Indoor enclosure

[Anyfoot]

Just a quick update.
All painting is finally finished(phew).
Next is to finish of my water feature and the top tier of the caves.


Below is my Colosseum so my males can do gladiatorial battles. Na only kidding, This is the base for my water feature, I'll fill the middle in with any old rubble and then sculpt the pond area. The reason its got gaps in the base is to aid drainage for the rest of the enclosure.


The top horizontal stone is not fixed in place. The idea is to have a water pipe up top that will drop onto the slab(collecting oxygen) run down the slab onto the fixed vertical stone cascading into the pond area. At the other end of the pond it will weir into a xxxx gallon container through a pump and filter, and back to the top. If I do it correctly I'm hoping the floating poops can be netted out of the container and the submerged pump will deal with the smaller sinking particles of dirt.
This will be topped up from a storage tank that will be supplied from the water mains. I'm hoping in doing this the water temp should never be too cold and never have too many additives they add to water for human consumption. At this stage I don't know what the top up rate will be, hoping about 5% top up a day, this will be trial and error. If I lose lets say between 2 and 4 gallon a day on average I'll pump in 4 gallon a day, there will be an overflow going to the internal drains to cope with excess water.
All the substrate will be level to the pond height. The pond at its limits is 6x5ft in size.
Looks a bit bare at the moment, you need to visualise it with plants in the pond and draping off the waterfall area. I'll probably have a palm on either side of the water fall too. Hoping I can grow water cress somewhere.

 

[SarahChelonoidis]

This is going to be so stunning when it's all done. I love that you've shared this building process.

 

[Anyfoot]

This is going to be so stunning when it's all done. I love that you've shared this building process.

Hi Sarah. Thank you. I'm hoping others will attempt making caves, the imagination can run wild with design, and its made of old rubbish. I had to use lintels for strength on top tier. But without them, about £20 in total.
I even thought of doing a stand alone cave that was heated, and on top of the cave have a dip that holds water. The water would evaporate from rising heat to create a constant himudity.(volcano look) I also wish I had moulded plant holding areas to the front of the cave. I could have had fly trapping plants growing out of the cave walls.
Anyway, can you help me with how algae grows. I had a debate with a friend the other day about this. I always thought that algea only grows with the source of uv. My friend says its the opposite. He says uv kills algea. Confused.
I may not get it due to having flowing water. Although some on rocks would look good.
Thanks again.

 

[SarahChelonoidis]

UVb (and UVc) inhibit photosynthesis and result in decreased algae growth. UV can't penetrate especially far into water with a lot of organic material in it though, so it doesn't do as much to control algae in heavily planted or murky waters. For growing algae, visible and maybe a little UVa is all that's required. You'll have the light for algae growth in this set up, but the water movement will hopefully limit it.

 

[keepergale]

They make UV lights with a water flow thru a tube in the center exposing the water to the light to kill a algae that lives as cells in the water not on surfaces.
You are correct fly trap type plants need rain water,deionized or distilled water.


Your project is amazing.

 

[Anyfoot]

Thank you both. Do you know what the relation is between hay and killing algea.
Over here farmers have built a lot of commercial fisheries for match fishing on their land.
If any of them develope an algea problem, they put huge bales of hay in the corners of the fishing ponds go control the algea.

 

[Yvonne G]

I think it's barley straw. It doesn't work all that well:

https://www.btny.purdue.edu/Pubs/APM/APM-1-W.pdf

 

[theguy67]

Ahh, I found your project you were talking about. Looks nice!

I wouldn't worry about the algae. If you keep the pond full, and allow it to cycle, you may have a bloom, but everything will balance out. Algae needs only a few things in order to grow; light, heat, source of carbon, a source of phosphorus (phosphate), and a source of nitrogen(nitrate). If you remove one of these things, you will inhibit it's growth, so if you DO have persisting problem, attack one of the before mentioned. Aquatic plants (grass, reeds, lilies, etc.) will compete with algae for nutrients. They also sell filter media, such as phosban, that absorbs phosphates and silicates (as well as others).

My pond, as you've seen, is in direct sunlight during the hot Texas summers. Once I filled it up, and allowed it to cycle, the algae died back completely. A little stayed behind, but enough to give it a "pond look". I also had plants in the river section. Every once in a while I'll have minor algae blooms, but they aren't very severe. If you don't have a large grow light directly over the water, your algae shouldn't be bad.

 

[Anyfoot]

Quick update
The pond base is finished, so next on that is to make a mould so I can poor the pond and sculpture it to the desired shape. I packed it down with clay before I put a layer of sand on. Does anyone know what is the best material to make the actual pond with? What is Portland cement?


