Very Early Planning Help!

[HerpDerp]

I have finally begun real planning on revamping my WTF vivarium. I made a quick (very crude) sketch of what I want to do so far.

Not sure how readable this is so I'll explain. Basically, I want to make a stream that flows from one corner of the tank to the other. I have a small pump that was used in a cat fountain that my jerk cat decided was more of a toy than a drinking bowl. So I kept the pump from that to use for this. I'm not entirely sure if it will have enough head though? In the water fountain it pushed water up about 3 or 4 inches so I'm assuming it wont be a problem. The idea is to get tubing that will come to the surface and either use some sort of elbow joint to push it down the river or make a dome over where the water shoots up to stop it and bring it back down to the river if that makes sense? The river will be a pvc pipe cut in half. I also want to create some sort of filtration attached to the pump... like a sponge or something? Really need help with that one.

I'm going to use two layers of screen on the false bottom to prevent particulate from getting through. I want to use the water under the false bottom for the pond as well. So I'll just stop the false bottom where the pond is and then use smooth pebbles to hide the false bottom and create a place to climb out of the pond. And this might be a dumb question, but since the substrate above the false bottom is going to be higher than the pond water what can I do to block it off from going into the water and still make it look good? And under my false bottom now the water is really dark brown colored. I'm assuming this is just from the coco fiber but I don't want my pond water to look like that! Solutions?

I want to use some sort of soil on the bottom layer for my plants. I think they would be happier with that. And then I want to do a layer of coco fiber and top it off with live moss. Are they any recommended types of moss? And I want to find a nice fern to put in there. Any good suggestions? And I was considering adding some duckweed (that Bill awesomely sent me for my cray tank) to the pond area to add some biological filtration and a cool look. Is this something I should avoid or should it be okay?

I'm sure there are a million more questions I'm not thinking of right now but this is a good start! And I haven't even gotten to the background planning yet! There's a reptile expo in Manchester NH on March 30th. I'm hoping to get a good deal on supplies there. Building will start after that!

[Bombina Bob]

Hi there
So far so good i like how you set up your plants for the viv, it would replace a hide if you ever have one.

Good luck with that vivarium

[deranged chipmunk]

very cool idea Michelle. my only critique is please tell me you aren't going to make a straight stream!! LOL here's an idea for you. habitrail. you know those corrugated tubes they use for rodents? they sell the ones that split in half. and it's pretty thin plastic, which means it can easily be heated and manipulated into a more natural shape. the output of the pump: you can stack a few rocks above the output to give the impression of a freshwater spring. next up, filtration on the pump. poret foam attached to it will work, but it is pricey and you'll only need a small amount. otherwise, you can use a piece of natural sponge, like a loofa, attached to the intake of the pump. as far as substrate level, just grade it, and only plant some marginals along the waterline, just like i did on the left side of my mantella tank

as far as the cocofiber releasing tannins and turning the water brown, you can fill a small nylon sack (either those filter socks, or a stocking foot, or something to that effect) with activated charcoal, and hopefully it will absorb the tannins. you can place it in the pond for a few weeks, or under the false bottom. purigen also works, but once again, pricey. duckweed will be awesome in there, but you'll be scooping it out every day or so....LOL

when you are ready to plant, let me know and i will grab you some sheet moss from my plant place. it's $6/bag and a bag can cover the bottom of a 40B. so figure $12 shipped. ferns, there you hit a chord with me. there are so many!!! check out the 'suzi wong' fern that Black Jungle has. it looks like moss, but is a true fern. otherwise, in that spot, you could plant an oak leaf ficus pumila. tiny ivy like leaves, and it may grow up and out for you. or better yet, i'll get you some moss and a couple small ferns and ship them up when you are ready. i'll just send you pics of the ferns they have while i'm in the store, you can pic the ones out you like....LOL

[HerpDerp]

very cool idea Michelle. my only critique is please tell me you aren't going to make a straight stream!! LOL here's an idea for you. habitrail. you know those corrugated tubes they use for rodents? they sell the ones that split in half. and it's pretty thin plastic, which means it can easily be heated and manipulated into a more natural shape. the output of the pump: you can stack a few rocks above the output to give the impression of a freshwater spring. next up, filtration on the pump. poret foam attached to it will work, but it is pricey and you'll only need a small amount. otherwise, you can use a piece of natural sponge, like a loofa, attached to the intake of the pump. as far as substrate level, just grade it, and only plant some marginals along the waterline, just like i did on the left side of my mantella tank

I had thought about the straightness of the stream. PVC seemed like the easiest solution, but I had never thought of habitrail! That's a great idea. How do you suggest I heat it? I don't want to melt it lol. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to put rocks on top of the output. That would look awesome and would create enough splash to help humidity. I might actually be able to get some of that foam for a good price. There's an awesome fish store not too far away from here that sells stuff like that in specific amounts. Another idea I had was the foam that fluval sells for their chi aquariums. They sell really small bits of it. Is that the same? And what types of marginals do you suggest?

