# 40 Breeder Conversion - Plant Grow Out



## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

So I actually had a separate thread where I was just thinking through some ideas, but I ended up scrapping most of them, so thought I'd start a fresh thread now that I've finalized my plans and I've started the build.

*Tank*: I picked up a 40 Gal breeder at the Petco sale. Will be laid horizontal, with the opening facing frontward.

*Vents*: I was able to get some Sherman Vents from Chris Sherman, which was a huge lifesaver because my local glasscutter has difficulty cutting glass that size, and Chris's look a lot nicer than the ones I did on my last build. I'm also talking to Dane about getting a couple conversion kits for some more builds I'd like to do.



*Plants*: This is the exciting part. With my first tank, I stocked it with some common plants I found locally, and ordered the rest online. Then I've kind of been swapping in new, rarer ones as I go along, but it's expensive doing that one at a time, and the shipping adds up. This time I wanted to get a big rare plant package to make it more economical. Ended up ordering some from Gilberto Moreno in Ecuador. He posts to the Rare Terrarium Plants page on Facebook and has been great to deal with so far. I'm just nervous to see how they survive shipping and customs. I'll add a plant list after I get the shipment and see which ones make it alive. Hopefully I can get some new plants established in the US that I can share with people.

*Frogs*: None! I really wanted to put some frogs in here, but I thought about it a long time and I think because of the chemicals they treat the plants with for import, I should just leave this as a plants only. I could try treating the plants maybe, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. I figure this also gives me a little more freedom in how I can treat the plants - like if I get some kind of snail infestation I can CO2 bomb it with no worries, and I can add fertilizer too (since there won't be any frog poo or microfauna). So, I'm just going to have this as a plant grow-out container, and if I can get them growing, I'll take cuttings from the new growth for frog tanks.

*Background*: Going to try a great stuff background with cork pieces this time around. People seemed to like the background I did in my first build, but I think it lacks a little depth. I had some large cork flats and tried to flatten them and siliconed them directly to the glass, but trying to make them flat was really difficult, and they ended up warping a little anyways. So for this one, I just got a big assorted box from NE Herp (I specifically requested some wonkier pieces), which I will stick in some great stuff to hopefully create a little more depth, and I won't have to worry about flattening the back of the cork pieces.

Here's the cork pieces, in the arrangement I'm planning to use them. Hard to capture the depth but those longer pieces stick out about 4-6 inches max. 



The cardboard they're on is the same size as the tank, so the pieces will be spread out a little more and going to cover the Great Stuff in between with NE Herp background mix. From what I've seen, people don't tend to use this much cork in the Great Stuff backgrounds but I wanted to use a lot, figuring it would be easier to establish plants in that than on the Great Stuff in between. I made a practice background in a cardboard box and it seemed to go okay. Biggest thing I learned was that the Great Stuff expands a lot more than I expected.

*Drainage*: I'm just going to put some growstones in the bottom, then I have a PVC pipe that will go down to access the drainage layer. Because of where I'm putting the tank, I can't really drill bulkheads or anything, so I'll have to siphon water out through the PVC pipe. I'm going to put a T connection on the bottom and cover the ends in mesh so hopefully it should be pretty free-flowing.

*Substrate*: ABG mix. No frogs going in there, so I didn't do anything too fancy like add calcinated clay or anything.

*Decor *- not going to put too much in since there won't be any frogs. I have a couple extra pieces of ghostwood so might stick one or both of these in for some visual interest, and so I can stick some tillandsia on it.




Here's where I'm at now. I've covered the back, and a little bit of the sides in a thin layer of black DAP 100% silicone. I asked if this was safe in my other thread but no one responded, so I'm just going to assume it's safe. I filled in the back on Sunday - used 4 tubes (almost knocked myself out from the fumes), then ended up scraping a bunch out with a putty knife while smoothing it out, so the layer is pretty thin, I'd say between 1/16 to 1/8 inch. Then I turned it on it's sides a couple days later to add a little bit on the sides to cover where the great stuff and cork will stick out. I hope that makes it look a little neater so you don't see the yellow great stuff from the sides. I didn't want to cover the whole sides, just because personally, I think that makes it look a little claustrophobic.



