New Vivarium, pics enclosed

[UncleChester]

Here's a few pics of my new vivarium. It's 20"x12"x12", or about 13gal. The glass is about 3/16" thick and is from old slider windows. The trim on the base is standard wood trim painted black. The trim on the top is plastic and I think from a door sweep. The hinge on the front door is a zinc-plated piano hinge held on with clear silicone. The brass locking latch is held on with silicone as well. The lid isn't quite finished, it's eggcrate to be strong enough to hold a cat and will be lined with window mesh to keep crickets in and cat hair out. Nylon should be ok for crickets here as they wouldn't likely have much time to chew on it out in the open with frogs nearby.

The background is styrofoam covered in quikrete. The water dish is the same construction as the backdrop. Some GreatStuff expanding foam was used between the 'tree' and the background, then covered in silicone+cocofibre. The fungi on the right side are the hard woody kind and are held to the glass with silicone. Hydroton covered in nylon window screen mesh make the false bottom. The substrate is coco-fibre mixed with semi-decomposed leaf litter, covered in oak leaf litter.

There's a couple of planters near the top of the background, one has a pothos in it, the other an ivy. I rammed moss in all over, I'm hoping it will grow, mostly for looks. It's sparse now, but the pothos will soon take over and provide most of the cover.

Front view:



Top view:



Closer look at fungi:



Closer look at the top left area:




All I need now is a couple weeks of growing and to decide what's going in it. I could move 2 Gray treefrogs in and free up a 20gallon long for a fire-bellied toad construction. I was also considering an American Green Treefrog, Hyla Cinerea. I am also working on a larger 26"x16"x16" vivarium that will be the permanent home of the Gray treefrogs, but this is a few months away.

Thanks for looking!

[adawinters]

Lovely! I adore the back wall and the toadstools. Did you do anything special to cure them?

[xkatelynell]

American Green Tree Frogs are still my favorite. And they would LOVE that tank

[Jace]

Very well done! Whatever you place in there is going to just love it!

[John]

Very nice .

[Tropicok]

Lovely tank! That's what I was going for but got off track somewhere.

[Kurt]

Very good.

[UncleChester]

Thanks everyone!

Lovely! I adore the back wall and the toadstools. Did you do anything special to cure them?

They are the hard woody kind of fungus. I boiled them until they sank, then baked them for 3 hours. I was a little concerned that they still felt fairly soft afterwards, but after a few days they dried up to their original hard selves. I've since found a huge one nearly the size of my head that I'm going to have to find a use for .

[SludgeMunkey]

Thanks everyone!



They are the hard woody kind of fungus. I boiled them until they sank, then baked them for 3 hours. I was a little concerned that they still felt fairly soft afterwards, but after a few days they dried up to their original hard selves. I've since found a huge one nearly the size of my head that I'm going to have to find a use for .

Looks great! This build is a prime example of use of all of the vivaria building topics discussed here on the forums.

Excellent work buddy!

[UncleChester]

Thanks Johnny . There's no question this forum, and you in particular in my long thread of vivarium questions, was a major, major asset in making my first involved build go smoothly.

[Quetzacoatl]

Very very nice!

[mechagodzilla290]

That is Tree Frog Paradise!

[hyla]

So creative! I love the mushroom ledges. I bought a maunfactured one but it definetly isnt as cool looking as those ones are!

[adawinters]

Thanks everyone!



They are the hard woody kind of fungus. I boiled them until they sank, then baked them for 3 hours. I was a little concerned that they still felt fairly soft afterwards, but after a few days they dried up to their original hard selves. I've since found a huge one nearly the size of my head that I'm going to have to find a use for .

Awesome. I had been thinking about curing some to make into shelves, but the directions I saw were a bit more elaborate -- probably because of the different purpose they were going to. This was what I had found: FinderMaker: Mushroom Shelf Tutorial!

[Ebony]

Very cool looking set up. Plenty of places for your frog to sit and hide.

[mikebannon]

awsome !! nice job!I am sure what ever species goes in it they will love it
!!!

[MikeM670]

I'm also looking at building a foam back wall and have heard you can use the canned foam like Great Stuff. Now after reading here in some posts, I hear about out gassing and having to wait several months for it to cure. I was planing on letting my tank sit for a few weeks to a month before adding the substrate and plants.

Did you use the white sheet styrofoam or can you use the pink high density foam found in large sheets found at home improvement stores? Also how did you glue the foam pieces together?

Mike

[UncleChester]

I'm also looking at building a foam back wall and have heard you can use the canned foam like Great Stuff. Now after reading here in some posts, I hear about out gassing and having to wait several months for it to cure. I was planing on letting my tank sit for a few weeks to a month before adding the substrate and plants.

Did you use the white sheet styrofoam or can you use the pink high density foam found in large sheets found at home improvement stores? Also how did you glue the foam pieces together?

Mike

A user here, SludgeMunkey, turned me off of the great stuff for backgrounds due to the long cure times and potential sagging issues over time (it's also messy!). The bit I used here was to fill in a pretty small area, so I'm not too worried.

I used the high density blue kind of styrofoam, the kind you can find floating around in the bushes near any construction site. I mostly had 1.5" thick foam for this build, but I've started a tank for fire bellies and I'm preferring the 1" thick version (I'll try to get some pics up in the next few days of my progress). From what I've read, any kind of styrofoam should be safe to use, it's going to be covered in the concrete anyway. I'd steer away from the white kind that comes with most electronics (the kind made up of tiny spheres stuck together) on the basis of it being messy to work with.

I just used a hot glue gun to stick the foam pieces together.

[MikeM670]

A user here, SludgeMunkey, turned me off of the great stuff for backgrounds due to the long cure times and potential sagging issues over time (it's also messy!). The bit I used here was to fill in a pretty small area, so I'm not too worried.

I used the high density blue kind of styrofoam, the kind you can find floating around in the bushes near any construction site. I mostly had 1.5" thick foam for this build, but I've started a tank for fire bellies and I'm preferring the 1" thick version (I'll try to get some pics up in the next few days of my progress). From what I've read, any kind of styrofoam should be safe to use, it's going to be covered in the concrete anyway. I'd steer away from the white kind that comes with most electronics (the kind made up of tiny spheres stuck together) on the basis of it being messy to work with.

I just used a hot glue gun to stick the foam pieces together.

Thankyou very much for the info. I have plenty of the pink construction foam at home which I used for model diorama building so I will use that.

Mike

[Poly]

Wow! What a great idea using the fungi like that! I've have 100s of those mushroms by my house! I'll Have to add some of these in my toad and upcomming TF vivarium! I've seem muchrooms like those over 10" in diameter! What did you secure them with, silicone?