FrogFevers 55g Display Tank Build...

[FrogFever]

The time has come... I've been gathering supplies and brainstorming the design for about 6 weeks now. I've ran out of space in my frog room so this one will be front and center in my living room. This is my umpteenth build and I'm going big this time.

I first picked up a 55g tank at Goodwill: $25!

My next step was to paint the wood grain frame to black.
Sanded it down, painted it, and finished with a few layers of clear coat.
Attachment 17886
Look at the mess of stuff. Unfortunately my new place does NOT have a garage!
Luckily my roommates are understanding. But they'll love it when its done.
(Still looking for a beautiful black stand).

Next step I went to ACE hardware to get glass cut to section off a quarter of the tank to allow for a water feature utilizing a real slate waterfall.
The two glass pieces cost me only $2! (They know me there now). One horizontal piece and one vertical piece to block water that may try to leak through the great stuff and into the substrate section.
I used Aquarium silicone which I ordered on Amazon: $12. The silicone spreading tools: $3 at Home Depot.
I water tested it today and its doing its job so far.
Attachment 17887

The next step is of course, the egg crate layout. I personally prefer to use this method for a false bottom to reduce the weight a bit and also so I don't have to use so much LECA balls.
Eggcrate at Home Depot: $11 for a huge sheet
Wire cutters: $5
Small zip ties: free (they were in with my girls medication in the mail?)

PVC pipes layed out


bottom base, hideout cave, water area slope, waterpump/waterfall tower
Malaysian driftwood: I won in a ZooMed contest!


water area view


I was initially going to just make a mound out of this, but as I was designing it I decided to make it more useful by making it a mound as well as a cave.


Here you can see how I put the powerhead pump tubing and electrical cord through the pvc pipe for easy removal if I have to get to it.
Sunterra powerhead: $13 on Amazon
1/2 in plastic tubing: $4 for numerous feet
black pvc: $2


These are the doors that open allowing me to access the pump should I need to do so.


This tower will hold the slate pieces that make up the waterfall. I will be using great stuff to hold them in, somehow. This is going to be an extremely hard task to make them all sit and stay set in place. Most likely the hardest and most tedious part of the whole build.
The black pvc piece on top is where the water will be draining into from the tube, spilling out each side, and I'll drill a couple holes in the center too.


Everyone please do subscribe to this as I have many more goodies yet to come. In tank circulation fans in custom housing, LEDs, rock ledges, glass canopy, glow in the dark mushrooms (thanks GRIMM), and some other ideas that I've personally never seen and am not even sure how I'm going to pull off yet!

Coming soon: the slate waterfall feature build...

I found these scrap slate pieces at a stone company for about .26 a pound (or some ridiculously low price) so this all cost me less than $3.


Here's me sanding them down so they don't cut my froggys!
Sandpaper: $3

I'll try to post more updated pictures tomorrow...

Questions and comments always appreciated.

[John]

I really like what you did with the powerhead. And in general it all looks very promising. Ain't sanding rocks a pain in the butt?! By the way, the first 2 pics don't show.

Keep us up to date please .

[FrogFever]

Just started working on my in tank fan circulation setup. I must credit GRIMM as he was my inspiration behind this whole system.
I bought these super quiet Suscool fans from Amazon as well as a Y adapter and a Fan Mate speed controller.

Suscool 7 blade design: $9 each

Fan Mate: $9
2 to 1 Y converter: $3


I used Plaskolite for the housing of the fans. It is pretty dang easy to work with. You can use a razor or a special Plaskolite cutting tool.
Plaskolite sheet at Home Depot: $8
Cutting Tool: $3

I then used black duct tape to hold it all together (it will all be covered by great stuff and/or brown silicone).

All plugged in. Just have to add some screen to cover up the intake and outtakes. I found that any angle given to the housing will take away from its power it provides and putting screen over it will have the same dampening effect.

These fans are nearly silent!


Fans siliconed to back wall.
Eggcrate structures are now all covered with weed blocker- 3 x 50ft roll: $13 at Homedepot
Also shown new pieces of driftwood i picked up. 2 small pieces for $8.

Now its time to do some shrooms!!

My girl and I got this idea once again, from GRIMM.
We used brown and white sculpey clay ($5) and water based acrylic paints ($.75 each) We molded them, baked them, painted them, and will probably do another touch up coating, clear coat, and THEN they will be painted with powerful glow in the dark green and blue paint, then more clear coat.

Kind of our practice run. Next time they will be more realistic.

The glow in the dark paint I used is by GlowInc! $8 bucks for 1/2 oz. I got bright green (24+ hours of glow) and Pure blue (3 hours glow time)

Probably going to change the brown dots to bright red


Another idea I found elsewhere as well... making fake vines/roots. I figure copying someone else's ideas and making them myself is a sincere form of flattery.