Since I added the silicone I haven't done anything because I'm afraid to add the Great Stuff if the silicone hasn't cured yet. I read through this thread where the guy's whole background fell out because the silicone hadn't cured yet. I keep poking it with my finger and it seems cured, but not sure how to tell. I tried to get it really thin with a putty knife, like some areas are almost translucent, and I've had a fan on it the whole time. I'm getting a little antsy though because I know each thin layer of Great Stuff will take a couple days to cure, and the plants should be arriving in about 2 weeks. 

*I'd really appreciate if anyone has any rules of thumb or tricks to figuring out if the silicone has cured so I can start with the Great Stuff and cork pieces. Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide. Would appreciate any feedback on my plans in general also.*

Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Nevermind on the silicone question - I found some good answers on this thread. Looks like I should wait until I can't smell the fumes anymore, then seal the tank up for 24 hours, and smell again to make sure. My basement is relatively humid so I'm hoping that might speed up the cure time a little, but I probably should have started on this earlier. Plant could be here as soon as 10 days.

For anyone curious, I'll go ahead and post a list of the plants I ordered. Very excited about these and hope they all make it.

Asplenium
Barbosella orbicularis
Begonia ludwigii silver
Cochlidium serrulatum 
Elaphoglossum peltatum var. standleyi
Elaphoglossum sp silver
Microgramma pillesoides 
Moss
Moss
Pearcea
Pearcea
Peperomia 
Piper ulceratum 
Piperaceae
Polypodium
Trisetella hoeijeri
Selaginella serecea bronze
Reldia minutiflora

I'm doing my best to look up care instructions for these, but many don't appear to be commonly sold or kept, so I might have to do a little guesswork or do some posting to the plant section. Also the identification on some of these is not 100% confirmed, so I might end up posting some to the Identification section for clarification also. I've got pictures of all these, but not sure Gilberto would want me posting, and I they're not the actual plants I'll be receiving anyways.


I'll keep updating as I progress. Thanks for reading, and again - if anyone has any general advice, feedback, or comments, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,
Thane


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## chillfargochill (Jun 11, 2014)

Looks exciting! What are your plans for lighting?


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

I knew I forgot to mention something. For lighting I have this Finnex LED bar: http://www.amazon.com/Finnex-FugeRay-Planted-Aquarium-Moonlights/dp/B00GH9HSI0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1442028516&sr=8-3&keywords=finnex+planted+24+7 

It was kind of the best combination of price/brightness I could find. Actually I'm worried it might be too bright for some of the plants, especially since after I put the drainage layer and substrate in, there's only going to be about 12-14" of clearance. So I might raise the light up a little and/or put some kind of mesh or something over part of the top glass to create some lower light areas. My current tank is 28 in tall and the substrate slopes about 6 in, so I just move stuff closer or further from the lights to adjust, but I won't really have that ability with this new tank.

Here's a picture of the light with some other plants I have, in another 40 breeder, on the table where the new tank will go:


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## chillplants (Jul 14, 2008)

I had a single Finnex Planted + on my 20L for a while before moving it to my 90 cube. It was definitely bright, but plants didn't seem to mind for the several weeks it was on there. Worst case scenario you just have to add some window screen on the top to shade certain plants below.
For drainage, I saw this thread by Sirjohn recently where he also used sherman vents and put a small port on the front for drainage. I did the PVC thing in a tank and while it works, it's just a pain to drain.
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/pa...herman-tank-40g-breeder-conversion-build.html
I did the cork/GS background on my last build and really like the way it turned out. Some of my large cork had to be split in half to flatten it a little more. I was hesitant at first, but once I got done it looked much better than having huge pieces sticking out and taking up valuable space. Another thought, use ABG to cover the GS rather than coco. The texture (IMO) looks much better than plain coco. My eyes seem to flow over the background easier and it stays moist.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thanks for all these suggestions - 

