About to start my FBT setup - a few questions and advice please.....

[Mr Bee]

Bump!

No opinions on wether my plans are good or bad?

I'm gonna put a small internal filter in there mainly to keep the water free of debris and stop stagnation, is it possible my toads might get sucked in and maybe get their toes stuck or anything? Should the filter be shielded with rocks?

[missfrogger]

though i'm fairly new to fbts myself, it sounds to me like you have a pretty good idea planned for your tank. i'm still learning, but i would suggest against eco-earth to save you from cleaning out your water frequently and instead use a type of moss to cover the land area (i want to say java is okay to use). i don't know how well it will do with the toads jumping in and out of the water.

on my first tank i had a layer of aquarium rocks about 1/4 inch, then a thin layer of charcoal, just enough to cover the rocks. from there i put sphagnum moss on top of it and i can't remember what on top of that, but on the water side it was about 6 in deep with aquarium rocks on the bottom. the aquarium rocks didn't seem to bother/pose a threat to the fbts as mine didn't open their mouth under water.

a lot of the setups i've seen have a filter, but they also disguise it as a waterfall - again, not sure if it will be a hazard to fbts, but i would build up around it as much as i could without causing it to be inefficient.

hopefully i helped a little bit! be sure to post pictures, and good luck. =)

[ApxWingman]

I used the false bottom method with eggcrate. I found that is really easy to use (I did not make a divider, but I used eggcrate to divide)
Here is the link to my build.
http://www.frogforum.net/fire-belly-...rst-setup.html

The water drains into the water that is throughout the entire tank and I have a filter to clean out the water. I used cocofibre for substrate and put moss over the top of the cocofibre. I am not experianced with the hydroball method.

[Badger]

eggcrate is what I just used as well, it is really easy to do and is probably the best way of doing a drainage layer. As long as you have a good filter than eco earth shouldn't be a problem, I think. But either way you can use leaf litter on top of it and it will cut back on dirtiness.

[ApxWingman]

I agree, I will be taking out the cocofibre and using just moss. Even though I have moss as a top layer over the cocofibre, it is making the water dirty up a bit, so I will change it along with the water to get it clean again, or atleast cleaner. It is not too bad though. Eggcrate was cheap (not sure pricing on hydroballs) and easy to do, and easy to build a background with if you want to make ledges, and other things.

[badkelpie]

You can use any gravel at the bottom of the pond, they don't try to eat things on the bottom of the water. One way I set up my tank once was to put about 5" of water in a tank, a filter, and made the land area out of rocks, a few big rocks as a foundation (hide the filter in there), and a big flat rock over the top. Stick a couple pothos or bamboo (or both) in the water, wedged in by the rocks, and you have a fire belly tank. I did this because the dirt/moss kept dirtying the water, the water/rock setup eliminates that. Crickets die easily in this setup, but I was using mostly lobster roaches at the time (roaches are smarter than crickets).

Right now, I have a different setup. I have about a 5" deep bowl (about 10" across) to make a pond, and land area made out of big gravel, and a couple fake plants stuck in the gravel, and some moss. Every few days, scoop out some water, and add fresh. They like this setup, the seem to like more "land" and it's more cricket friendly.