Regarding clay ball substrate bottom: Are you supposed to see water at the bottom of the tank? Mine is always dry..

[Necromencer]

I've been having low humidity, so it got me thinking and I was wondering if I was putting too little water into the tank.

The clay balls at the bottom are always dry and I can never see a layer of water forming at the bottom. Recently, I went to an experienced keeper's house and his tanks has at least 3'' of water where the clay balls are and he told me that he often had to syphon it out!

When I spray the tank, I'll see condensation where the clay balls are, but never water (per se)

Am I doing this wrong?

[flybyferns]

Yes... You do want to see water there. It will help keep the humidity up and the soil damp
If it starts to get too high and begins to soak the soil too much ...then siphon.

Siphoning can be pain
Some people add and hide pipes so that the siphoning tubing can be passed down to the very bottom layer with out disturbing the soil.
Or, you can drill a drain on the back of the tank. Drill at the upper level of the hydro so it drains automatically into a bucket when it reaches that point.

ie Drains into a bucket

Lynn

[Necromencer]

Thanks a lot for the reply.

I've recently start to mist 'properly' and I'm seeing an inch of water at the bottom, so I must have build it correctly.

The problem is, how in earth do I get this out? After the many (many) hours of research, this topic was never discussed. I'm not going to risk drilling a hole in the glass, so I'll have to syphon manually. I've already dug a hole up until the 'substrate divider' and hidden it with oak leaves (so the frogs won't be able to get trapped in it).

When the time comes, I'll simply take out the tube, which will have left a perfectly sized hole, and put in the longer tube. (basically, the short tube is just a measured off-cut)
and suck out the water that way.

[Mentat]

Guess it's a bit late; but what you do before filling tank with anything is either drill bottom (if normal glass) and add a bulkhead and tubing to a pail. Or if that is not possible, add an access tube (clear 1 in. tubing works well) to false bottom. The access tube is then capped with a furniture tip or similar to prevent cricket access. Then you can add clay balls, netting, substrate, and decor. When drainage is needed you insert a flexible clear tube (i.e. from an aquarium gravel cleaner) into this access tube and get water out that way. Good luck !

[Necromencer]

Guess it's a bit late; but what you do before filling tank with anything is either drill bottom (if normal glass) and add a bulkhead and tubing to a pail. Or if that is not possible, add an access tube (clear 1 in. tubing works well) to false bottom. The access tube is then capped with a furniture tip or similar to prevent cricket access. Then you can add clay balls, netting, substrate, and decor. When drainage is needed you insert a flexible clear tube (i.e. from an aquarium gravel cleaner) into this access tube and get water out that way. Good luck !

Trust me, if I had know this before it would have been done. I've never read about this, and I've done, as I've already said, a lot ofresearch. In addition to the written research, I've seen plenty of videos on youtube and I can't remember any of them adding a drainage system like this.

Anyway, it's too late now. I haven't got any frogs yet, and I'm glad that I haven't because since I've finished the tank, I've encountered a few problems that would have been extremely hard to fix with the frogs in the tank.

I can work on the tank, but not to the extreme of drilling a hole in the glass.

When my water reaches the top of the clay bottom, I'll try syphoning it out with the aforementioned pipe. If it doesn't work, I'll have to take all of the decor, substrate and clay balls, and build a mechanism similar to what you have said.

This will be a pain, since my substrate has already been seeded with springtails and woodlice