0:00:00.0: What’s going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode. We are here on the patio, still working on the giant paludarium. I gotta give a big shout out and a big thank you to customcages.com. This cage is incredible, it’s so strong and heavy duty, I absolutely love it, and I will be definitely getting more cages from them in the future. Also, a big shoutout to Universal Rock as well, supplying me with the background, or most of the background for this build. Love the way it looks. It came out absolutely amazing. I can’t wait for this cage to be done. But in this episode, we are actually gonna be building up the hardscape, which came from froskr.com. Again, all their links are in the description of all my videos, so you guys can check them out after the video. So this is gonna be part two of building the giants or the epic paludarium. I will put up in the time card the first video. Putting on the background, it’s definitely been a challenge, but yeah. So in this episode, we’re gonna build up the hardscape, we gotta foam a lot more, we gotta put one more little piece of background on, it’s in the water feature. So hopefully, you guys do enjoy this video.
0:01:26.8: Now, all this wood that I’m going to be using here is ghost wood, this again came from froskr.com. I’m really excited. I do have this big pile here, I’m actually gonna try and fit this entire pile into this cage. I want the snakes to be able to have as much space as possible to crawl around and enjoy themselves in many different areas and also enjoy different temperatures as well.
0:02:07.6: Now, designing the background with the branches, it’s something that definitely takes some time trying to figure out how exactly you want the branches to go. You want the snakes to be able to crawl on the heavier branches and not have a problem] So designing it definitely should take anybody a good amount of time, ’cause you want it to look also natural as well.
0:03:24.8: So once I got some of the branches where I want them, I just start foaming them in. And these are gonna go on my base branches, so everything’s gonna come off of these two right here, so just a quick little foam to hold them in place.
0:03:56.1: I’m actually using the stack of totes to hold the branch up to see exactly where I want it, so it doesn’t move once I put it in. I’m putting silicone on two different parts to just help secure the branch to the glass because these snakes that are going in this cage are heavier-bodied tree vipers. The female definitely weighs a good amount, so I want them to be as strong and secure as possible. So just adding a little bit of extra silicone here, and then we get to add the foam.
0:04:55.5: Alright, so 45 minutes later, everything is nice and dry, or at least getting there, but I can remove the totes comfortably, give the glass a nice little wipe down so there’s no dirt or debris, and then we can go ahead and start placing the next piece of wood. Now, this next piece of wood is really cool. I like how the back was angled, so I could actually stick it to the glass and rest it upon this other piece of wood here. Now, I am going to silicone this one as well, just to give it that extra strength before, then foaming it.
0:06:41.0: So this is the last piece of the water feature that I will be adding, just doing a quick little foam so it has something to stick to.
0:07:45.3: Now, I was gonna film foaming and carving this entire thing, but honestly, I had over two hours of footage that I trimmed down to what is remaining in this video, but after foaming a lot of it, you have to let it dry for big areas for at least a day, then flipping it on its side to do the rest of it. So this is actually in the back here, adding this little net pod to put a plant higher up, but man, I went through, I think, an entire case of foam doing this cage.
0:09:53.4: Now, it roughly took me about two days to cut all the foam out of this cage. It was a lot. It does hurt your hand after a couple of hours, so you do have to take breaks, but it was definitely a mission to carve around all the wood that I did put in this cage. This was probably the most wood I have ever put in a cage, but again, it was also the biggest cage I’ve worked on, but it was, in a way, peaceful, until your hand starts to cramp.
0:12:20.0: Now, this is where having a creative mind comes to help with the projects like this. So I’ve done this in the past with previous builds, adding extra pieces back to the foam wall as and if they were blended together rather well. So this is an extra piece of background I had to trim off, and I figured why not add it to the foam part to look like the rock is still coming through. So I did silicone it, pushed it down, and then actually went ahead and grabbed my big sandbag to place on top of it to help hold it down until the silicone was then dry.
0:13:07.8: Now, here comes the messy part, adding the silicone. Again, I’ve done everything I use in previous videos, I will link it up in the time card so you guys can check it out if you want, on what products I actually do use. And now, I’m trying to get it really well in the top of it, because I don’t want any gaps up there for future breeding, for one of the babies to be able to hide up there. But using your finger, you do have to go ahead and then spread it around to then add the dirt.
0:20:05.7: Now, this is something I’ve never done before, actually using a paintbrush to spread out a good amount of silicone on a couple of different ledges on the rock background from Universal Rock, just kinda wanting to add a nice little touch to it and make it look like the dirt is still sitting on the ledges. And by dirt, I do mean the peat moss that I use for the background. So just very simply spreading it around only on the ledge itself using your finger when doing the entire foam background isn’t as unique as using a paintbrush because then you can kind of control a little bit easier where the silicone goes.
0:29:03.0: Now, the very important part that I learned by myself, spraying down everything you’ve done with the hose at a good pressure to break off any loose pieces. Now, I started doing this because I realized, in early on stages and cages I was building, that over time, from the misting system, a lot of the background was coming off in certain areas. So I started doing this and putting a heater on it to dry it out to see all those spots where the bedding didn’t really stick to the silicone too well. So now, once I get done with this, I throw the heater on there and I can show you guys all the spots. So you can see all the dark spots peeking through there. Those are the areas that I was talking about, which we can go ahead and now fix up so that we don’t have those spots in the final version of the cage.
0:30:13.5: So now, once you get the silicone into place here where all those spots are showing, you can go ahead and add more material to cover those spots up. Now, I’m actually doing something I’ve never done before. I’m actually using cocoa fiber to change the texture a little bit, make it look a little bit more natural, give it an offset color as well. So just adding cocoa fiber to all the random little spots that didn’t really take too well, just to change it up and make it look more natural.
0:35:25.1: So man, this cage has been so much fun to do. I absolutely love it. I look forward to working on this cage more in the future, but right now, I have other stuff going on, so I have to put this cage on hold. Now, 2020 is almost over, as most of you guys know. I’m super excited for 2021. We have some big surprises coming your way, just for you guys. A lot of stuff is gonna be happening over the next month to two months already, which I promise you, you guys are gonna be just as surprised as I am, but you guys are really gonna love it. So hopefully you guys enjoyed this video. The next phase of this cage is actually going to be planting it and getting the snakes in it, but you’re not gonna see that for at least a month because again, lots of surprises coming for you guys. So hopefully you enjoyed it, remember, subscribe if you are not already. Smash the like button if you haven’t already, and I will see you guys in the next video like always. Bye.