So for this I went and bought different strands of rope: $5
Toluene ($8 at Aces Hardware) This is used as a thinning agent for the silicone so it more thoroughly coats items better. There was a huge long debate on another thread about the safety of this stuff and after all was said and done it was deemed to be vivarium safe (after it cured/dryed and evaporated). Another option would be to use natural based turpentine.
Brown silicone II: $6


The mixture I used was 2 parts silicone to 1 part toluene to 1 part peat moss
I mixed the Silicone and toluene together first to make it real soupy (thin) and then mixed in the peat moss. Once the ropes were completely covered they were then dipped in dry peat moss. And they came out looking like this!

I particularly like the thin strands of rope that started to come undone from the rest of it.

I then took 3 or 4 rope strands and tied them together on top with a zip tie (which will eventually be covered in silicone). They come out looking like bunches of roots.

My lovely assistant/girlfriend Crystal displaying them for me.



And now for my toys...

I got this High Pressure Sodium Marine Lighting setup for free!
I met a friend of mines friend, one time, we started talking, and he told me had some extra things from his reef tank. I told him I'd take it all off his hands for some cash. He just told me to take it for free and get it out of his sight!
I got a 40 gallon tank, Cascade 700 Canister filter, numerous lights, pumps, crazy pipe things, more crazy acrylic sump things, a black bakers rack and a bunch of other crazy stuff I don't even know what it is or what to do with it!
I have since gifted all of the salt water setup stuff to my girls brother who will put it all to good use.

Here is the perfect light for my 55 gallon!


(You can see the ridiculously heavy ballast in the left)

Not sure of the brand because its not listed anywhere, but I have to imagine its a couple hundred bucks at least. Anyone recognize it?

And the bright blue flourescents that are built into it just made my day! Hell, it made my entire build!

Its beautiful after I cleaned all the years of salt and dust out of it!

And for some more toys...
I personally only know of two other vivs that has these lights incorporated into them.
Much thanks to Dendrodave for the idea.


These are called Lights in Flight. What they are is firefly resembling patio light sets. They come in strands of 10 lights and they randomly light up for a couple/few seconds each and then fade away. There may be 0-8 lights on at one given time.
Super cool idea if I can get them to successfully fit into my viv setup.

I got 2 sets at Lowes. $13 per set.

These are of course pictures taken at night. Video camera would do much more justice.
I'll post some more pictures further along as the build progresses.

If anyone has any questions or comments about how I did any of this please feel free to comment or PM me.

Tons more additions on my build to come soon!

[FrogFever]

Bump . .

[Kreamcheese]

Cant wait to see the final product. I would like to incorporate some of your/others ideas in my new build.

[FrogFever]

So much more to come!

[FrogFever]

I usually don't use black foam because its harder to come by and more expensive but I had to go with it this time. Luckily I found this brand on Amazon for $10 each. I bought 3.


Alright so I forgot to take a picture of the initial session of the waterfall construction, but here are some pictures of the second session.

I started by using quite a bit of black pond foam on top of the eggcrate. That allowed for the slate to have something to stick to.

I found that after the foam had cured the slate was not really stuck (from being sticky) but instead, the force of the expanding foam wedged the pieces in place. About half of the pieces fell out upon touching them so basically this pond foam isn't as gooey as regular great stuff and it cured very fast so we also encountered the problem of not working fast enough to get the pieces in place. (The tank was laying on its back unlike how its pictured.)

(The first session had A LOT more tape to hold the slate pieces in place.)
So for the second session we used brown silicone to stick the remaining pieces in place so they'd stay put this time.

In my opinion I think the brown ruined the look to it so I planned on covering that all up with more foam.


So far so good but you can see all the big gaps where slate is missing.

Water test shows that I've got a pretty powerful stream going so I'll have to turn it down a notch.

3rd foam construction session - 2 cans of black pond foam worth in tank

Tubing and fan housing concealed, pots, film canisters, and water bowl all set in place...


Right side of tank


Left side

I decided to incorporate more slate pieces in other parts of tank to tie it all together, so its not "just a waterfall"

Attachment 0
The foam expanded much more than I anticipated the second time around. BUT it did get rid or the brown silicone look.
I have some SERIOUS sculpting/carving to do to clean it up. I really enjoy that step though.

So does anyone know which types of darts would most appreciate and utilize perches for calling? Any recommendations on which species would most enjoy this setup? :0

[Kreamcheese]

Build is coming along nicely. Foam always expands much more than you want, but like you said the carving can be fun. Wish I could help with what darts to get but I'm not yet in that hobby; hope to have some soon though!

