My 40 gallon Vertical Build Progress for my Whites Tree Frog

[frogluver]

For Christmas, I got a 40gallon terrarium with the following dimensions, 36”Lx18”Wx16”H. It also has a sliding screen door ! I’m going orientate in vertically so it stands 36 inches high and design the interior suitable for my white’s tree frog, Hubbie Macgrubber and his future buddy (ies). I will also silicone a piece of plexi glass to the front, to keep the water and substrate in the terrarium.

The design……well I was thinking about something similar to a drip wall set up. I have quite a few pieces of driftwood that I found over the summer and am now treating the larger of the pieces in bleach water and the smaller pieces in the oven. Once they have been treated, I will use the wood to build the background.

That is at least what I have in mind so far….

[butcher]

Looks like its going to be a fun project!!

[En333]

That's sweet! You are one lucky duck

[frogluver]

Hehe, I know!!

[thadmy]

Well for a Christmas present to yourself you could go check out Petco, they are doing their dollar a gallon. Picked me up a few tanks to put away for a rainy day.

[frogluver]

Well for a Christmas present to yourself you could go check out Petco, they are doing their dollar a gallon. Picked me up a few tanks to put away for a rainy day.

It's just like a store to have an awesome sale right after Christmas.....a sale in which you could have gotten what you recieved for Christmas, at a cheaper price :P!!! Ahhhhhh lol !

[frogluver]

OK…..just finished treating the driftwood for my background build. I baked the small pieces of driftwood in the oven on low (250 F) for about 3 hours. The smell of heated wood reminded me of a hot summer’s day haha! For the bigger pieces of wood, I placed then in a 20gal terrarium and completely submerged them in a bleach water solution. For every gallon of water used, I added ½ cup of bleach. In total, I used 10 gallons of water, amounting to 5 cups of bleach. I soaked the wood in that solution for 24hrs. Next, I leached the bleach out of the wood by soaking it in fresh water for another 24hrs (changing the water whenever it became “bleachy” or dirty). After 2 days of soaking, I laid out the wood by my wood stove where it is currently drying.

[En333]

Well for a Christmas present to yourself you could go check out Petco, they are doing their dollar a gallon. Picked me up a few tanks to put away for a rainy day.

Seriously? Is it online too? That's awesome cuz I was going to get Kirby a bigger tank.....

[Poly]

Can't wait to see how it goes! This is going to be a fun thread!

[BettaShawn]

That sounds REALLY fun. Good luck with it! How are you going to propagate it so that it doesnt....tip over...just cause its so tall, I was curious.

[frogluver]

That sounds REALLY fun. Good luck with it! How are you going to propagate it so that it doesnt....tip over...just cause its so tall, I was curious.

Thanks ! Surprisingly, the terrarium is quite sturdy (even though it stands 36 inches tall); it's not really wobbly. However, I'm probably going to keep it up against a wall for added support .

[frogluver]

Here is a picture of the model I made. It is a model for my planned background. Originally, I was going to use a distributor to do distribute a series of 8 tubes across the background. However, I become increasingly frustrated with trying to adjust the nozzles (which took a LONG time). You see, when 3 of the tubes dripped water the other 5 didn't and when I tried to adjust the nozzles so they could all drip water, the original 3 stopped flowing water while the other 5 did ;P lol!! There was a vacuum that was being created with the tubing that sucked air out of the other tubes, thus preventing them from dripping water.

Anyways, here I have made the model by applying the GS foam to a piece of scrap plexiglass. Once the foam dried/cured, I carved a series of streams out of the foam. Then I sealed the interior of the streams with silicone sealant and covered it with aquarium gravel. I then tested my model....it works great !

[frogluver]

On Thursday, I applied the Great Stuff foam to the background. This was my first time working with GS foam. I applied it on as thinly as I could, because GS expands….a lot lol! I think I did pretty well with applying it. I know I want to make a few adjustments here and there, by added a bit of foam in places or by sanding some parts down. How do you think it looks so far?

Now, I just need to carve the “streams” like I did with my model.