Glad to hear the light worked well on your tank. It was really difficult to compare lights because the PAR rating seems to be the most important, but I could never find a good source with PAR ratings for all the lights I was looking at. I went on planted tank forums, looked at manufacturer specs, but could never find one great consolidated source where I could compare apples-to-apples. One thing I've noticed is this light seems to be a little bit warmer (like temperature-wise) than the last one. I have it just sitting flush on top of the tank it's on, because it looked nicer and the brackets that came with it didn't quite fit. I've got a temp gun, so if that proves to be too hot on the new tank, I might raise it up a little bit.

I actually had seen that other 40 Gal tank when I was researching this one, but didn't see the part on how he had done the drainage. His build looks awesome. I don't know if I can pull off one that nice, but I'll do my best.

On my last build I did end up cracking some of the larger, more curved pieces, to get them to lay flat on the glass. This time I figured if I was sticking it in great stuff I didn't have to get them as flat. I'm going to try sticking them in the tank before I put the great stuff in though, just to double check they'll all fit. I figured I might have to do a little trimming or adjustments. Putting them on the cardboard just gives me a rough idea.

I was thinking about mixing a little sphagnum moss in with the background mix. The background mix I got from NE Herp isn't just the fine ground coco fiber, so hopefully it provides a little more texture. I thought it looked decent in the "practice background" I made in a cardboard box. I was actually trying to stay away from putting moss on the background this time to let the plants stand out a little more, plus the moss really went nuts on my last background and took over. But it's a good point you make about moisture retention. I might do a few tests on my practice background and see how it looks. I suppose another thing I could do is scrape the great stuff back enough that I could just jam sphagnum into all the cracks. My goal is there shouldn't be too much great stuff/non-cork area to begin with - hoping for maybe 90% coverage, so whatever I do with the cracks, hopefully it shouldn't stand out too much.

Update on the build: I sealed off the tank with plastic last night just to see if I could still smell fumes from the silicone. Left the plastic on about 8 hours and I could still smell some faint fumes, but not much. I figure maybe it has another day or two to cure before I can start with the great stuff.

Thanks again for the feedback and suggestions, I appreciate it.

Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

I waited a couple more days, so I'm pretty confident the silicone should be cured now. I went and put in the great stuff and cork pieces tonight.

I used Chillplants' suggestion and broke some of the larger pieces of cork into smaller pieces to make them flatter. I did this because I tried laying them inside the tank and I just couldn't get them to fit together and look "natural." So I broke them into smaller pieces in an attempt to get the "puzzle" to fit more naturally. 

An added benefit of breaking up into smaller pieces is I tried not to use a thick layer of Great Stuff, so that it wouldn't puff out unpredictably (we'll see what happens overnight), so with the flatter pieces I could get more contact with the background. I used 1 can over the whole background of the tank, leaving a 4 inch gap at the bottom and 1 inch gap around the top and sides. I thought I would be able to move the Great Stuff around with a putty knife to manipulate it after adding, but that proved to be nearly impossible. It became tacky very quickly, and even before it was tacky it was like trying to sculpt with lemon pudding or something. So I ended up just trying to spray in as thin an even a layer, while still covering the background, as possible.

I took this picture last night, so I'd have something to reference. Then I sucked out all the sawdust and gave it a quick wipe with a wet cloth, then left it to dry out overnight.



Here's how the background looks now, with the Great Stuff in only about 10 min. I assume some of the pieces will move around as it expands overnight.




Now, once again, I play the waiting game. I really wish I would have started this sooner. With my last tank, the ratio of waiting to working was much lower. With this one it's like 1 hour of work at a time, then days of waiting. So less work overall, but taking longer to complete. The plants are supposed to be shipped tomorrow, so if I can't get this done in about 8 days, I'll have to store the plants in something else. I've got another 40 gallon breeder, and I guess I could put them in a bunch of pots in there, but I'd rather put them, especially the epiphytes, right in the new tank, but not going to do it if there's uncured Great Stuff and silicone in it. Even if I got the background complete today, it's going to take several days for the silicone to cure on the vents and on the exposed Great Stuff cracks, so I just don't see it happening in time.

