Long term enclosure for Cornuta???

[Jeff Kennedy]

Wanted to get some ideas on this. What do you guys feel are the possiblities of setting up a more permanent enclosure for a Cornuta? Kind of like a dart set-up, where you could incorporate hydroballs and soil that would allow adequate drainage, a natural pond and live plants? You think this would be successful? Since they primarily camp out in one area and prefer it damp and humid, I feel that this could be possible. Your thoughts???

[Diogo Juliao]

I have no experience on keeping pac mans in those kinds of tanks, but I think it would be possible as long as you keep all the plantas in their vases. Otherwise the pac man will destroy them in his excavations.

Also keep in mind that if we like to feed him or put him defecating outside, it will be a problem to have a very complex tank.

But yes, I think it's possible and I've seen examples of these kind of tanks before

edit: oh and another thing, they kind of move a lot of earth when moving, and a natural pond will probably get all dirty in no time... and you can't just remove it and clean it like you do with a plastic lake...

[John911]

I just put together a 5.5 for mine with a greatstuff background covered with a mix of dry eco earth and peat moss mixed together. Looks decent. Seemed great until I put a cricket in and he just climbs up the wall away from my pacman. Lol. Well anyway, the top of the wall has a bit of a ledge so hopefully ill be able to figure out some kind of plant that can hang or something. I'm using eco earth. I could just see a pacman destroying a false bottom. I know plants need drainage, I dunno about the frogs themselves.

[spec]

I've got a 10 gallon flat tank, just recently added rocks on the bottom w about 4 inches of of bed a beast. I've got a couple of the plants in a self sustaining plastic container with water crystals. helps the humidity as well. Also i have a half of a hollowed out log wich he backs into and burrows and fills the empty space up. also a rather large but flat water dish with steps and a background. He seems to really like it in there and it cost me about 60 bucks total for the tank and everything. He's either under the log, in the corner burrowed or in his water dish waiting for my to feed him. I'm sure if you wanted to put in a pond if you had some way to filter the big pieces out , it might be nice to look at but, keeping the filter clean once the fat little frogs jump in might be tiresome.

[smashtoad]

I agree that a cornuta deserves a killer viv. I'd like to have one myself.

If you really want to do this, I would suggest trying to tong feed him as much as possible and just keep him on 3 to 4 inches of small gravel covered in a 3 inch bed of sphagnum. Keep an eye out between feedings for BMs and remove them if possible. You could bury a pump in the gravel to move water around, dig out a small pool, and could also bury a media bag of charcoal somewhere handy to help with toxins (dang...I like that...just thought of it!). It's like an undergravel filter, sans everything but the gravel.

You could use stones to build walls, and terrace the plants in sphagnum beds above to keep him off your plants. My guess is that the frog will situate himself in a position facing the front of the tank, especially if you make a nice background. And if the sphagnum is deep enough, he may not even disturb the gravel.

These are just thoughts. I am sure the hygiene police will want to give me a ticket for callousness. However, natural environs do a lot towards the general health of our animals.

[braaandooon]

i just ended my planted pacman enclosure experiment that i started in may, my frog kept climbing and breaking all the leaves off the spider plants which actually came back to life after adding to my enclosure, but my plants were not potted, they were planted into one inch of eco earth, 2 inches of organic peat, and a river stone false bottom, im sure potted plants will keep alot longer if you can deal with staring at a pot that takes away from the natural effect you are trying to acheive, you can try what was mentioned in a prior post and use moss to cover the pot, but crickets tend to hide in plants, and when i tried hiding the pots with beaked moss, the frog would use that to climb up into the plants to go after crickets, and also trampling the plants, i also kept scottish moss which i really liked, but the frog did also, he would burrow right at the edge of this moss and his frequent urinating in these areas slowly killed it off, but if pots are used and you can handle seeing them in your enclosure it shouldnt be a big problem, as long as lighting requirements are met for your plants, so you may want to research your plants, tropical climate plants need some kinda external lighting at the least, where if your working with plants from a temperate environment which usually need filtered light, your enclosure would be better off near a window, i know my spiderplants didnt do well at all under a fluro and thrived near a window