[FrogFever]

Finally got the first coating of Pond Foam carved out. It took me well over 3 hours.
(Right side of tank)


Waterfall area carved out. I added more slate pieces on top to hide the drilled pvc pipe that distributes the water over the rocks.
I do plan on hiding the water tube as well. I am also planning on using one more can of black foam to get spots throughout the tank that I missed before.


I almost decided to not use the Lights in Flight because of the whole technical detail oriented aspect surrounding them, but then I couldn't find the receipt ($26), so I decided to use them! Like I said before, "I've gotta go BIG in this build", so I'm glad I decided to stick with the original plan.


Here you can see how I taped up the lights with painters tape. I did this so that the lights didn't become covered in foam or silicone. It helped out tremendously not having to worry about how they were laying in the background.


In another build I saw someone mentioned that they covered up the lights casing in silicone. I thought this was a smart move just to be extra cautious since there will be water/humidity surrounding these lights. I took this a step further (got the idea from the gf) and decided to coat the entire string of lights in silicone and then peat moss. That way if I can't figure out a good way to conceal the light strand into the background then at least the wires will look like vines strewn across the enclosure.

It turned out better than I had hoped and this was only with one layer of silicone and peat moss! This time we didn't use the Toluene to thin the silicone it and it coated it very well. Any spots that were still showing green will be covered with more pond foam.

Silicone: $6
Peat Moss: $3 (Fred Meyers)
1/8" Fiber Insulated Staples 40ct.: $1.50 each (2)
I found these insulated staples at Home Depot. I thought they would be perfect to hold the strands of wires to the background as I set them all in their right places.


It was quite a tedious task as the staples kept falling out every time I moved the wires at a different angle, but after more than two hours the whole tank was set up with two strands! I then used dabs of silicone on the staples to give them a little more stability adhering to the foam.


End shot


I also finally got this beautiful stand I ordered online!
Petco online: Shipped for $140.


It may be hard to tell in the picture, but here are a couple of lights glowing green and the way the blue tape is covering them it makes them much dimmer than before which in my opinion looks a thousand times better. Much like real fireflys and not super intensely bright LEDs flashing in a tank.

My plan is to replace the blue painters tape with green painters tape and leave them covered.

COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS WELCOME!

[rosaphile]

That is looking to be fantastic! I'll be watching this thread.

[optimum]

i bet this will turn into a killer set up! looking forward seeing it finished

[FrogFever]

Okay, its been a while since my last post but much progress has been made!

This picture is after the first coating of black Silicone II and peat moss.
The blue tape is covering all the slate, wood, and air/fan vents.


I ended up using half a small bag of peat moss ($3 at Fred Meyers) and 3 tubes of GE Silicone II Black ($7 each)

This is what it looks like after the final coat of silicone/peat moss was applied, after I took off all of the tape pieces from the slate, circulation vents, and off of the firefly lights, and after I vacuumed up all excess peat moss.
This took me about 2 hours.


I decided to do only a slight coating of peat moss in the water fall area just to give it a little color. I am assuming that most of it will eventually come off when the waterfall is turned on.


Lights in flight with the lights (and tape) off. As mentioned earlier I plan on re-taping the lights with green painters FROG tape to dampen the brightness of the lights so they appear to be more natural.


Picture showing the lights on in a lit room!


A quick test and all systems are still fully operational!
Lights, fans, and water pump.


After one last quick water test then comes the next step...
Planting the substrate and plants!

Hydroton: JoshsFrogs- $10 for a large bag.

I am using the ABG soil mix recipe.

Tree fern pieces: Sierra Fish and Pets- $7 a lb. I think I used about $10 worth.
Spagnum moss: from Joshsfrogs $5 for 200g. I used less than $1 worth.
Charcoal: Fred Meyers- $3 per bag. Used 1 bag.
Orchid Bark: Fred Meyers: $5 for a huge bag. Used $3 worth.
Peat Moss: Fred Meyers: $3 per small bag. Used 1 bag.

I mixed the proper amounts per ABG recipe, and because I had some extra on hand I added:
2 handfuls of coco fiber (JoshsFrogs- 3 pack brick- $5. Used less than $1 worth)
2 handfuls of coco husk chips (JoshsFrogs- $3. Used $ less 1 worth.
1 handful of washed sand (Fred Meyers- $3 a bag. Used less than $1 worth.)
1 bag of leaf litter- Free

(Also pictured is a bag of Fluval Plant Stratum for the water feature. (Amazon- $16)

In case anyone is wondering why I am including prices for absolutely everything its because for one, I want people who are not familiar with these products to have a good idea of how much it would cost them to buy all of this, as well as where to buy them from. (I am what I like to call "thrifty", so wherever I bought my supplies from there is a good chance that it is the cheapest price around.) And two, I want to keep track for my own purposes exactly how much this build cost me.

[FrogFever]

So instead of planting today I found another 5 hours of things to prep! Haha. There are always more steps than there seems.

