40b Dart tank - Natural style build Journal

[deranged chipmunk]

Haha. Mine loved water. I had one that found a hiding spot only accessible by diving into the water first. It's why I get such a kick out of people who caution about water in a Viv to prevent drowning lol

[DigitalPunk]

LoL thats awesome! After seeing him save himself I am really excited to watch these little frogs lives. All the pictures online really do not do these little guys and gals justice. They are so very pretty! My wife came home to see them while I was putting in their home and loved them. From the pictures online she thought they would be plane looking.

I need to save some money for a while, but I think I am going to add 2 - 4 more to the colony, but want to be sure of my male to female ratio.

I placed an order for a few more items for the mantilla tank and all the items to do a Natural style tank for the RETF.

[deranged chipmunk]

Sounds cool!! Keep in mind though with those guys, they may be small, but they like a lot of territory, so be careful not to over crowd them.

I also found my males liked to climb and "survey" their territory, while the females stayed at ground level.

[DigitalPunk]

Yeah that is a concern of mine too. I want to see how many males are in the 5 I just got before I decide to get more or not. I am hoping it is 3 males and 2 females. Was wanting 6 with a 4 male to 2 female ratio

[DigitalPunk]

One of them has been hanging out by this tiny little cave in the rock base all day. Only left it to feed then it went right back.

[DigitalPunk]

I added a couple new plants today. I felt like the tank needed more filler to break up the tank some and give the Mantellas some more things to hide around or under.

I put a fern in some sphagnum moss in a natural hole in the driftwood piece.



And I put a... honestly forgot what it is called but it starts with an Hyac... or something. I put it in the front right corner. There was a mostly exposed rock over there. I built up some soil on top of the rock to hold the plant in place and placed some moss on the dirt



The 3 Mantellas that have been out and visible everyday watched my every move while I was planting but they did not run and hide. It was the opposite of what I thought they would do.

I also had part of the top glass recut today and had 9 1" holes cut in it. I siliconed some fiberglass window screen over each hole to turn them into air vents. I will use cover them up or keep them open depending on the temp/humidity I am going for at that time. It is all curing tonight, I'll get pictures of it tomorrow. Only thing I don't like about it is the fact the silicone is white. I ran out of clear and decided to use what I had on hand instead of spending more money.

[deranged chipmunk]

I'm really starting to dig this tank. Can you get a full tank shot?

[DigitalPunk]

Yeah I will get one tomorrow. I will have to do a couple because it just doesn't do it justice to see if from top down without also seeing it from the sides lol. I am going to add another piece of wood or 2 to it and then I think it will be done. I have been contemplating using some of the left over Moss Mix from Folius in here somewhere, but don't know where I would put it.

I can't tell if the springtails are living on the land or the water right now. There must be hundreds of them in the water eating on drowned fruit flies lol.


Bill,

How often did you feed your mantellas? I am doing a morning feeding and an evening feeding right now, but I am just winging it lol.

[deranged chipmunk]

My guys ate like pigs! About 50 each. I fed them nightly when I got home from work. When temps started dropping, I fed them less. You don't need to worry about that since you're maintaining a consistent tank. I was allowing mine to cycle naturally with the weather. I misted less, fed less. Then in spring I would have reversed, to promote breeding behaviors. I couldn't do it last year though because they were mere froglets when I got them.

[DigitalPunk]

Thats the one thing I don't know about these guys. I am not sure how old they are right now. They are eating like crazy right now. I have been putting between 30 and 50 in each feeding, but have reframed from doing more because not all of them come out each time food is out. I check the tank every couple hours and if I see them hunting and don't see any flies I add more.

I am hoping to cycle the tank and induce breeding, but the over site of not including vents to begin with have the tank holding steady, but I'd like the humidity to fluctuate a bit and right now it is steady at 81%.

I will simulate wet and dry conditions with misting. I am hand misting the tank now and the Mantellas don't seem to mind me doing it. I would like to add some MistKing nozzles to the tank in the future.

I currently haven them in an 11 hour day 13 hour night cycle since it is winter time and will increase that to 12/12 once spring decides it is here to stay.

