I'm irked!

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Vicious_Fish

Vicious_Fish

Here fishy fishy fishy...
MFK Member
Mar 9, 2007
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Over the last week or so I've been converting an Oceanic Lizard Lounge chameleon tank into a new Crested Gecko setup. My plan was to make a fake wall for the background. Well I followed the steps and covered the back wall with Great Stuff spray foam and let is set for a few days. After that I coated it with black silicon and while it was still wet I put a layer of dried coco fiber on it. I lightly patted the coco fiber and let it dry for 2 days. Well today was the day to set the cage up right. To my displeasure almost none of the coco fiber stuck the silicon. I'm royally pissed right now. I wasted $15 bucks on the silicon and it didn't even work. This is my first attempt at making a coco fiber fake wall so my question is what did I do wrong? The only think I can think of is that I didn't coat the wall thick enough with silicon or pat it down hard enough after applying the coco fiber. I was thinking about just buying 2 more cans of Great Stuff, spray it on the wall and then smooth it out. While it's still wet, sprinkle coco fiber on it. What do you think?
 
GAH!? i think great stuff + coco fiber should work well
 
The Great Stuff will show through in spots, which will suck. Try a pond supply store; look for Waterfall Foam. It's the same as Great Stuff, only black.
 
Noto;2785408; said:
The Great Stuff will show through in spots, which will suck. Try a pond supply store; look for Waterfall Foam. It's the same as Great Stuff, only black.
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Yeah I tried my best at finding that stuff but no one in my area has it right now. I would have to order it online. Still, I want the back wall to be covered with the coco fiber just like some of the dart frog setups I see.
 
Did you make sure to dry to coco fiber really well. I baked mine to make sure it was dry and it worked really well. When I was doing mine I got one bad tube of silicon that never cured right and I had to cut out a big section of foam and replace it. Stupid thing, it was a pain. In the end it turned out pretty good and now I have gotten moss to grow up the entire back.
 
I soaked a brick of EcoEarth about a week ago and squeezed all the water out of it and let it dry. I guess it wasn't 100% dry when I sprinkled it on. I didn't think about baking it. That might have contributed to the problem. :(
 
From my experience it only sticks if it is very dry. You can probably put another layer of silicon on top of the old stuff and stick on new coco fibers.. I like to put the coco on really thick, like 1/2-3/4 of an inch thick and press it down well. Then after about a day you can brush the extra fibers off. Also if you can, dont do it all at one time. Doing smaller sections seems to make it easier to do and you dont have to worry about the silicon being two dry before you get to coco stuck to it. Hope this helps.
 
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