Plants for WTF Enclosure

[Frogs1]

Do the frogs sit on it or clim on it? Or do they find it hard to cling onto? Also I I've looked, I can't find one that'a 3ft high. I can get two 2ft ones and cut a ft off. But it's a little expensive.

[Lija]

Great stuff background with added whatever you want, wood to perch on or cork, you can make it anyway you like.

Check this http://www.frogforum.net/vivarium-te...questions.html

and see more build threads for inspiration

[elly]

I don't know since I'm waiting for the frog to get a clean bill of health to put him in. I think he could climb it though, since he can climb glass. I don't know if he'd want to hang out on it. And as far as backgrounds, some people use a kind of spray foam called Greatstuff to make their own foam backgrounds. There's threads on doing that in the Viv build section.

[Frogs1]

Tomorrow I'm going to have a look at some plants and see how much it will cost. Just another thing, how would I clean the tank, like would I remove the plants and substrate and clean it or never clean it as it shouldn't really need cleaning? And thanks for the link to that post of the tanks, it's really helping. But there is no link under planting the plants heading, is it easy to plant plants? never done it before lol

[Frogs1]

I also see a few good looking vivs that have Holo logs and branches, would this be ones bought from a shop or just found in the bush?

[elly]

THe hollow logs I see at pet stores are usually cork bark. They should do fine. For branches, you want a hard wood that tolerates damp and doesn't have strong oils in it (like cypress or cedar or eucalyptus). They sell grapevine at pet stores, but that's NOT good for damp terrariums since it grows toxic mold. Manzanita (spelled wrong probably) and ghost wood are two good woods for aquariums. If you use bush sticks, be sure to sanitize them well, boiling and baking. There's a thread on that in the viv section. Deranged Chipmunk on the forum talked about using oak from the woods and he seems very experienced with vivariums so that's probably a good wood. EDIT: I might be wrong about cypress and cedar being bad for frogs. I know the mulches often are, but that's because they're an impaction risk and they're sometimes treated with chemicals.

[elly]

Yep, Cedar is toxic at least.

[Frogs1]

Are those springtails you keep mentioning bugs?

[elly]

To clean the tank normally you'd just have to remove poop you see or wipe the glass down if it gets dirty. If it starts smelling bad (it shouldn't for a long time but it might) you can try siphoning out water from the drainage layer. Get a siphon hose, a turkey baster, or an aquarium gravel vacuum for that. It helps if you have a pvc pipe that goes down to the drainage layer so you don't have to move aside the substrate and mesh. You probably won't have to do a full extensive cleaning unless the frog gets sick or there's a huge overgrowth of mold (springtails should keep the mold down). As far as planting those plants, it's easy, just put them in roots down. You might want to mound up dirt a little around the base of the plant. Then water and let it soak in. You can test for dampness by putting a finger into the soil and when it's dry you need to water. The soil should be damp but not soggy.