[DigitalPunk]

Not sure what happened to my photo bucket links and I can't edit the posts to fix them. Here is a link to the photo bucket album.

Natural Mantella Tank Photos by Dirganion | Photobucket

[deranged chipmunk]

Sounds like you are doing everything correctly.

[DigitalPunk]

As Promised here are some whole tank shots from this morning. It you look close you can see a couple of the M. Betsileos standing post


Top Down view -


Front of Tank View -




Looking across to the left of tank from front right corner -




Looking across to the right of the tank from front left corner -





And a couple of the frogs




This guy LOVES the fern. He is always under it or near it. I think this is the same one who has claimed the new plant and land mass.



Saw a couple of the frogs fighting first thing this morning. One of them chased the other out of his spot. It was pretty cool to watch.

[deranged chipmunk]

Looks very cool Paul!! Not a lot of height for the plants to grow, but it's gonna fill in nicely. I foresee a lot of trimming in your future lol

[DigitalPunk]

Yeah Lots and lots of trimming. I wish the tank was 3 or 4 inches taller, but I like the way it turned out. I lost 5 inches due to the water depth, but I am very pleased with the Aquatic section. I will be putting some plants in the water in the future. Mostly grasses to create some cover on the back of the wood area.

[DigitalPunk]

The last pieces for this tank arrived today. The Driftwood piece was simply amazing! NEHERP Rocks! Sorry the picture sucks. I will try to get a better shot tomorrow. This is down the right side of the tank, bridging the gap over the water between the 2 land masses.







Also bought a couple of these split seed pods. The other one was about 1/2 as much bigger than this one so it won't be going in the tank. But I set this one up to see if the Mantellas will use it at all.



One of the Mantellas on the top of the new piece of wood.



And a plant starts blooming This thing is WAY to big for the tank. I will most likely be removing it and putting in something shorter.

[DigitalPunk]

The lid for this tank has been a struggle to find a way to do it right. I first bought 2 pieces of 1/8 thick glass. I bought a hinge for them and everything was working great until I realized I had no vents for even a little air flow. I watched as the tanks ambient temp rises slowly past 75 and after a couple days was 78 and heading to 80. I decided I needed to get some holes cut for vents. The local glass company could not get the 1/8" glass to drill properly without breaking. So they did it in 1/8" plexiglass... this was a horrible fail. I didn't even take the piece out of the store. They redid the work on 1/4 plexi at no charge. This worked great! Below is a pick of it after the screen was siliconed over the holes.




Problem Solved!!! .... Nope. after 12 hours the plexi was already starting to bow in the middle down into the tank. After 18 hours it looked like it was going to fall into the tank. So I started thinking of other options.

Today I located a screen top for 40b tanks at a local pet store. The screen was all dorked up, but the frame was still in perfect condition. I bought the top for $15 off the retail price... I failed to get a before pic, but picture the below thing with screen instead of glass. I took the top to the local glass company and had them cut me 2 more 1/8" pieces to cover the openings. I had them make the glass over sized for the gaps so I could lay them ontop and secure them with silicone. Now I have all sorts of white silicone at the house, but I am fresh out of clear and black so I decided to use what I had on hand and save the extra money. Here it is after the silicone was put on and the glass panels laid in place.



This thing is hinged down the middle. which is freaking perfect lol. The front piece of glass I had them cut 1" short on the width so I could put a vent along the front glass. I cute the fiberglass screen to size and siliconed it into place. On top of the silicone under the glass I also ran a bead of silicone down the sides of the glass to ensure it had a good hold on the lid and the glass.

Admittedly it looks awful with the white silicone, but if this works I will have my solution for the next 40b I do lol. I'll clean up the excess silicone when it dries tomorrow and place this baby on the tank.

[deranged chipmunk]

You could have just saved a lot of time and energy by just getting a glass lid for a 40b. I think I paid $24 for mine for my 40b. Drilled a ton of smaller ventilation holes in the plastic spacer and it was perfect. May be a thought for next time.

[DigitalPunk]

Yeah I looked all over for a glass top for it and couldn't find them in stock anywhere.

[Mentat]

Sorry you had issues with top Paul; but if it helps you feel better, publishing them can help a fellow member avoid going that route .