Thanks for reading. I'll see if I can motivate myself to get up early and take a picture of the tank in the morning before I go to work.

Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Here's some photos from tonight (about 20 hours later). The foam has puffed up some, but the pieces didn't shift around too much, so I'm pleased so far.

Here's some pictures. I took these at an angle so you can get some sense of depth, and put the cans in for scale.







The part that sticks out the most is in the center bottom, which was intentional - the goal was to have it thinner at the top, to create a little slope.

Now I have to fill in a few of the gaps, and around the edges with some more Great Stuff. I'm not 100% sure how long to wait. I read a few threads where people said as soon as 24 hours. I'm worried about some of the examples I read where people had some collapses, or pockets of uncured Great Stuff within thicker layers.

One possible mistake I made was in using the "gap filler" rather than "doors and windows" variety. I read the "doors and windows" doesn't expand as much, so you can put it on in thinner layers. I'd estimate the layer under some of the bigger pieces is over an inch. Which is not more than I wanted. None of the cork pieces stick out past the black "masked" areas I created on the sides. But I have no way of knowing whether there's any pockets behind the cork pieces.

I'm thinking I might just try to fill some small gaps later tonight, then let the whole thing sit another day, then start scraping, then wait another day or two before adding silicone. I've also considered spraying some water on it to accelerate the curing. Would appreciate any feedback if people think that sounds reasonable.

Thanks,
Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Update for tonight:

The Great Stuff ended up curing a lot faster than I'd hoped. Last night, I took a bamboo skewer and poked it all the way under one of the bigger cork pieces and it came out dry. When I did the skewer test when I made a practice background in a cardboard box, it was still tacky after a day, but this one seemed to be fine after 24 hours. So last night, I went ahead and filled in the gaps around the outside edge, and around and under some of the cork pieces.

Here's how it looked with the Great Stuff still wet:




And here's how it looked after a few hours. It didn't expand much more than this overnight:




I'm still pretty pleased with how it's turned out so far. Tonight I went in with a steak knife and cut away some of the bottom, that will be below the substrate, and some of the pieces that had puffed up more. Then I started in with a Dremel with a burr tool on it, but I only got about 15% done before the battery died. So I'll have to continue tomorrow night.

Here's the detail of one section I was able to carve down before the Dremel died:



I'm just trying to remove any Great Stuff that's sticking out too far, get the edges of the Great Stuff even with the edges of the cork, and rough up the entire surface of the Great Stuff so the silicone will stick to it on the next step. Using the Dremel makes it pretty quick work, but it kicks up a lot of dust that sticks to the cork. You can see how dusty the cork got in the above picture. I was able to remove a lot with a brush and shop vac, but will have to go in and scrub it pretty good after I'm done.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Here's what it looks like after an hour of going at it with the Dremel tonight. The battery died again, but I'm pretty much done with carving up the foam. Just a little detailing here and there. The Dremel battery died again after about an hour of carving. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you choose to use the same method, I'd highly recommend wearing a mask. I didn't have one on for the first part and I can't imagine how many tiny bits of dried foam are stuck in my lungs now.



I took a bigger picture this time so you can see some of the detail. Sorry, I realize all these photos look pretty similar. Hopefully these should get a little more interesting soon. I got word that the plants shipped yesterday, so should be here in a week or so. Even if I get all the silicone in tomorrow I don't know if that's enough time for it to cure completely, so I'll plan on sticking the plants in a temporary tank until this is done.

