55 gallon Vivarium project

[deranged chipmunk]

Very true, but 1/4" is the thinnest they use. I have an old school 55 that has 3/8" glass. That would have been perfect. Keep in mind, that a side panel resists outward force, but the bottom pane has the weight of everything above it on it. That includes the false bottom and everything on top of it. It should be plenty strong. I wasn't second guessing you or trying to scare you, it was just something that caught my eye and i was curious about.

[Eric and Stitch]

Not much has changed visually, I will be putting the last coating of titebond on today and assembling the whole thing tonight.

My questions. Now are in relation to how to light this tall structure? 18 inch bulb limit. (2 or3 bulbs) what bulbs? I was planning on ex-terra 2.0 and a 5.0. How much heat? I was planning on using one or two of those ceramic coil lights for overhead infrared heating hooked to a thermostat.

Anybody have an opinion on the ex-terra light cycle unit? Is it worth it or do the frogs do fine with out the dusk/dawn it offers? My understanding of tube lights is that there is no 'dim' just 'not quite full power'
Any opinions will be awesome.

[J Teezy]

talk to Todd at Lightyourreptiles.com about your lighting. He knows his stuff and could point you in the right direction

[Eric and Stitch]

talk to Todd at Lightyourreptiles.com about your lighting. He knows his stuff and could point you in the right direction

I'll look him up. Thanks.

[deranged chipmunk]

For heating, with the false bottom, i would plumbed in an aquarium heater. It does 2 things, heats the water, which heats the air, and it also creates humidity. For lighting, you really only have 2 options, t5ho or led. The t5's are out since there are no 18" fixtures available. You could use led conversion bulbs if you already have the fixtures. Ne herp has what would work. Led lights with incandescent bases. But they are not cheap, about $40/bulb. The height and depth are what are going to be the killers of the light.

[deranged chipmunk]

I know somebody else who is building a 55 vert conversion. He went through light your reptiles, $275 for the lights. YIKES!
Check post #41. 55 Gal vert build! - Page 3

[deranged chipmunk]

It just dawned on me. Are you still going to run a sump? If so, heat the sump and you heating issue should be resolved.

[Eric and Stitch]

I fell off the wagon with this lately. I've been done and the frogs moved in since March. Ill upload pictures when I'm home. Lighting I use 2 x 18in t5 lights. One is a naturalistic plant light. The other an exoterra rainforest tube. Heating I put a beta tank heat pad in the false bottom and used aluminum tape to put a reptiheat heat cable on the back wall externally. I have no humidity problems. The waterfall creates plenty.
I've gone through 3 different forms of bottom so far. False bottom with soil to grow plants, the waterfall saturated that and any plants got root rot. Then I did a false bottom with aquarium pebbles and just had a potted peace Lilly. My current bottom is just aquarium pebbles with bamboo and standing water.

Pictures soon I promise.

[redeyedtreefrog123451]

I hardly understand any of this :P except its a cool idea

[TextualDeath]

I didn't see what you used for a pump i used a canister filter for my stuff. Its a bio filter that incorporates good bacteria to keep the water fresh . it even pumps out most the water when you wish to change it out . i like submersible heaters as well for pond type situations as the one i have will not get too hot .You have done a work of art there man good job!Years ago i made on out of a 125 gallon tank .1980 to be exact.i even had spanish moss as a canopy covering the top with anoles that hung out there a tomato frog firebelly newts and frogs and ghost shrimp.( note the tomato frog didn't work out he was eating everything he could catch lol but that was a long time ago).On mine i did a rock waterfall i used slate to separate the land from the lake and covered it with sand then dirt and some Spanish moss . i even added a few palm trees to it . The rocks allowed the tomato frog to climb in and out of the water without drowning .note to others this is not advice just a comment .

[Eric and Stitch]

What I did is PETCO has power head aquarium pumps that can be used with in tank submerged for just circulation or externally and I plumbed it into my drainwith hose and hose barbs. In the terrarium I have a mesh bag of ceramic tubes used for Bio filtering in those canisters and buried it under the gravel. Essentially making my terrarium the canister filter, more or less.

I went through a couple head aches with my full height water feature but have the kinks worked out. Water used to soak the entire wall and drown my plants on the wall. A silicone sculpting job fixed that. Then the water that would free fall spattered and splashed everything, a couple rocks on either end of a string gave the water something to follow and broke the pond surface almost eliminating the splash.

Since my girlfriend is deciding to make this a Noah's Ark of RETF morphs with at least 2 of each, it will soon be crowded and so I'm starting to build a bigger one. Once that one is complete, I will be looking to sell this one.

Let me know if you're interested.

[Eric and Stitch]

I mentioned it before and here it is, Time to sell this tank!

I wanted to sell it with everything inside as a good start or base for someone else to work from as far as the 'jungle' inside the box is concerned, but I came home from work the other day find it cleaned and scrubbed by my girlfriend turned fiancé

Here are some pictures of it currently.


feel free to ask more about it.
PM me if your interested.