It later turned out he hadn't secured the thing properly in the shipping crate and it rolled around in transit, the damage thus being entirely his own fault. Classic goon project!
I remember that. I remember someone posting the reveal showing that the fucked up paint was very clearly the result of an unsecured ratchet strap "hook".
Yup, he had the tub surrounded by a rock pit which would make it impossible to to clean.
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Here's more pictures and info on some random website:
https://cohost.org/Cariad/post/501198-doom-bathroom-part (
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Oh god that was the same guy? AHAHAHAHHHAHHAHAHAHHHAHAH
I will post a mild defense of the mold farm.
tl;dr in Groverhaus/goonproject form what he didn't wasn't by itself retarded but the way he did it IS.
So you can do what the goon did without it turning into a pure mold haven. Possibly.
So you need to leave in a low-humity area or otherwise ensure that your gravel bed completely dries out. Ideally your tub should be in its own nook, ideally its own room, and separate from the shower and daily bathroom activity because in summary you don't want shower humidity moistening the rocks and you want the minimum shed human skin and oils from getting on the stones.
You also need to use, basically, volcanic stone. Stuff that will absorb moisture into the structure of the stones, keeping the surface as dry as possible. You will need to clean the rocks monthly to wash off the human and soap scum, but with a special soultion to keep it from growing mold as it dries. I forget what the magic mix is.
You CAN use river rock/ceramic coated stone, but you need to clean pull and clean it more often because more moisture (and more soap scum) will make it down to the drip tray.
You also, and this is key, want to use the biggest chunks possible and ideally in a single layer. Because you will eventually need to clean them & the tray they sit in. If you want to make it look like its a deep tray, you layer in medium, like grout or concrete, put rock chunks with a smoothed side into that, and then seal those so they are easy to clean, then put your fist-ish sized rocks on top of those and no one will know its just a single layer of rocks.
anyway, at least yearly and I think they said twice a year, you need to pull the rocks and scrub the tray to keep mold out and inspect for damage/holes/leaks.
the other thing you can do, if you want smooth stones, is set river rock into concrete. Its doesn't look as "nice" and its still a bitch to clean, but much less than having to scoop out a few hundred pounds of hobbylobby decorative rocks adn pick up the stranglers, then clean them and the tray.