Also, I'm thinking I'll end up sticking some sphagnum moss in the cracks and silicone, in addition to the NE Herp background mix (coco husks, coco fiber, and peat moss). I'm thinking sphagnum should help a little with moisture retention, give it a little more texture (as Chillplants suggested above), and I think it's fun to see what plants pop out of the sphagnum by surprise. I'm doing an experiment where I ground up some sphagnum really fine to mix in - wondering if that might look better than using the big pieces.


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## chillplants (Jul 14, 2008)

I have been reading several threads lately that talk about ground up sphagnum mixed into the background to retain moisture. I really wish I knew about that when I did my first build. My coco fiber background (without sphagnum) dries extremely fast and I have a difficult time getting anything to grow on it.


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## Smotz (Jul 20, 2015)

following. looks good!


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thanks - I'm going to have to try with different sizes. Last time I tried chopping up sphagnum, I put the dry sphagnum in a food processor, which didn't really do much. So this time I put it in a blender with water, and that chopped it up really fine. I squeezed it out on some paper towels in a strainer, and waiting for it to dry out now. But it's so fine, the texture seems very similar to peat moss, which is already in the NEHerp mix. So I'll try a mix with that, then on with some medium sized pieces, then maybe some large pieces.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Well here's a fun twist of fate. So I lost some motivation and didn't work on the tank for a couple days because I didn't think I'd be done in time for the plants to get here. But then there have been delays in customs and shipping, so I probably could have had the thing done. Plants should hopefully be here tomorrow and I'm going to stick them in a temporary tank while I finish this one.

Here's an update on my progress.

So I got all the Great Stuff scraped down how I wanted it. I experimented with a couple different mixes for the background. Below are 3 different mixes. The left is the basic NE Herp Background mix (coco husks, coco fiber, and peat moss). The right one has some large pieces sphagnum mixed in. The middle has some powderized sphagnum (recipe in previous post). 



The problem with the larger pieces was they didn't make enough contact with the silicone to stick. The problem with the ground up sphagnum was you couldn't really see it, and I didn't see how it would hold much more moisture than just the peat moss in the mix

So what I ended up using was a blend of NE Herp mix with some smaller bits of sphagnum - I just took a big bowl of it and slowly went through it ripping them with my hands into as small of pieces as I could. The resulting mix looked like this (closeup):




When I went to silicone in the background, I didn't find it quite as difficult as some of the horror stories I've read. I don't know if I came up with some new method, or if I just got lucky, or if the whole thing's going to fall off later and prove me an idiot.

The method I used was this: So I tried not to have too much Great Stuff exposed in the first place, so I could kind of work in sections rather than filling one big expanse. I ended up doing the left and right sides last night and left the middle unfinished, like this. The right side took almost 1 tube of silicone, and the left side took half a tube. I finished the middle section tonight with about 1/4 tube.



But I supposed I could have worked top to bottom, or done the middle first then the outsides, or whatever. I just didn't want the silicone to get dry so I didn't try to cover all the Great Stuff in one go.

After I put on a good amount of silicone, I took some gloves (powder free so the powder doesn't get in the silicone), and ran my finger all over - first around the outside, next the the glass, then around and in between all the cork pieces, making sure I got good coverage and "sealed up" all the edges. That looked like this:



I had to switch gloves a couple times when the big blob on my finger got too big - tried to avoid getting silicone all over - just a little bit on the sides of the cork and tank. Then after I got the silicone how I wanted it I dumped in a liberal amount of the background mix, all over the silicone. Like probably twice as much as I needed. Here's how it looks tonight, with a big heap of background mix all over the middle section:



Then I could just press the background mix into the silicone without getting any silcone on me, or worrying about bare patches. I pressed it in really good and left it overnight to cure. When I stood the thing up tonight, it seemed to stick really well and have good coverage, but I haven't gone to brush or vacuum any off yet, except to prepare the middle portion. But this seemed to be a relatively "clean" and foolproof way to do this.

