Can I see some enclosures?

[lehx]

I'm working on my guy's 4x2x2 this weekend (well, preliminarily - I still have stuff to buy!) but I'm stuck on decor. Like, I have ideas, but I'm struggling with visualizing it enough to know what I need to buy and how to put it all in there. I was going to make a background with expanding foam, grout, and polycrilic, but it's been too cold to apply the polycrilic and I'm tired of waiting to set this thing up. Thinking of just going background-free.

Can y'all just post some pictures of your 4x2x2s so I can see how you set yours up? I'd especially LOVE pictures that show how you attach things. I want to get a big stick for him (he likes to explore upwards, plus I like the look of it) but I'm worried about attaching it well enough. Same with vines - I want to put vines in, but I can't figure out how to hang them.

Also would love recommendations for naturalistic-looking hides, leaf litter, etc.

If there's already a thread with this kind of thing, please point me in that direction! I didn't see one when I looked.

[YungRasputin]

leaf litter is usually available at most pet stores and places like Amazon - if you happen to not find it look for Indian catappa leaves that are used to create murky river like water for Amazon species of fish, etc - you can also find good natural debris at garden centres

me personally the majority of what i use for décor is obtained from the WVian mountains around me - the key with using stuff collected from the wild is you have to treat it by a) boiling it b) baking it at 350F for a bit c) leaving it out settle and repeating the process etc - i also like to spray it all with mite poison when it’s in the “settling stage” just to be sure

my best advice is don't get locked too much into a vision because you’re always going to have to tinker and experiment to figure out what looks good *and* most importantly, what will work - you can plan but your baby will decide how it’s gonna go

eg: i once tried to meticulous recreate a mountain slope terrain, modeled directly after the Usambara mountains - i mean i went all out down to the exact color and composition of the soil - had multiple hides on varying levels, i had fake roots and all of this - my OBT created its own tunnel funnel at the top and didn’t bother or use anything else lol just something to consider

i haven’t gotten much into the creating artificial backgrounds and all of this so outside of video recommends on this i can’t really comment too too much - i like to conceive of this as naturally occurring open space and design around that - imo you can create really cool effects doing this eg: in my scrub tank i experimented a lot with log/stick placements till i was able to create something that could be comparable to a fallen tree and so on

am at work so can’t post pix rn - hope this was useful!

[Homebody]

For what it's worth, my 3x2x2: