Degreasing A Hippo

Nice piece. I wish my hippo had tusks.
I can’t imagine why aquarium heaters wouldn’t work, but would suggest using two that are rated for the size of enclosure and set them for 5-10% higher than your desired temperature. Also try to create some movement in the water, like an airstone or even a cheap 10g waterfall aquarium filter. The water won’t heat evenly or properly if the it’s stagnant.

 

LOL. .... No .. noooooooooo . no airstones and degreasers.

Alpha-overbubble2 by Sea Wolf posted Feb 14, 2018 at 7:12 PM

 

For something that large, I would not try aquarium heaters. Might it be possible to use one of the newer, cheaper barrel/bucket heaters? They wrap around the container on the outside. One reason I never tried to get a hippo was the sheer size of them and that they all need degreasing. Bad enough I have to trip over a couple of whale skulls. I at least have hippo tusks though. Another option for a container might be if you could get one of those cast off, empty chemical containers in those metal cages and cut it down to size. Keep the outer metal cage to support the container when full of water.

 

Hello,
Set the covered containers in the sun. The solution may cool down during the night but it will become quite hot during the day. Degreasing takes time, perhaps a couple of months for such a large greasy skull. The skull should degrease; perhaps not as quickly without constant heat. I recently finished degreasing a really nice polar bear that came from an 80 year old collection. The skull was dark brown; I placed it in a black plastic tub with ammonia and kept it in the sun. It took a full month and I changed the ammonia 4 times; it turned out beautifully. The skull now has an even natural bone color.

 

OK, I haven't seen that one before. Used mostly to keep tanks free of ice it does say it will heat to 100 to 110 degrees. It does state that is for a 5 gallon bucket but if you insulated a container well and dropped in a small pump to circulate the water it might just work. The other option is to get one of those Allied bucket heaters and rig it to a thermostat. Without one, it gets water to close to a simmer and that is much too hot. There is a thread on here on how to wire a thermostat to one as well. "Caveman bucket heater" might find it. It had good pictures but I do not know if they are still on the post or not.

Took a second to look. Did not find the caveman bucket heater thread but there was this one. Pictures worked when I first looked at it but now they do not. https://www.taxidermy.net/threads/262034/

As a note, when I was looking at Search results, the original link as given for that was http://www.taxidermy.net/forum/index.php/topic,262034.0.html This goes to the old forum archive which now seems to be very sadly broken. The format is apparently different now. If you look at the old vs new url for that page you can see how I changed the end of it to get it to work. Very sad as the original post did show the photos still intact for a moment. Toxic still roams through here so possibly the pictures could be replaced or maybe a whole new post made.

 

I think the wrap around barrel heaters are better suited for indoors like a garage but I bet a good tarp over it would suffice. Thinking the controls should not get wet.

 

Please share photos when it's finished. Thanks

 

I use the 1000W API submersible bucket heaters. You will need to pair it up with an inkbird thermostat or it will boil your water...

 

Hippo stew .. yum. Adding some ammonia will not hurt.

 

How many gallons do you have it submerged in? I would say to add 4 cups of ammonia for every gallon you have.

 

I purchased 2 different sized rubber stock tanks. One about 15 gallons and one about 50 gallons. I purchased 2 small water heater elements. You can get 120 Volt water heater elements of different amps. They have worked for 2 years now. You will need to clean the goo off every month or 2. you can dial in the temp you want. Works great!

 

It’s a shame on some animals to bleach the tests. I really like the patina on bears teeth.

 

I have a friend that has a set-up like yours. It works great. I would suggest ground-fault breakers. Electricity and water are usually a bad combination.

 

That came out really nice. I have a set of hippo teeth/tusks but no skull. No way do I have any room to display something like that.