Revell's DIY Thread

[dragonlover1]

looks pretty good mate pity I haven't got the time to make stuff like that

[Revell13]

hey mate did you say acquired garden skinks as you took them from the wild or bought them ?:\

I said, quite pointedly, acquired.

OK, ill be honest, the first one was a rescue attempt, I found a badly mauled skink in my pool and tried to save it, "Champ" as he is now called is living very happily in my skink enclosure, his tail is starting to grow back and he has put on weight (maybe even a little bit fat ) He gets around on 2 and a half legs, his right side is almost undamaged besides some scaring, but I had to amputate his back left leg entirely, and he was already missing his front right foot. All encompassing, I saved him from certain death in the wild, as he was in large amounts of shock from the dog attack and the subsequent amputation and was not in a fit state to remove himself from harms way, nor did he attempt to when I first attempted to release him.

The subsequent additions to my skink enclosure came about whilst I was mowing the lawn, I "rescued" the little critters from certain death by either whippersnipper or lawn mower.

Whilst I know (as I am a licensed reptile keeper in NSW) that it is illegal to capture reptiles from the wild, I believe there must be a loophole somewhere that allows me to rescue and rehabilitate reptiles caught in my own suburban backyard.

Footnote to this post, please don't report me to the authorities, honestly these little skinks have a pretty sweet pad here, plenty of food, fresh water daily, shelter, warmth, steady diurnal UVB lighting and me to look after them.

looks pretty good mate pity I haven't got the time to make stuff like that

Honestly I did it half drunk in the back shed, the reason I'm posting this is to let people know its EASY, give it a shot even if it is just one night a week, you will be amazed at what you can create

Now where were we, AHHA! grouting finished, four layers on each piece of furniture, and its time for PAINT, I ended up using a mildly sandstone coloured exterior paint mixed in with clean sand and then a slightly darker brown for highlights, here are a few more happy snaps to show the progress



First layer of paint. ^



Second layers with darker highlights and sand. ^

Now, in relation to the aforementioned piece of wood/waterfeature/filter outlet, I finished drilling the holes in them just tonight, did a quick test with the hose running water through them to check the flow patterns, and it appears to have worked!

Once the silicone has dried tomorrow (I put it in last week, waited 7 days etc) I'll fill the water side of my terrarium and see if it holds, if we are in luck, I will be able to post fully completed photos of my setup tomorrow night! If, however, the silicone leaks again it will set me back another week in the build process and I will be devo.

[Venomous_RBB]

Looks good, interested to see the final product

[Becceles]

Looks pretty sweet! What's going in there?

[Revell13]

Looks pretty sweet! What's going in there?

Going to be putting my baby Eastern Water Dragon's in there

Just about to fill the water side with water, wish me luck the silicone holds! I'll post again once its (hopefully) finished tonight

HAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA IT WORKS!

Posting pics now!

So I've spent the entire day putting the finishing touches on my water dragon enclosure, and I'm finally done, here are the pics, would love you guys to tell me what you think!



And the little rascals seam to be fitting in just fine

[White Wolf]

Looking good !! your water dragons look very happy

[Revell13]

Looking good !! your water dragons look very happy

Thanks mate, they all seam to be doing well, but none are eating very much at the moment, maybe partial brumation? finger length EWDs should be eating more than one small cricket a day yes? I'm starting to get a bit worried tbh.

[White Wolf]

I know nothing about EWDs, but would think that they would be eating more. Hopefully someone with more knowledge than I will pop in and help you out.

Good luck hope they start eating more soon !!

[Emilie]

Feeder fish in the tank might be good?

[Revell13]

Feeder fish in the tank might be good?

Yeah I have 8 colourful guppies, 2 paradise fish and 2 others who's name escapes me at the moment, I got relatively cheep fish incase the dragons want seafood :p

[ForgottenXo]

This is awesome! I really REALLY wish i was this creative. It has given me some awesome ideas, i think ill have to work on designing something awesome for my little lizardy friends. I especially love the built in water feature. It is deffinately more aesthetically pleasing than a tub full of water. I MAY have to draw something up and give it a go. You will never know how successful you are going to be until you try...
^ Thats right isnt it?
Great job

Kayte Xo

[Revell13]

This is awesome! I really REALLY wish i was this creative. It has given me some awesome ideas, i think ill have to work on designing something awesome for my little lizardy friends. I especially love the built in water feature. It is deffinately more aesthetically pleasing than a tub full of water. I MAY have to draw something up and give it a go. You will never know how successful you are going to be until you try...
^ Thats right isnt it?
Great job

Kayte Xo

Absolutely Kayte, this is my first try at building ANYTHING, the main reason I posted this was to encourage people to give it a shot themselves, its easier than it looks! Check out the photo's of my original designs, they really helped me craft this to completion!

Once I'm finished the waterfeature/filter system (hopefully tomorrow) I'll post more in-depth pics on how I have it set up so that the water filter outlet turns the log in the water into a full flowing water feature/waterfall.

Thanks for commenting!

[Revell13]

Final Picture with everything in and all finished, fish in the water, filter running properly, dragons happy and well fed, reptibark substrate and live plants.

[pretzels]

thats wicked! did you make the rock wall and shelves too?

[Brenny10]

Dude, just went through all this thread.. TBH, I hate people that are like "I can't do this, I blow", then come out and make shizz like Jesus! hahaha. I would buy EVERYTHING you've made.. Lol. Everything looks awesome, bro!

I actually AM really 'spesh' myself at making stuff like this, but I just love how it all comes out. Gotta say, you've given me a fair bit of inspiration to do this (besides the $80 for foam, deal.. hahaha, I was thinking "Where the fugg can I rack foam from?!?!". hahahah)

Would look awesome NOT JUST for my EWD, but for my scorps, aswell.

Just chucking in my 2 cents on your last few posts;

I've got a 14-16 week old EWD who was eating like 6 small crickets a day, then I went up to medium and he was smashing like 2, sometimes 3 a day. Only problem with this, though, is that I needed to actually hold the crickets with my tweezers and dangle them infront of his face for him to start getting keen... I still do feed him with my tweezers! If I was to just chuck a cricket in there, 90% of the time he would be keen for it, but wouldn't run around and try and catch them, etc.. lol. He'd act all lazy, but then other days he jumps like 40cm to the ground to mess a crickets day up! haha.

Let us know how you go with yours but, dude.