On the caves I put a double layer of heavy duty stainless mesh, on this will be a layer of stones that can't fit through any of the mesh, then soil up to the height of the stone wall(12" deep). This will provide drainage through into the caves and let the heat rise up from the caves into the soil. I'm hoping I can control the temps below and in the soil above with trial and error to the desired temps.
I would like to be able to incubate eggs in this area as natural as possible but still with temp control. I've also added the pain of toughened glass I found in my garage , hoping I can study eggs from below ground and watch how it happens naturally. Unfortunately this double glazed pain of glass has white strips built into it.
You can see on the wall I have left gaps, I want to grow creeping plants out of these holes that hopefully will cover quite a lot of the rocks, and the join between painted caves and wall. If anyone can help me with what kind of plants will cling to the rocks and thrive in warm and humid it would be much appreciate. I also need to build a barrier on here so it is tort safe, thinking of using 2" bamboo for that.

 

[Anyfoot]

Things are not happening as fast as I would like due to the constant barrage of Xmas shopping I have to endure. . Only kidding I enjoy toy shops.
So my wall is all set and secure. I've put a Polly pipe down into each cave so I can run a cable and a probe to each cave.
Just put broken rocks on for first layer. Next is to fill up with soil. Some weight going to be in here, especially when wet. I calculated about 1.5ton of soil. Each of my reinforced beams I used are rated to 3.6tons, so with the load spread out it should be no problem at all. .

 

[Yvonne G]

I'm a little confused. The last pictures are the tops of the caves? Will you have tortoises up there too? I'm thinking your dirt will eventually sift down through the rocks and you'll lose it.

 

[Pearly]

Wow, I've peaked at your project couple of times and to me it's huge and overwhelming, but wonderful at this same time. I envy people with means and skills to do stuff like that. Thank you for sharing your work and ideas

 

[Anyfoot]

I'm a little confused. The last pictures are the tops of the caves? Will you have tortoises up there too? I'm thinking your dirt will eventually sift down through the rocks and you'll lose it.

Yes the torts will go above too, via a ramp on the right hand side. I'm going to put a layer of clay in first out of the garden then soil on top of that. Totalling about 12" deep.
I want the heat from below in the caves to rise up into the soil, I also want the water from above to be able to drain through into the caves.
Do you think that is enough to stop any sieving? Dawn thinks I should put a plastic sheet over the mesh I put rocks on. But I was worried about stagnent soil. It's going to rain in here quite a bit at times.

 

[Odin's Gma]

Yes the torts will go above too, via a ramp on the right hand side. I'm going to put a layer of clay in first out of the garden then soil on top of that. Totalling about 12" deep.
I want the heat from below in the caves to rise up into the soil, I also want the water from above to be able to drain through into the caves.
Do you think that is enough to stop any sieving? Dawn thinks I should put a plastic sheet over the mesh I put rocks on. But I was worried about stagnent soil. It's going to rain in here quite a bit at times.

Try weed-block fabric. I don't know if that's the actual name, but I have used it in outdoor gardening projects. Keeps the weeds from poking up through it, but lets the moisture through.

Found it!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004G2Z6A2/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

 

[Yvonne G]

ah...now I see it.

I know you've already put in a lot of effort adding the rocks up above the caves, but I think it would be in your best interest to try lining the area with the weed block stuff Gma told us about. Just the slight movement of the tortoises walking up there will cause the dirt to filter down through the rocks and you would eventually have it all in the caves instead of up above.

I can't wait to see this project all finished. Forget about Christmas shopping and get with the building, would ya?

 

[Anyfoot]

Try weed-block fabric. I don't know if that's the actual name, but I have used it in outdoor gardening projects. Keeps the weeds from poking up through it, but lets the moisture through.

Found it!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004G2Z6A2/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20

Good idea.
Damn. Why didn't I think of that. I have a roll of that in the shed too. I'll move the rocks, put that down first then lay the rocks back on. Thank you.

 

[Anyfoot]

ah...now I see it.

I know you've already put in a lot of effort adding the rocks up above the caves, but I think it would be in your best interest to try lining the area with the weed block stuff Gma told us about. Just the slight movement of the tortoises walking up there will cause the dirt to filter down through the rocks and you would eventually have it all in the caves instead of up above.

I can't wait to see this project all finished. Forget about Christmas shopping and get with the building, would ya?

Will do Yvonne. I should have done that in the first place. This also means I won't have to bother with the clay layer, which I didn't really want to do anyway.
Thank you.

 

[Pearly]

"Weed fabric" may work well or any other biofriendly screen of fine gauge. Fine enough not to let the dirt particles wash through and big enough to be water-permeable, kinda like a water filtration system. You project is so awesome I can hardly wait to see next next stages

 

[Odin's Gma]

Good idea.
Damn. Why didn't I think of that. I have a roll of that in the shed too. I'll move the rocks, put that down first then lay the rocks back on. Thank you.

I can't speak for you, but in my case sometimes I miss the obvious solution because I am too excited to get to the next phase of the project, and with your project I would be beyond excited! SO cool!

 

[Twan777]

Great setup..