Beginner pauldarium question

[DanDrobates]

Paludarium builds are a lot of fun; however building one to house xenopus sp. or any other fully aquatic frogs kind of defeats the purpose since they’ll never make use of the land area. If you’re doing the build purely for looks then by all means go for it. Otherwise, I’d opt for a different species.

As far as your described setup goes I’d caution you against adding dart frogs with such a small amount of landmass. Also, be advised that they can drown in deeper water features.

As foam goes, as long as it’s not bearing weight it can be used to seperate water features from land.0

Regarding the false bottom: Use a substrate barrier such as vinyl window screen to keep the substrate from fouling the water. If you’re worried about plants start with pothos. They thrive in water features and will root into the water through the barrier and hold the land area together.

P.S. -don’t mix different locales/morphs of dart frogs. Also only house compatible sized individuals together. Tincs can be very territorial.

[Lonbrat]

Thanks! ^^ the 20 gal pauldarium build in question is more of a practice piece, I want to get familiar with building them so when I do a 40 gal. Eventually I can figure out what needs tweaking to be perfect for darts and small fish. ( lots of things to grab onto and get out of water etc)

the most id put in the 20 gal pauldarium ( if it works lol) would maybe be transitioning froglets (if I ever decide to have a breeding pair)
though I absolutely love African dwarf frogs so they will definitely be in the 20 gal build lol.

my local pet store has lots of really awesome terrarium plants grown locally without pesticides and what not specifically for terrariums, the land mass would be mostly test subject plants. ^^

though the cage the frog is in now has about the same amount of land mass/floor space the 20gal would have (it’s a 18x12x12) it’s what my green sip came in. I might just put him in a 10 gal. Lol

thank you! I wasn’t sure if it was okay to mix different colors or if it was just not okay to mix different species ^^

[DanDrobates]

No problem at all. It takes a few practice runs to get it right and I’m still always tweaking my vivariums. And yes, it’s not a good idea to mix locales. If they interbreed the purity of the line gets muddied. Sips are considered harder to breed than most tincs but it’s still best to keep them seperate. Good luck with your build.