My intention was to re-tape all of the lights with Frog tape, but the damn stuff is barely sticky at all! (I wouldn't recommend it.) Plus I couldn't get to a couple of my lights properly so I had to abandoned that idea. In the process I realized that I only had 16 lights blinking, so that means that 4 of my lights were covered under foam/silicone/peat moss somewhere. If it weren't for previous pictures I took I never would've been able to locate where they were.
I still wanted my lights to be 'dimmed' so I decided to go with green acrylic paint instead. Two coats of green and then one of clear coat got it to the color that I preferred.
I am debating whether or not I should paint all the lights in glow in the dark paint as well...
What do you think?



Anyways, the water test passed again, and the water flows down the slate just as it should after contnuous hours of fine tuning the rocks edges.
Here you can see 3 of the lights painted green. In my opinion they look like nice little flowering buds throughout the tank.


I also forgot that before I layed down any plants and substrate I had to sand more rocks...
These vice grips work MIRACLES when it comes to breaking off pieces of slate. One would be surprised how accurate and easily they break off little chunks!


I am trying something new that I haven't seen anyone else do yet... something that worked great for me on one of my previous tanks.
You know how some people make a false front out of rock/substrate to cover up the LECA balls? Well instead of a fine soil to cover it up I am using very thin pieces of slate to tie it in to the rest of the tank.


Comments always welcome. Questions too.

[Pixidust]

Great job on the rock waterfall it looks AWESOME!

[Grrrit]

this is looking great! i really like the waterfall and the fireflies. i would be a little concerned about keeping tape on them though. you may be able to find dimmer shades of lights at a craftstore to get the look your after. big score on the light too! that halide id going to put off some heat though. and if those are actinic bulbs im not sure how the plants would do, i like using dual lights with a 6500k and 10000k. i think it gives off a bright, but warm shade to a viv. looking super good so far, cant wait to see it done!

[FrogFever]

Thanks for the comments everyone.
Grrrit, not sure if you saw but I decided not to use the green painters tape, and went with green acrylic paint instead. Much easier to apply on the lights and it looks great!
I have finally come to realize that I am not going to be able to use the metal halide setup with the display tank. I've looked for hours, days, and weeks trying to find out what model it is or even what company made it, but no one has a clue. Even major reef lighting companies are stumped. They called it an "anachronism of a light fixture". Therefore I am unable to find a stand for it, or any screws, latches, holders, hardware, or any other device to suspend it from the ceiling or otherwise. Big disappointment, so I'm just going to use it on a rack in my frog room and search for new light fixtures for the display tank.

[Grrrit]

Yikes, sorry to hear that. I mustve over looked the green paint. I use some low wattage t5's for all of my tanks and racks. Google "deep blue solarmax HE T5" mike novy from rainforest junkies got me started on them. Excellent fixtures and really affordable. A 48" single bulb runs about $50!!!! The dual bulb is about $80-$100 and comes with 8 purple LED night lights. but one of the bulbs is actinic and would need replaced. Check em out, ron at alphaprobreeders carries them.

[Pixidust]

Could you cover the top with a homemade screen top, or a "no see um" net, and then use something like frame out the top of the tank with wood, glass, acrylic, or whatever then rest the light on the frame, it is a beautiful light fixture it would be a shame not to use it.

[FrogFever]

Well I plan on getting 4 glass pieces cut for the top. Although I could set the light on top of the tank I wouldn't be able to open it without having to remove the whole fixture first. Plus, I think it would be really hot directly on top of glass.
And I'll be sure to check out that lighting system Grrrit. I will most likely just get one for a good deal on Craigslist.
Planted the tank today! Adding pictures soon!

[FrogFever]

Hydroton layer set up. Notice the black pvc pipe set in place for drainage. And I decided not to use the false bottom I made. Using solely leca balls instead.
I had to go to the store to add to what I had so I ended us spending $18 total on hydroton.
Black weed blocker will be cut to size to fit over this as to keep the layers separated.


I have a bad habit of buying plants far before I need them, but here is a shot of some that I've acquired in the last couple of months. And yes, I realize that all of these won't fit!
Got some bromeliads, and other sorted "tropicals".
Some of these I've used before and I know will work, and others I've never tried so we'll see if they stay alive.
Home depot and wal-mart just happened to be my main sources this time.


Some individuals think its lame to use plants bought from Home Depot, but I don't necessarily care all that much. Sure, it'd be nice to be able to afford all those crazy tropical plants, but hey, at least I don't have to pay for overnight shipping!
The plants that ended up with a permanent place in the (dry section of the) tank I estimate to cost about $50.


Picture of the abg soil mix and the wood pieces I have to choose from.
Wood cost: $17


I am so very tempted to post the planted tank picture, but I'm going to wait until the water section is planted as well.