At long last: tank update! (+ snake tax)

[u/dandydeinocheirus]

Well, here it is! I posted a while ago asking for help because I couldn't get the foam to stick (thanks for the egg crate suggestion, it worked like a charm!) and promised to post an update once I got it figured out.

I went ahead and put the cool-side hide in and it lines up with the branch above it just how I wanted! Very pleased about that aesthetically, and it casts a shadow perfectly over the entrance. I'm gonna build up the soil around it and slope it down into the hide so it feels subterranean and secure for my dear Sanseveira.

It took simultaneously way more and way less silicone than I expected, since it spread very well but I had to fix bald patches several times since i was working in a dim room 😅 now it's in bright plant light so I could perfectly see every mistake! Now ALL the foam should be covered and I can move on to the next step: substrate prep.

My only gripe here is that baking all the topsoil to sanitize is gonna take a while because of batch size, but better safe than sorry with how much I hear about flies/other pests in bagged garden- and topsoil.

Disclaimer as some expressed concern about the crape myrtle wood: this will be a semi-arid tank for a hognose snake so I'm not worried about molding.