I am starting my 3rd Natural Style build. This one is on a struck budget. I am trying to nail down how much (or how little) I can spend and get the tank fully up and running. I had a spare 18 x 18 x 24 on hand, but for fairness sake I will include the price of it in the budget to have a real life estimate on doing more in the future.

Total budget max budget for this tank (Frogs not included) is $295

Tank - Exo Terra 18 x 18 x 24 - Amazon 109.99 (Prime Shipping - Free) - $185.01 remaining


I measured the inside width and depth of the tank and headed to the local nursery to find the rocks for the base of this tank. I set a $25 max budget for rocks. I came home with more than enough rocks for this build for $12.00 - $173.01 remaining


I took a hammer to the 2 pieces of flag stone to get them down to the shape and size I was going for. I used 2 pieces of stone for the land mass and laid them down on smaller round stones to raise them up above the water line in the tank. The bottom will have 3 - 5 inches of water in the bottom of the tank. This will allow room for a Aquatic heater to heat the tank and some water life to be added as well.

Here are a couple pictures of the tank with the rocks in it.





I'll get a side shot of the tank tomorrow.

The egg crate is leftover from the Mantella tank so that saved money on buying a $12 sheet of the defuser to cut to size.

It will take a couple weeks to price shop around the web and town to gather the rest of the pieces. Just thought I would get the thread started.