spread, clumps and sticks to everything, then skins over way to fast for the substrate to stick to it as well as you'd like. the caulk is the worst part of this by far, the rest is easy. you need to work fast and small. an alternative may be worth investigating, like a spray adhesive such as the one used to apply cloth automotive headliners. Then again that may be more lethal than ghona-sypha-herpe-aids and napalm and kill everything in the tank, so don't be the first to try it.
3) peat is beat, use coconut fiber instead. it won't burn your amphibs like the blood in aliens. Peat has an acidic pH that amphibians do not love. peat is good if you are making a bog garden for carnivorous plants though. They like the acid. and blood. and singing. I'm not worried about it for this tank because Mr. Wu's been fine for years and by the time any newts are in it the peat will be several years old.
