Dart Den

I just finished building and planting my imitator tank so I thought that I would share a picture of it. The pic is cropped a little but this is a 10 gallon vertical. The vine is made from 1/2" cpvc that was coated with apoxy and an organic mixture.

Nate

wow, i've seen dutch and germans using the pvc fake vines, but not much here. it's really nice, how did you do it?

There is a post on dendroboard that explains it pretty well. I took the piece of pvc (cpvc in this case because it's smaller) and heated sections of it up enough so that I could bend and shape it. You have to be careful how much you bend it or you'll begin to get flat spots. You can even twist it to get some nice shape in it. The best place to do this part is outside because the pipe gives off some nasty fumes.

Once you have it shaped the way that you want it you can add some silicone in areas to add some more detail. I didn't on this one. Next, just coat the whole thing in silicone or epoxy. I used epoxy on this one. And then put your organic mixture on. I used dust from tree fern panels, dirt and a little coco dust. I mixed this up and then sifted it to make sure I only had fine dust.

Now that you have it coated you can even do a little more shaping if you'd like. It was fun to work and and like everything else you learn as you go along.

Nate

Looks good, how many are you going to be keeping in there?

As of right now I have two in there. If need be I'll be adding a female but for now I am happy with just the two in there.

Nate