New Summer Project - 50G Build

[mrzoggs]

i would use glass. Lowes will cut glass for you and its fairly cheap. I just got 2 pieces cut 11x11 for $5. plexi glass will sag and warp over time. especially if you put heat over it

[ApxWingman]

So I got a lot more done today that I thought I would. I didn't end up going to Home Depot, right now I am using 2 pieces of plexi glass and a DIY lid with eggcrate and screen. This is only temporary until I get glass done. If it works out well, I may end up leaving it. I did not get any plants either, this is something I will be doing tomorrow as I am really eager to finish this. I ended up going to Petsmart today to grab a thermometer. I ended up getting some water plants (I forget the name of them and they don't say it on the bill. I also got lucky bamboo. I also got 2 snails, and 5 red minor tetras. I filled up the tank today and set the plants in. I am still not sure if I like the arrangement or not, so I may end up changing it. The fish are very active, the snails...not so much. Tomorrow after I get the plants in, I will be moving my FBTs into there new home, and should be all setup. The water temp is sitting around 70C, so I am considering getting a small water heater to stick behind the waterfall to bring the temp up.

As promised, here are some pics!

[ApxWingman]

I couldn't resist putting them in their new home! lol. When I go to put the plants in tomorrow, I will just make sure they are out of the way, or I will just take them out for the few minutes I'll need to put the plants in. Here's a pic of my FBTs in their new home! They seem to be enjoying it, although the small brown one, is trying hard to get out of the tank, but the other too, are just hanging out in the water and ignoring the tetra. I wonder if they will eat the tetra or not... I guess we will have to see. They were just feed today, so they may not be hungry.

[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.

[ApxWingman]

i would use glass. Lowes will cut glass for you and its fairly cheap. I just got 2 pieces cut 11x11 for $5. plexi glass will sag and warp over time. especially if you put heat over it

lol funny thing about that, I ended up using the plexiglass as a cover. Turned out to work really well. I have something hanging the light overhead just far enough away that it did not heat up the plexiglass too much. Well one morning I woke up and it had fallen. My lights are on timers, so I had it set to turn on at 8am, and for atleast 2 hours it was sitting on the glass and melted a bubble into the plexiglass and joined 2 smaller pieces into 1 large piece. Thankfully no harm came to the plants or frogs, and no dripping of the plexiglass either. Since then, I have re-enforced the light so it will not fall again. I will eventually get a glass piece tho.

[mrzoggs]

Im scared thats gonna happen with my glass lol. Even though im using glass its pretty thin. I am probably not going to sit my glass on top. I like it clamped above anyways. I finally finished mine and put frogs in it and its doing good so far. glad to see yours is doing good too.

[ApxWingman]

nice! I came home yesterday from the CNE to find out that all my fish had disappeared. My frogs were not eating them for a few days, and now they are no where to be found. I thought they may be dead so I was checking everywhere to see if they were there. No luck, only conclusion I can come up with is that the frogs ate them.

[ApxWingman]

so Tomorrow I am finally going to get around putting the moss in the tank. It has been sitting next to the tank for almost 2 weeks now and is starting to grow over the edge of the pot lol. I will post pics as soon as I get it done.