A could other tips I figured out: 1. Make sure to look at the silicone from multiple angles - the lighting wasn't super great, so I rotated the whole tank around and found I'd missed a couple tiny spots. 2. My hands got sweaty while I was doing the larger section and I was switching gloves a lot, but having trouble getting the gloves to go on. I figured out a fun solution - just dunk your hands in some peat moss and the gloves will slide right on. I expect doctors and surgeons to start doing this in the operating room after news of this breaks.


I'll post some new pictures after the silicone dries. I'm not going to brush it really hard or anything to get the excess background mix off - just going to lightly vacuum it. But I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Thanks,
Thane


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## chillplants (Jul 14, 2008)

It's hard to see how good this method looks in pictures. I was very pleased with the way mine turned out. Once it gets wet, the peat mixture gets darker and it contrasts the cork nicely. Looking forward to seeing this with plants.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thanks - it doesn't come through on the pictures very well. I'm not using a very fancy camera and the lighting in my basement isn't too great. But I found with my last tank no matter what I did it was hard to get the 3D texture of the cork to show up in pictures. I think maybe once I get the LED bar on here it will be easier to see, and like you said once the plants are in it should look a lot more exciting. 

Plants are showing out for delivery today. Hopefully most of them are still alive. I'm going to be putting them in a temporary tank though, so will probably be 2 weeks minimum before they go in this one. I've got to wait for the silicone in the background to cure, plus silicone the bottom glass and top vents in. Each of those will take 5+ days to cure. I'll post some more pictures throughout that process but won't be too exciting until the plants go in.

Thanks,
Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Not too exciting an update for tonight. The background is all done. I siliconed the top Sherman vent in 2 days ago (turned the tank with the top side down to do that), then tonight I siliconed in the bottom vent and glass assembly. 

I made a big mess of the silicone. Forgot my #1 lesson learned from the last tank, which is to mask off all the areas I don't want to get silicone on. I got a different brand of aquarium silicone this time (ASI vs. Aqueon) and it was just awful to deal with. This kind had a screw-on tip (so you can take it off) which LOOKED neater, but the hole in the can wasn't nearly big enough, so I couldn't get any to flow out. I gave up halfway through and used a drill to enlarge the hole, and used it without the screw on tip. Also the caulking gun didn't fit inside the tank at a good angle, so I couldn't get the silicone very close to the corners and had to moosh it over with my fingers, which made a royal mess. 

I don't know if this is a common issue with this size tank or if I'm just particularly incompetent. I wish I had just ordered several of the smaller "tank repair" tubes of Aqueon silicone that you don't need to use with a caulking gun, which I could have fit in the tank more easily. Thankfully, with the pre-made aquarium, it's got the black plastic edges that hide most of my mistakes, but some silicone got smudged up where it's visible, so I'll have to remove that with a razor blade.

Now that that's done, everything is pretty much in place now, I just need to wait for silicone to cure and add the tracking for the doors before I can add the substrate and plants. The plants seem to be doing okay - I can see a few getting better. Only one has gotten worse but I got some care instructions for it so hopefully that will work. Gilberto was nice enough to send some replacements for a few that didn't survive, which I should be getting later this week. So I'm going to be pretty anxious to get these in the tank as I'm almost out of storage space. Hopefully the silicone from tonight should be cured really soon after the replacement plants arrive. So stay tuned - the next update should be the big exciting one, with all the plants in the tank.

Here's the tank with the vents installed:




Here's a closeup detail of the background material in between the cork pieces:




Thanks for reading,
Thane


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## Rushthezeppelin (Oct 6, 2015)

Curious, how are you doing your sliding glass front on that?


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

It's the same as I did on my other build, but looking back I didn't take very detailed pictures of the doors. I'll try to get some when I install them on this build. Essentially, the Sherman vent provides a horizontal surface where you install tracking material that the doors sit in.

I bought the tracking material from Chris Sherman, who mills the tracking himself. I think he's got some pictures in his thread here. I believe you can buy similar material elsewhere but I heard his was the best so I just got it from him.

