# How To Build A Live Planted Vivarium Step 3:



## MantellaMan (Feb 3, 2012)

Hey everyone,


Right, now your base for the background should be completely set and how you want it to be (hopefully!), however make sure your happy with it and that it doesn’t take up too much room in the Vivarium.
It’s now time for the step where everything starts to look right and natural!


Step Three “The Sealant & Earth Layer”:


Grab one of your Exo Terra Bricks of Plantation Soil or Coco Husk and do what it basically says on the back, which is to place it in a bucket and pour about 1- 2 litres of warm/hot water (doesn’t matter which i tend to use boiling hot water) onto the brick and leave it for about 30 minutes. When you come back to it you should have a hell of a lot of soil in your bucket, so now you have to completely dry it out, and the way i do that is by putting it in the oven for about a hour, every 10 minutes make sure you turn it over so the heat gets through to all of the soil and doesn’t burn it. I would do all of this the same time you are waiting for your Foam to dry because then you dont have to wait the next day and waste time waiting for the soil to dry.


Anyway, now you should be ready to apply the sealant and soil to the background (please do this in a well ventilated area). Firstly, get your old credit/debit cards out and a small container of water (trust me you will need these to apply the sealant and move it without getting your hands covered and seriously this stuff takes forever to come off!). Cut the tip of the sealant tube and the nozzle, make sure its cut so the sealant can come out in large quantities you dont want to be there all day. Then start applying it onto the foam and, this is where the cards come in, dip the credit card in water and smooth the sealant so it spreads out and covers the foam. Do this a section at a time because it does dry out quite quickly, now cover the Sealant in the soil and start packing that on (it doesn’t matter if you pack it on quite heavy just make sure you dont miss any bits).


So now you should have something that looks like this picture below:


















After you have covered the entire background with this little mixture, leave it to dry and try and put it somewhere with good ventilation so the smell of the sealant can disappear for a week (I know it sounds like a long time but I always leave it a while just in case!). Make sure you leave the tank on its back so none of the soil comes off before it sets.


You will notice a few things that i never mentions in step 2 but i shall explain them now. The Flower Pot is basically there for, well its main purpose, to contain a plant. I stuck this in with the extra bit of my expandable foam however the sealant can act as an adhesive, I will explain more about plants to go in certain places later on don’t worry.


Also, I hope you noticed the piece of wood that’s sticking out the foam, this needs to be done in step 2 so hopefully you remembered that I said that at the end of the last post.


Many Thanks


MantellaMan


----------

