FBT Vivarium Preparations

[synikalspinstress]

It sounds like you'll be doing pretty much everything necessary for a full scale small vivarium anyway.

You ever have one of those... lightbulb moments? I'd thought about springtails, but, that almost seemed like too much? But, now that you've said this, I'm like... why not? If I'm doing the rest of it anyway, and it'd certainly make things easier on me. Thank you!

As for the dish, simply submerge it a bit in the substrate and don't worry about how it relates to the false bottom. As far as I know the only relationship between the dish and the false bottom is that splashes from the dish won't saturate the soil and will simply drain down. It shouldn't be a problem, I would just make sure to have some substrate below it between the bottom of the dish and the false bottom.

My problem is that the container I've picked is around 5 inches deep, so it just seemed like a lot of substrate. But, if I go with a bioactive system, then I wouldn't be replacing the substrate very often, if ever. If it came to it, I suppose I could elevate the area around the dish a little.

How deep should the drainage layer/false bottom be? An inch? (That'd leave me with six or so inches of height between the top of the vivarium and the substrate.) I'll be using the PVC pipe method.

And don't worry about being wordy--my first post was a novel itself.

[monster]

Hi, Daybrake has got you covered on the questions you asked but one thing I would suggest is I would give them a little more water then land. Maybe even a 40/60 split, you will notice that firebellies tend to spend a lot more time in the water then on land. I used to have 4 of them in 30 gallon long and did the 40/60 and the only time they really came out of the water was to eat, and even then you will notice that they will grab the cricket and jump back in the water a lot of the time to eat it. And put things in the water that they can climb and hide around to make them feel more secure, a lot of people will use duckweed in the water area or a similar kind of plant. Because I'm not the best with plants I used these fake lilypads I found at Walmart in mine and they absolutely loved them, and the stems were different heights so some would sit right on the water and others about an inch of the water. this way they could rest on one but still have the cover from another. These guys are very entertaining little froggies you will really enjoy watching them. I'm editing, I meant to say I found the lilypads at petsmart.

[daybr4ke]

Thanks for adding on to this Monster! I'm glad you mentioned the additional water split, I haven't kept Bombina yet, might be my next project, actually, since I have an empty 20 gallon long. Also, don't some people keep them in almost fully aquatic setups with shallow water and rocks or small islands to climb out on?

[monster]

Ya there are some people that keep it really simple and have it setup exactly like you mentioned, a nice big rock a turtle dock or a dock on each end and a filter for the water. And they will put a small real pant in a pot or a fake one on the island for cover. If doing it this way I like fake plants for fish tanks because instead of taking up the room on the dock a lot of fish plants have that weighted base to keep them submerged, so you can place the plant in the water and it can come through the back or over the side and let it kind of drape over the dock.

[monster]

Its not the best picture but this what mine looked like before I gave them to my nephew, as you can see a majority of the tank was water with rocks and plants. The land area had a little L shape to it along the back wall but not to much. And it was all fake plants, and as mentioned before the tank was a 30 gallon long.

[monster]

Here is a top shot of the water area.

[daybr4ke]

That looks pretty nice, I hope you don't mind I saved the image to look at later for inspiration. Personally I want to make mine planted, I really like working with plants. Maybe I'll make a little mini 20g long paludarium...I wasn't sure what my second simultaneous project would be, I was thinking WTFs, but now I'm thinking Firebellies. Maybe in a month or two we can compare FBT tanks
Edit: also, snatching prey and hopping back into the water sounds super adorable for some reason.

[synikalspinstress]

Monster, that is an awesome looking paludarium! If my terrarium was made to hold water, I'd definitely do something like that. At least I've found a massive tupperware container for water (13" by 9" by 4-1/2", there abouts). And! If my toadies seem to be enjoying the water, I can always get more, stick 'em around the terrarium.

Quick question about a bioactive substrate! Is there a way to, like, make my own? Out of Eco Earth? I've already got that stuff, and it looks like it'd be kinda pricey buy a bunch of the ABG stuff. Could I mix one bag of Josh's Frog's ABG mix (4qts or 16cups or 3.79L) with the Eco Earth?

[daybr4ke]

Will it really not hold water? I don't have any experience with glass tanks, as all mine are either sterilite bins or truvu plastic fishtanks. You might be able to seal it with silicone aquarium sealant, but that could get kinda messy.
As for the abg mix, I actually just the other day bought a bunch of materials for making my own rudimentary mix. It isn't perfect but it works. Coco fiber at the start is pretty close to nutritionally void, and only gains nutrients over time as the frog's feces is washed into it. I personally just picked up some natural topsoil(pretty much just dirt in a nice big bag for cheap), a medium bag of sphagnum moss, a medium bag of "orchid bark"(which is actually Western Fir bark nuggets), and some aquarium activated carbon(the link below should explain why.) I got everything but the carbon at home depot. I wanted peat moss, but they only had miracle grow peat, which has added fertilizer, so I don't have milled peat moss or tree fern bark, which are other parts of the mix, but you might be able to find those at a hudroponics store or garden center or something. All of the ingredients I got were pretty cheap and it'll make more of the mix than I need for one tank, which is a actually why I'm gonna work on the 20g. Below I've included a link to the DIY mix list, and the post that says aquarium carbon is a fine substitute for charcoal, and a picture of the stuff I picked up. You could probably get away with getting some natural organic topsoil and cutting the ABG mix with it and maybe some sphagnum moss and orchid bark if you feel like it. With the orchids bark, you have to make sure there's no perlite. A helpful Home Depot employee was nice enough to slice open one bag of the stuff to see if perlite was in it. I ended up with pure orchids bark, which I will have to break up myself.

http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/par...#/topics/68357
http://www.frogforum.net/showthread....rate-questions