If you have the material on hand it's easy to understand, but I can attempt to describe it. The way it works is there's 2 pieces shaped like an E and 2 pieces shaped like a U. The E pieces go along the top and bottom of the opening, and the U pieces go on the right and left. I cut the corners at a 45 degree angle with a tiny cheap chop saw purchased from Harbor Freight (can't remember where, but I took that idea from someone on here), so they all fit together nicely. Then you get the glass doors cut so they're just a little taller than the "hole." To install them, you lift the door up into the top track and drop it down into the bottom track. One door slides along the back channel of the E and one along the front.

I siliconed door handles (purchased in the cabinet hardware section at Home Depot) on the doors too. Some people use doors on hinges. I haven't tried that, so I'm not sure how it works. The sliding doors appeal to me because I can take them out if I really want to get in there, and I can replace them if they ever break.


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## Rushthezeppelin (Oct 6, 2015)

Wish I had known about this stuff on my first viv....did a wood one for my garters as an inbetween (its 2x1x2ish) for them and ended up ripping my own tracks out of wood with a table saw lol. One of em got warped somehow after instal of the tracks and just one door for some reason won't open the last 1/4 or so it is supposed to travel  The integrated venting is a plus too for sure....for that I ended up taking sliding closet door pulls (the recessed circles) and a 1/16th bit in a drill press and put as many holes as I could in it lol. This would have saved me alot of hassle


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Yesterday I finished everything and got it planted.

Here's how the background looked with the LED light on it. A little easier to see this way. 



I did a pretty bad/lazy thing that I hope doesn't end up ruining everything. After I got the tank in place and ready to put everything in, I discovered that the background had separated from the silicone in the center, and was bulging out a little. I had read of cases where the whole background detached and I'm fearful that's going to happen to mine. In other cases I had read this was from not allowing the silicone to dry completely. I thought I had waited long enough before putting the Great Stuff in, but I guess I didn't. At this point it was too late to try and remove everything, redo the silicone, etc.... And the background appears to be firmly attached all the way around the top, left, and right, so I'm hoping it stays on. I'm not sure how long it's been bulging out because I wasn't poking at it, but the Great Stuff was put in over a month ago. I'd hope if the whole thing was going to fall out, it would have done it already. But even if the whole thing separates, it will be about as big a pain as it would have been to try and repair it yesterday, so I decided to proceed with planting.

In order to access the drainage layer with a hand siphon, I installed this pipe. The cap just sits loosely on top so nothing can fall in. I put plastic window screen on the ends of the pipe so none of the Growstones would get stuck in the pipe, then used Gorilla Tape to attach the window screen to the PVC.




I put a 2.5 inch layer of Growstones at the bottom. Thought about trying to put some rocks around the outside to hide the growstone, like I did with my last build, but that just makes it really heavy. Then I covered the whole thing in window screen. This time I found some "insect screen," with a little smaller holes, that was the same width as the tank, so that was convenient.



Then I put about a 3-4 inch layer of ABG mix on top of the screen, sloping up in the back. This ended up covering some of the cork pieces I had put in the background, but oh well.

Here's how the tank looks with the glass doors installed (sorry it's fogged up - I misted and watered really good after planting everything in the dry ABG mix.



Here's how the interior looks. There's no pieces of driftwood or rock or anything, so won't look too exciting until the plants grow in. I don't have a panorama feature, so can only take pictures of half of the tank at a time.










I'm hopeful I'll be able to save all but maybe 1-2 of the plants. They still look pretty damaged from shipping, but it's been 2 weeks and I'd say they're in "stable" condition and seeing some new growth on some of them. There's only a couple plants that have gotten worse. The main thing I'm concerned about is I wasn't able to find care instructions for most of these, so I just kind of had to guess on what would like more water, better drainage, etc.... There's some I'm not even sure if they're epiphytes or not. So I placed everything by making some educated guesses. There's areas that are wetter, dryer, more or less light, more air movement, etc. I'll have to move stuff around after seeing how it does.

I'll post some updated pictures of the plants as things progress. Thanks for reading,

Thane


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