I am wanting to start my first ever terrarium with hope that I can put a Dart Frog or two in it some day. I have a 10 gallon Exo Terra with an Exo Terra mini compact light with a Arcadia Jungle Dawn LED 9W Bulb. I would like some thoughts and advice on my envisaged setup.

I'm trying to understand the water needs, I will only have live plants, springtails and dwarf white woodlice for a while until I learn to keep it stable, but I don't want to contaminate the terrarium with anything.

My questions are:

From what I've read/watched I can use tap water with reptisafe for the frogs, but not the plants right?

But for a fogger and misting it would have to be distilled or R/0 yes? But if the frogs need to drink that I'll need to add something to that water, will that ruin the fogger? I'm starting to get brain ache...

And if the humidity is above 80% the frogs will absorb the water from the mist and not need a drinking bowl?

My terrarium has a mesh lid, is that ok or would it be better sealed?

I have ordered the Exo Terra Thermo-Hygro Combometer, where does the probe need to go? There are those holes at the back of the Terrarium behind the background but surely the probe would be useless there right? Behind a plant maybe?




My build plan is:

Make a false bottom from eggcrate.

Add mesh on top of the crate.

Fill the sides with gravel.

I have 3 bags of activated carbon for my aquarium, put that over the mesh?

An ABG type mix over that.

Add fogger.

Add plants, I have 3 plants to start with; Ficus pumila, Fittonia, and a Bromeliad.

Learn to keep humidity 80-100% and temps 72-80f. Is that right?

Add more plants and get some froggies!