# Turning a wooden cabinet into a terrerium/vivarium



## Open_cages (Jan 26, 2013)

Title says it all. I have a wooden cabinet that I would like to waterproof and plant. I don't think that I will put any animals in it, but you never know.

How would I accomplish this cheaply? It is at most 4' tall, 3' long, and 1.5' wide. I'll get exact measurements tomorrow, along with better pictures. 

Also, the glass on the front is not watertight but looks nice ie it has decorations in the glass. How should I go about fitting and modifying it?








notice what it is made of.









Sorry about the bad picture quality.
I'll take better ones tomorrow!! It is dark outside and is too heavy to move right now.


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## kev_n_gina (Jan 21, 2013)

SO I will NEVER be the guy to discourage a project, BUT

First let me start off by saying there a countless articals about building your own wood fishtanks with multiple ways of sealing. I can recall seeing everything form pond liners to specialized paints. I used polyurathane to water proof the inside of a reptile enclosure a few times with good success. 

HOWEVER

From what we can get out of the picture and what you have told us, White wood cabinet which is heavy, I deduce that the cabinet is one of the newer painted partical wood. If that is the case I caution that there will be tons of prep work that needs to be done. Partical wood has zero tolerance to moisture and the white coating will prevent most stuff from sticking to it but is far from water proof. 

all of that said I would estimate that you best chance wll be to rough up the finish everywhere. silicone the seams(corners) I would build a front wall from wood and line the bottom with pnd liner and fill use an agrigate botom as appose to a false bottom. USe the great stuff method of setting up a frog tank(all over the web). bB sure that all of the inside of cabinet is covered with GS,Silicone and Coir type material. The inside of the doors will need to be sanded and painted with a non-toxic water proof paint. I would pop the glass out and silicone seal them on reinstall.

If you use due diligence to make sure that the eintire inside of the cabinet is covered and protected from the humidity that it will see then you *should* stand a failry good chance of the cabinet holding up.


It could be done but make sure you do all of you homework first.

Oh and I would skip the water features on this one..


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## Open_cages (Jan 26, 2013)

I could paint it with epoxy and it would be completely watertight, right?


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## DaveJ (Jan 10, 2013)

That looks to me like an old kitchen press ?

If so it will most likely have many pre drilled holes in it for shelf supports. You would need to fill all of these before even thinking about waterproofing. Even think about where the front door hinges are mounted to the press as these holes will be inside and a point for moisture to gain access.

I used a similar press many years ago for a Gecko and it worked pretty well. But it wasn't planted and wouldn't have had a very high humidity need.

Silicone everywhere !! Especially seams, and then when dry silicone a little more. Make sure that you put in a high enough front wall/lip inside the doors and make sure there is a snug fit between the doors and this wall when closed as if not it can be an escape route for bugs and soil if planted especially if you house anything in there.
You'll have to drill holes for cables too, so do this before you start to seal in the cables etc..


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## kev_n_gina (Jan 21, 2013)

epoxy piant is pretty expensive (and ugly IMHO) but that would indeed seal it. I think you will need to follow the direction REALLY close tomake sure you surface preperation is right before trying to paint the slick paint already on.

DaveJ brings up a good point that the doors and geting a good tight seal may be an issue with the fruit flies. You may have to do some sort of "weather strip around the egdes and then a simple door over lap for the middle seam.


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## patm (Mar 21, 2004)

I can't help but think by the time you finish up all the mods to POSSIBLY make this thing water tight and frogproof, you may end up spending more money than just buying a custom glass viv.

-Pat


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## Open_cages (Jan 26, 2013)

I wonder if it would be possible to attach pond liner to all wooden surfaces and then make the background over it? This would be much easier, and would look better (as well as being a bit cheaper).

And although a glass viv would probably be cheaper and easier, this would look sick.


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## patm (Mar 21, 2004)

Open_cages said:


> I wonder if it would be possible to attach pond liner to all wooden surfaces and then make the background over it? This would be much easier, and would look better (as well as being a bit cheaper).
> 
> And although a glass viv would probably be cheaper and easier, this would look sick.


I would have a couple major concerns. First, if this is indeed particle board/melamine, I'd be concerned about it holding the weight of backgrounds, water logged substrates, etc. Second, you'd have to find a way to attach pond liner without even a pinhole that would allow water through. I'd be afraid that any seam, or anywhere you had to tack it to the board would be a liability for leakage. I wouldn't be confident that siliconing over a seam or tack would hold long term.

-Pat


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