Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

I noticed this morning that one of the caves in the terrarium was completely closed up with sand and wondered whether Hera had indeed laid eggs. She had been test digging for the last couple weeks, so it was about time. ... And I was right! Pascal and I carefully dug out 13 eggs. A new record. They also look much healthier than last year's production. It's unlikely that all of them will survive. Zeus managed to steal one when I wasn't paying attention, so we now have 12 eggs left. They have now moved to damp beds of Vermiculite in the Incubator. Let's see how this works out...

Hera and Zeus were hibernating the last two months and, just like last year , woke up in time not to miss Christmas.

While Hera already chews on dinner, ...  ... is Zeus still thinking about whether he wants to join the party.

The Bearded Dragons are done with their 2 month hibernation and are both quite awake during the day. They still like to disappear into their cave as soon as it gets dark outside.

It's hot. The Bearded Dragons are spending the afternoon outside for the first time this year and love the radiant heat from the rocks in their outdoor home.

Taking Artemis for a stroll through the garden. Kind of a weird feeling to have a dragon on your shoulder. Artemis holds on to the fabric of the T-Shirt just fine. The leash is mostly for safety and peace of mind for the human in case she does slip for some reason, knowing that she won't fall all the way to the floor.

Artemis has no problems climbing the wall in the terrarium.

[ Bearded Dragon posts ] Tonight, Artemis and Apollo moved into their new home. The last act before the move was to spread sand all over the ground floor inside the Terrarium (and a bit outside, too). Artemis and Apollo seem to like their new home, and went to sleep in the cave. Since this terrarium is quite a bit larger than the temporary housing, we'll need to experiment a bit more with temperature and light management. I'll add a partial cover to the top to reduce heat loss.

 [ Bearded Dragon posts ] Today we moved the furniture into the terrarium. It's an almost perfect tight fit. I put a bead of silicone along the edges to ensure that nothing can get behind. A little while later we also had refurbished and installed the terrarium cover. Now we just need to wait for the silicone to dry ... Meanwhile, I built extension cords for the temperature and humidity sensors, as well as started construction of the relay box.

[ Bearded Dragons posts ] We continued sealing the terrarium furniture with thinned wood glue.  While there is certainly a yellowish sheen now, it looks quite nice. Next step is to wire the temperature and humidity sensors. We glued in plastic straws to act as conduit for the sensor wires. Time to let everything dry over night, and we'll likely be able to drop the furniture into the terrarium tomorrow.

Now that I'm back from my business trip we restarted work on the terrarium furniture. We used craft acrylics from the local Michael's partially thinned with water to give the rear wall a bit more flair, and even out the coloring of the horizontal surfaces. We succeeded in maintaining the grain of the tile grout. We have been struggling with what we'll do about sealing the structure, so that it can be cleaned easily and thoroughly when needed. Grout sealers from the hardware store are fairly aggressive stuff and likely don't go well with styrofoam. Thinned, water-resistant wood glue is often used for this purpose, so we gave it a try on the outside walls. It turns out the color darkens quite a bit when covered with glue, but otherwise it works well. Pascal didn't like how much the color darkens, so for now we finished up the outside. The lower edge of the side wall in the photo below has not been painted with glue while the patch in the middle has. The difference in...

We finished up the Grouting. Now we need to wait a couple of days for the grout to set completely. Once that's done and the grout is fully hardened, we can carefully sand the bumps and edges with a sanding sponge.

This is complete overkill, but it's fun, so I'll do it anyways. I came across www.raspiviv.com , a Web site that shows how to set up humidity and temperature monitoring for a vivarium, along with controlling lights or misters. The author, Nathan Bensing, is into tropical frogs, but the concepts work just as well for a Bearded Dragon terrarium. A Raspberry Pi was quickly organized, Nathan supplied sensors and relay boards, and today -- between working on the terrarium with Pascal -- I went through the tutorial to start setting things up. Along the way I routed an Ethernet drop into Pascal's bedroom and hooked up the Raspberry Pi. The software install is now done and we're going to try and test the sensors tomorrow. As an aside ... I knew the Raspberry Pi is tiny, and slow. I wouldn't want to use it as a desktop system regularly, but it's definitely functional, and perfectly fine to run headless. I could have gone the Arduino route as well, but a fully functional...

[ Bearded Dragons posts ] We use sanded tile grout to give the styrofoam a very hard shell. So far the sanded grout hasn't developed any cracks. I'm hoping it stays that way. In above photo the base coat has been applied. The point of this coat is primarily to cover up the styrofoam all around and to make the whole thing a bit more rigid. The grout is mixed to the consistency of yogurt. It needs to go into all crevices and gaps. We mostly applied it with a brush. Next up is a thicker layer of grout on all the walking surfaces. The idea here is to protect the structure from the claws of the bearded dragons. We mix the grout a bit thicker to roughly the consistency of sour cream. We mostly use a spatula and wooden paint stir sticks to apply the grout. The edges will get a thicker coat when the whole thing gets tipped over for the second coat of the rear wall. The rear wall's initial cover turned out to be a bit too thin and it's easy to rub off the grout, as can be seen...

[ Bearded Dragons posts ] The Bearded Dragons need a home. We could just stick them into the larger terrarium, throw in some sand, a few stones, and branches and off we go. ... Or we make this a bit more interesting ... After reading through several descriptions on the Web on how to build terrarium "furniture", we settled on the styrofoam + grout method. I wasn't quite convinced how well this would work, so we first built a test piece: A couple pieces of styrofoam glued together and then coated with sanded grout. We chose sanded grout because it is supposed to be less susceptible to develop cracks. Of course I mixed waaaaay to much grout, and most of that first batch ended up in the waste bin as leftovers when it had dried. The grout coat  took a day to harden, but looks very solid now. With that experience under our belt, we started building the real thing. Ah yes, working with styrofoam is so much fun. The little white balls are going everywhere! ... Pretty quickly the...

[ Bearded Dragons posts ] Santa Claus arranged for two new family members: Artemis and Apollo, two bearded dragons. They moved into our house with a large terrarium. However, it turns out that the large terrarium will need more proper landscaping than Santa Claus had set up, before it becomes a nice living space for Artemis and Apollo. So for now the two live in temporary housing on our dining table. While we hash out where exactly in the house the dragons are going to live permanently, Pascal and I built a sturdy pedestal for the large terrarium.  We used a bunch of wood left over from other projects (mostly 2x4's and plywood), so the pedestal has a somewhat utilitarian look, but that's alright with us. We started by making a plan. Primarily, so that we both agreed on what we were talking about. The frame was to be made from 2x4's and legs attached with plywood gussets. Of course, the plan changed when construction began. Nevertheless, a little while later we had made som...