Updated Rack & Poor Attempt at Desert Dune

As the title suggests this is just to show my rather poor attempt at recreating some form of dune / hill for my dune species arriving in 3-4 weeks (plenty of time for the sand to dry into place) please ignore poor photo quality:

1:

I've placed a small coconut hide amongst the hill in order to try and encourage the scorpion to burrow in / hide within the "Dune" lol but knowing my luck it'll probably decide to use elsewhere.

2:

Was worried about how damp the sand appears but I'm leaving it without a lid under the infrared bulb for a few nights to speed up the drying process.

3:

Managed to fish out a nice piece of slate from the garden which serves quite well against this particular sand, was going to go for red sand but the local shop was out of stock and figured black was different.

4:

Nice picture from one end looking into the front of the hill and into the cave I've created.

5: this is just an update of what I've got so far sadly all but one is empty though

Well... first of all don't be so hard on yourself.
Second, I kinda like it!


I think the hide is well placed and nicely covered.
I think there is a nice chance it will accept it as a hide.
A little tip: when you first get the scorp immediately place it in front of the hide.
It will automatically run for cover, and might associate it with safety from then on.

I find the black sand gives a nice contrast with your decorations.
Don't like the skull, that is not my taste, but can understand why some like it.

It all depends on what you what kinda look you want to accomplish here.
Also the twigs are a nice touch. May I suggest dried grass to add to the set up? Dried grass has that soft green/withered look which I always found very Dune-ish and I think it would make a nice contrast with your darker setup, but that's just a tip.

Further more try to see where you wanted to go with the slate stone, a kind of terras perhaps? It looks nice!

Here is a picture of a California Sand Dune so you know what I mean.
so cal ftw;) I love that landscape


(disclaimer all rights belong to http://naturalimagesgallery.com)





Looks great man, the coming weeks you have plenty of time to poke around a bit, tweak and change, you'll be fine!



Take care,


Joey





P.S. your tanks are empty now... but you have a bucketload of scorps coming... awesomeness;)

Thank you, I do understand the skull thing, it especially looks a little too white vs the black sand, and it does take up quite a bit of room. As for the grass idea i currently have a load of it dying in a bag, once it's dead I'll add it in, unfortunately with the amount of wet weather we've been getting in the UK at the moment all my grass is very much alive

I'll look to making a nicer, larger glass setup in the future as well. Thanks for the tip with placing the scorpion infront of the hide though will definitely try that out.

If I had the space I'd give it an actual dune haha, perhaps a larger set of hills will be in order though, having trouble getting the sand to form a nice hill and also panicking about the dampness of it, how do you go about drying the sand? and does it dry so much that it could collapse in on burrows? I'm hoping not to bury my scorpion

Wattsy wrote:

Thank you, I do understand the skull thing, it especially looks a little too white vs the black sand, and it does take up quite a bit of room. As for the grass idea i currently have a load of it dying in a bag, once it's dead I'll add it in, unfortunately with the amount of wet weather we've been getting in the UK at the moment all my grass is very much alive

I'll look to making a nicer, larger glass setup in the future as well. Thanks for the tip with placing the scorpion infront of the hide though will definitely try that out.

If I had the space I'd give it an actual dune haha, perhaps a larger set of hills will be in order though, having trouble getting the sand to form a nice hill and also panicking about the dampness of it, how do you go about drying the sand? and does it dry so much that it could collapse in on burrows? I'm hoping not to bury my scorpion

No problem.
Well the sand right out of the bag might have some moist in it and that takes a while to dry. I personally used burrowing sand (sand with clay additive) and dilute it with "normal"sand. It was relatively fast drying about a few days the most of it was dry, but takes a few weeks for it to completely dry. If you want to speed it up, place it 10 minutes in the oven.

The Dune scorp, isn't a big burrower, but can if it chooses. If sand dries it becomes more compact and I don't think it will collapse if it burrows. My sand was quite hard when I took it out last week.

When I put it in it was very dry of course and too loose to support burrowing.
What did I do?
Took a plant mister, put in a layer, mist it a bit put in another layer. Then when it was ready, pushed it all nice and tight so to make it more compact. In this manner it dried completely within 2 days. And the amount of water used was minimal.

Also, look at the natural habitat.... Dunes are mostly loose sand.... So don't make it too hard for yourself.
You could use your slate stone as a natural divider, if you place it more horizontal across the tank and more upward perhaps you could make a bigger hill.

Look at this ridiculous infantile drawing that I spend too much time on to make but you get it.
The grey is moist sand, the yellow is loose sand. The blue is the slate stone.
The hide is placed on top of the moist layer, dig it in a bit, then a bucketload of loose sand with a wee bit of moist as the thick top layer.



Lol pff but those are just suggestions:) haha hope I helped a bit.

That's excellent! I'm glad you also adopt the good ol'fashioned paint diagrams, I made one for a friend the other day for his ant colony, it gets the job done! ... I'll see about doing that then I think and I was wondering about the loose sand not being a problem due to the nature of dunes themselves, I guess with the hide there and them not usually burrowing much, it should be ok, but there's no harm in improving it. This burrowing sand is definitely gonna be something I invest in however as when I move onto Desert Hairy's etc. I'll need a more suitable substrate.

Thanks again though

Wattsy wrote:

That's excellent! I'm glad you also adopt the good ol'fashioned paint diagrams, I made one for a friend the other day for his ant colony, it gets the job done! ... I'll see about doing that then I think and I was wondering about the loose sand not being a problem due to the nature of dunes themselves, I guess with the hide there and them not usually burrowing much, it should be ok, but there's no harm in improving it. This burrowing sand is definitely gonna be something I invest in however as when I move onto Desert Hairy's etc. I'll need a more suitable substrate.

Thanks again though

Your welcome;) keep us posted;)