Heavy Duty Background Kits

Building HD Backgrounds On Larger Enclosures

Building backgrounds of this style on larger enclosures can be tricky, since the largest cork tile background is only 18in X 24in. Since larger animal-safe tiles aren't yet available in the hobby, we're forced to limit our HD background kit sizes considerably. If you'd like to build a HD background kit for a larger type of enclosure, multiple cork tiles will be necessary to get the job done. It's a little tougher to make look nice than building a standard HD background, but it's totally doable with a little extra time & effort.

In the example shown, we used two Heavy Duty Custom Background kits from an 18x18x24 terrarium to create a single background for a single (2X larger) 36x18x24 enclosure. The instructions are pretty much the same as a usual HD Background kit, with one small added step. After the background tiles are attached to the enclosure, there's a small but visible gap between the cork tiles. To ensure that gap is hidden, silicone & background texture mix (included in the kit) can be used to attach a natural cork flat to bridge the gap. With the flat installed, the two tiles appear more like a single piece, creating a more realistic finished product.

There are a few different ways to combine HD Background Kits to cater to different enclosure sizes. (Another popular 2-tile setup would be two 18x18x18 kits stacked to fill either a 36x18x18 or an 18x18x36 terrarium) If you are comfortable using a saw to cut-down a cork tile, even more options present themselves. It's a little more difficult to make a 2-tile background look great, but the results can be surprisingly realistic considering the low level of difficulty.