100 gallon PDF tank(WARNING, extremely picture heavy)
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First off, I want to give a huge thank you to everyone that helped me on my build thread! There's no way I could have done this without everybody's help.
The old thread:
http://www.frogforum.net/vivarium-te...e-through.html
It started as a fish tank with a thin film of algae stuck to it. It had to be scraped off with a razor blade. I went through about 12 razor blades because they dulled so quickly. Here you can easily see the area I had scraped and the area I hadn't.
A clean, empty tank:
Cutting one of three 2x2 foam boards to use as a background in the tank. The reason I used foam boards instead of spray-on foam, is because I was told the tank needs to be laid on its back to use the Great Stuff spray-on foam...There was no way I was going to risk breaking this beast of a tank just to get a good background. It is VERY heavy and I will not move it unless absolutely necessary.
They fit!
Carving the boards...I used a box cutter and scraped it sideways to carve out the "rocks".
Finished carving!! It was looking pretty nice at this stage, if I may say so.
My floor after carving the backgrounds!!
Painting the boards. A tip to anyone who wants to do this: Paint the crevices first! You WILL get paint on the rocks which you'll have to cover up with a coat or two of rock-colored paint. I used a medium grey for the rocks and a dark grey for the crevices. It looks black in the pictures.
Finished with the basic painting...
I then sponged on a layer of medium/dark green paint, followed by a layer of medium/dark brown paint. Then, another layer of green on top of the brown. I also sponged green onto the crevices to give it a mossy look.
It was recommended to me that I spray the finished foam boards with Krylon Fusion Clear spray paint. You can imagine my horror when I did so, and the foam started melting. Turns out, I didn't buy Krylon Fusion, I bought plain old Krylon. My mistake!! I'm just extremely glad the background was not completely ruined, because at this point I had put at least 12 hours into it.
I am not sure if regular Krylon is toxic or not, but it doesn't matter because the background is now covered in 3 good coats of paint-on polyurethane. Water beads up when it hits the background, I'm convinced that polyurethane is awesome!
It was said to me several times that I should get sheet moss to put in the tank and on the background, but I couldn't find it at my local gardens/nurseries, so I gave up. Then, as I was walking through Petco to get a humidity gauge, the word "moss" on a package caught my eye. Turns out my local Petco sells sheet moss!! I had never even thought to look there. Of course I bought some, it was only $5. I glued on a few pieces the next morning, then went to class. Got home a few hours later and started adding river rocks as the drainage layer.
After the river rocks were in, I added more moss, then did a quick hardscape with two pieces of wood that I ended up really liking.
As you can see on the right side, my first bucket was not big enough to mix up my ABG substitute in. So I hauled out a huge tub and mixed it up there. Worked perfectly
The last of the Sheet Moss was added, along with quilt batting and fiberglass screen to prevent soil from going into my drainage layer.
Is this deep enough?
Soil in, wood in, time to plant the giant Golden Pothos I found at a local hardware store...no chemicals used on it, I checked.And even if there were, it has months to dissipate before I get my frogs.
As you can see, I used the moss to cover up the cracks in the background. There are cracks in the background because my tank is so big that I had to use three separate pieces of foam board, cut them to size, then glue them together using nontoxic hot glue.
I still don't have the money to buy plants. I am waiting for my Fluval FX5 with FX6 motor to sell. After that, I should be close to being able to afford to buy what I want from NeHerp.
I'm most likely going to order:
One 38x18x13(100 gallon) plant kit - $145
6 ferns(I LOVE FERNS) - $24
Springtail and Fruit Fly Breeding kits(including live cultures) - $38
I want to get a fan or two to use in my vivarium to keep the glass from getting fogged over. This is a display tank, not a look-at-it-just-when-feeding-and-misting tank.I read that the Zoo Med Aqua Cool Fans work well for circulating air in a vivarium even though they're traditionally used in aquariums. If anyone has input on these I'd love to hear it. I'd probably need two at $24 each, so - $58
7 bags of leaf litter - $42
I'm trying to find someone who has Live Oak, Magnolia, or Sea Grape leaves in an area where no chemicals are used, so that I can collect and process leaves myself...saves me close to $50 if I do that.
I'm looking about $300, maybe less if I can find my own leaf litter to process. There's tons of Oak Trees around here but they're all Valley Oaks, not Live OaksThe selling of my filter won't cover the entire cost of everything I need but it'll cover most of it.
To be honest, I'm not sure how much I like the pothos in there...I may end up taking it out after I get more plants.
I built this tank for Poison Dart Frogs, but it will be a long time before I can afford them. However, I think I know what kind I want.
Phyllobates Bicolor 'Green Leg'. I think they are gorgeous, Josh's Frogs says they're good beginner frogs and do good in groups. That, and they're affordable!! I can get 8 for about $250. What more could I want from a frog?
Phyllobates bicolor 'Green Leg' | Josh's Frogs
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Originally Posted by LisaGarcia
![[Canada]](images/flags/Canada.gif "Canada")
has taught you to layer the bottom of your enclosure ( gravel > batting > screening ) they way I make all of mine as well. Once you get more water in there , and the batting is touching the water, you can give that entire front portion of the substrate a good press. Eventually the bating and screening will disappear.