as far as the cocofiber releasing tannins and turning the water brown, you can fill a small nylon sack (either those filter socks, or a stocking foot, or something to that effect) with activated charcoal, and hopefully it will absorb the tannins. you can place it in the pond for a few weeks, or under the false bottom. purigen also works, but once again, pricey. duckweed will be awesome in there, but you'll be scooping it out every day or so....LOL

Hmm yet another convenient solution since my cray tank has a corner filter that uses loose activated charcoal. Already have that on hand! Another thing I have just sitting around is un-used filter cartridges. they have activated charcoal in them and I could use both of them and put them in different parts of the bottom to work more efficiently. I forget that duckweed grows so fast! It grows slowly in my aquarium because the water isn't heated and the light is only 4200k instead of the 6500k that I have in my viv! It would explode in there. But it's almost worth it. I think it would look really cool.

when you are ready to plant, let me know and i will grab you some sheet moss from my plant place. it's $6/bag and a bag can cover the bottom of a 40B. so figure $12 shipped. ferns, there you hit a chord with me. there are so many!!! check out the 'suzi wong' fern that Black Jungle has. it looks like moss, but is a true fern. otherwise, in that spot, you could plant an oak leaf ficus pumila. tiny ivy like leaves, and it may grow up and out for you. or better yet, i'll get you some moss and a couple small ferns and ship them up when you are ready. i'll just send you pics of the ferns they have while i'm in the store, you can pic the ones out you like....LOL

Whoa I just got hit with a wall of chipmunk plant enthusiasm! :P This is some great info! I'm hoping I can snag some good deals at the reptile expo at the end of March but that's a great deal on moss! I need about half that amount though. I would say I'm only going to need a little over a square foot by the time I put the pond and stream in there? I don't know I could be underestimating here lol. But after the reptile show I'll let you know what's left that I'll need. I haven't decided on a background yet so I may very well need some climbing plants for that . The suzi wong looks really cool. Almost hairy lol. I'll do some in depth fern research and see what species I like. I'm going to have to reign in my pothos a bit for this build too! I think I'll attach the taller parts to the background to force it up instead of out lol. It's doubled in size since I put it in there!

Thanks for all this great suggestions! By the time I actually get to doing this it should go super smoothly (riiiiight lol)

[deranged chipmunk]

I forgot about the chi stuff. I used to use the little round sponges on hob intakes to prevent baby shrimp from getting sucked into the filter. You can heat the tube a couple different ways. Blow torch works well. So does holding it over a lit burner. You could even try baking it to soften it.
We can discuss marginals when you are closer to being done, that way we can figure out what will loom good in the space created.
I apologize about my enthusiasm about the plants. I just feel plants are what makes a tank. Let's face it, we're talking about white's here. You can put them in a goldfish bowl with a stick in it, as long as they get crickets, they're happy.....lol

[HerpDerp]

LOL I agree that plants are what make the tank! I love the enthusiasm! Just keep in mind, whatever I put in there needs to be able to take a beating LOL. I can't count how many times Lrrr has decided it would be a good idea to jump onto the pothos. I guess he keeps forgetting it wont hold him up haha. I've questioned keeping the bromeliad in there at all. The "flower" on it died off so I cut it off and now I'm waiting for the "mother plant" to die and I can get a better idea of how the babies are doing. How do I separate the new broms from the dying one? Can I just cut the roots? If I do a more complicated background that's where the babies will go. I'm still torn between tree fern panels or foam. Tree ferns are easier but more expensive and the foam is cheaper but more complicated. I plan on making two sides a background and leaving the other two sides for viewing so that would be a lot of panels lol. I guess I'll just have to see what I find at the expo. Hopefully this one is better than the crappy Maine one.

[deranged chipmunk]

tree fern panels are cool, if you are running a drip wall, and you can plant epiphytes on it. otherwise, a standard bg will work. you should be able to cut the pups off the brom once the mother plant dies off.

[HerpDerp]

I've had some good brainstorms in the past few days. I just remembered that I have my old exo-terra background. I'm thinking I could sand it down really well and silicone + coco fiber. And I can cut out spots for plants. Then on the other side I can either do cork bark tiles or tree fern or something of the sort. I also have some coconut husk background for like hermit crabs. I thought of using that to keep the dirt from eroding into the pond. I keep waking up in the middle of the night with these great ideas lol.

[flybyferns]

"I keep waking up in the middle of the night with these great ideas lol."
Oh no! Michelle, You have that " frog bug " that's going around. You poor thing......... there is no known cure.

[deranged chipmunk]

i like the idea. you know i am all for using whatcha got

[HerpDerp]

I definitely have a bad case of the frog bug! This build is dominating my mind and I can't even do it until March! But whenever I get a great idea I either write it down somewhere or post it here. It really does turn into an obsession if you let it!

One more thing I can re-purpose! I found some aquarium filter foam kicking around that I can use for filtration. I'm going to test the pump out with filtration and tubing connected in the sink to make sure it will have good head. I'm probably going to sand and coat my background beforehand since it's pre-fitted so I can just silicone it in when I do the tank. I'll keep coming up with small pre-build projects to keep me busy and sane!