New Summer Project - 50G Build

[ApxWingman]

SO I finally got all the plants in, just going to add moss soon so that can start growing over the dirt. I also added 3 guppies. I have read that the FBTs will eat guppies. It has been 2 days and my guppies are still alive. Any thoughts? If they don't eat them then I am just going to leave them in it. I got 2 female fancy guppies and 1 male fancy guppy. Here are more pics!

[kmichael55]

Looks awesome! I like your plant selection. How long did it take to fill in the background with the tiny gravel??

Any fish I put with my frogs (my ACFs) I just assume will turn up missing, sometimes a guppy or minnow will survive in the tank for months. My mom's bullfrog in her outdoor pond eats sparrows and has even caught a robin (which was too large to eat) Frog's eyes are usually considerably larger than their stomachs!

I didn't realize you could use great stuff under water...opens up possibilities I hadn't thought of!

For one of my next two tanks (either for a False Tomato frog or a vertical tank for a Grays tree frog) I really want to incorporate a small waterfall, nothing huge just a trickle down the background to the pool at the bottom. I was going to silicone a piece of glass into the bottom to separate land and water. For now, I am just going to foam a length of plastic tubing into my Great Stuff background and figure out the mechanics later. How much water would I need to use a powerhead/ do you have any ideas that could I make that work? (I have several powerheads but have only used them in 100% wet tanks; They pretty much need to be submerged right??)

[ApxWingman]

Looks awesome! I like your plant selection. How long did it take to fill in the background with the tiny gravel??

Thanks. It did not take me that long. All I did was place the tank on the backside so the background was flat. I used GE silicone II and rubber gloves and spread the silicone all over the background. I then took handful after handful of aquarium gravel and placed it on the silicone and then pushed it down so it would stay on there. When I lifted the tank back up, all the excess gravel just went to the bottom of the tank. It made it easier for clean up as I used the same aquarium gravel for the substrate in the water.

How much water would I need to use a powerhead/ do you have any ideas that could I make that work? (I have several powerheads but have only used them in 100% wet tanks; They pretty much need to be submerged right??)

It depends on the powerhead. I am using a small repto powerhead, and only needs a couple inches of water to work. The bigger you have the deeper the water needs to be. They should say on the package if it needs to be fully submersed or if it only needs to be partially under. All that I did was make the waterfall wall using Eggcrate and covered it with GS foam. Before I covered the eggcrate with GS, I made the hole for where the waterfall mouth would be and just cut a small piece of the tubing I had planned on using. This allowed me to cover the eggcrate with GS. Once it was cured, I just cut out the mouth of the waterfall where the tube was. Once I was done with the background and was ready to put in my powerhead, I took out the tube and ran the new tube from the powerhead to the waterfall. I found it is a quick, easy and nice looking way to make the waterfall.