In 2007 I made a terrarium. It’s a long story how it got to that, but I wanted to be a keeper of a ball python (Python regius). I really disliked the prices of commercial terrariums and in a swiss snake forum I came across some great builds people made. I wanted to try if I can make something too. Back then I didn’t had my phone/camera with me that often when building, so there are not many pictures from during the build. I was working in my garage. I had 2 garge boxes in the house I lived. So workshop was handy close.
I remember how I had barely cut halve the OSB into size when the first neighbors came to see what all the noise is about. After I had the big box together and more or less square I started with the sealing of the inside. I used a lacquer that was recommended in the forum, no idea anymore what it exactly was, but something that is not keep gassing of stuff over time. I put many many layers of it on the inside, to make it as waterproof as possible. They like a rather humid and warm environment. It never occurred to me back then that maybe one 2 layers on the outside would look nice too 😉 And from a router to round over the sharp outside corner I had heard, but I didn’t had one…
Once that lacquer had enough time to harden out I started with the back-wall. first I glued in some boards around which I could form then the stone structure. I glued in some styrofoam boards and started melting it in a bit more natural flowing structure with the heat gun. I used the expanding insulation foam to add material I could use to blend things together. Not really knowing what I’m doing I hoped that what I had was OK to have at the end a natural looking wall. To make sure the little guy would not get up in the lidded top, where I had the lamps, heating and water sprayer installed, I bent some chicken wire in shape and stapled it in place, making sure no single wire is poking to the inside so the little guy is not hurting himself. I had the luck to know a guy who worked at a glass company. He could organize me the glass with the right thickness to match the diy store plastic profile I installed around where the glass was going. Then it was time to make the back-wall solid. I used a plaster that is meant for bathroom tiles, as that is supposed to keep up with the humidity. There are several layers of it, until I got a really nice thick covering. Let that dry out very well to, if you get any cracks fill them again. In a DIY store I found these stone optic spray cans. I got a dark and light one. First spraying pretty much everything with the dark stone, after masking out the not stone wall parts for obvious reasons.. The attempting to be all artisticy with the light stone and only highlight certain edges or parts…
Again a lot of airing out and drying time. The whole thing was meanwhile very heavy… I definitely needed help carrying it up in my apartment. Unfortunately I don’t remember whom I have to thank here anymore.
The inside I decorated with several caves for hiding, wet box, water bowl and plastic plants. The snakes are known to destroy pretty much every plant by smushing them to death, so I went with artificial ones. even those I hat to bend in shape every know and then.
Bellow a few pictures of Leonidas in his home. Not far from where I lived back then, was a realy cool guy who was breading snakes. He had a nice 2 story house, in which the lower part was entirely filled with terrariums and snakes. It was quite tropical in the whole ‘apartment’ as he kept temperature and humidity to suite the snakes. When I went there the first time he took the time to give me a full tour. It was awesome. Eventually we washed our hands and he went to get his bundle of freshly hatched pythons, it took a while until the bundle started to loosen up and a bunch of sweet little snakes was getting around. There was one little fella that came then straight to me and that’s how I ended up with Leonidas.
I didn’t used the spray misting for that long. As you can see on some pictures it created some very wet spots and eventually I ended up with an ultrasound humidifier. That worked much better. As I had quite some devices that needed timer controlling and after having several of the electro/mechanic timers fail on me. I made a little linux control box. Nothing fancy, just a parallel relays card with cron jobs that turned things on and off. All the measuring was still done via several thermo/hydro meters and then fine tuning the cron jobs manually.
When I left Switzerland I could not bring Leonidas with me that easily so he went into the care of a friend.