# 29 Vert Build



## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

So I've really been enjoying my first frogs for a few months now and am getting ready to begin construction of my second vivarium. Actually I found that I enjoy the process of building the viv almost as much as actually keeping the frogs. Hopefully I'm not _addicted_, but I may be on my way.

The new viv will be a 29 gallon converted to a vertical and setup for either a pair or small group of thumbs, depending on the particular frogs I go with - probably either Varadero imitators or southern variabilis. 

I got the tank at the $1/gal sale at Petco last month. I just received my background and hardscaping pieces this week. I'm going with tree fern panels and cork rounds. I still have plenty of hydroton and ABG mix left over from my first build so that's what I'll be using for the substrate layers. 

My last viv I completely finished before I made my first post here. In hindsight I could have benefited by asking more questions and getting more suggestions from the experienced folks on this board. So I'm starting this thread at the beginning of my build this time and already have a few questions.

QUESTIONS:

The tree fern panels I got are nice and thick but they have a pretty good bow in them so that either just the edges or just the middle make contact with the glass when I stick a panel in the tank. I was thinking of soaking in water and trying to flatten it with something heavy. Will this work or is there a better way?

Resealing the tank: Is there any particular way to go about sealing around the rim of the tank - the part that will be the bottom when the tank is turned on it's end. Around most of the rim there appears to be very little to no silicone. However, right in the corners there are pretty good globs of it. I know silicone doens't really stick to already cured silicone so does this need to be removed before trying to seal the rim? I have some GE I clear silicone. From what I've read I believe this will be fine. I shouldn't need aquarium specific silicone?

Also, I'm getting a bit stumped over the vertical conversion and how exactly to go about building the door. I've read a lot of threads on the matter and am probably just over thinking it. The doors that latch at the top and hinge downward kind of scare me for some reason. For a 29 gallon, unless I have a big vent area a the top the door would be almost 2 feet tall/long. 

I would really prefer do a side hinging door but am not sure of the best way to go about this. I found one thread where someone had done this with a 40 breeder but had to cut the plastic frame off the front of the tank to allow the hinge enough contact area with the glass door. Anyone else tried this with other methods. I know I've seen photos of other vertical builds on here with side opening doors but I'm not quite sure how people did it.

I know that's a lot of questions. I really appreciate any feedback or just links to relevant threads that I'm missing.

Thanks,
Josh

And I'll definitely have some pictures once it starts going together.


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## jflick345 (Sep 16, 2013)

Hey Josh!

I actually have a 29g vert that I put together back in Nov/Dec.

First off, for all this seal work I would just get a small tube of aquarium silicone from HD or Lowe's or wherever. It's worth the investment since it's made for 100% submerged use.

Here's the process I went through for sealing the rim and putting in the door:

Supplies:
Acrylic piano hinge from Josh's frogs
Acrylic handle for door
Hack saw
Large piece of 1/8" glass for door
Small piece 1/8" for bottom of door
Piece of 1/8" glass ~1/4" or so smaller than the last
2-part Epoxy
Aquarium silicone
Razor blades

You really only have to worry about the seal for the bottom part of the tank only that will actually see standing water. Scrape all the excess silicone away from that part of the rim and place the larger small piece of glass inside the rim. Silicone that piece of glass into place so you have a good glass/silicone/glass seal. Allow to dry. Place the tank with opening facing up, silicone the rim and put the slightly smaller piece of glass into place. The rim will be sandwiched by 2 pieces of glass so that you have a piece to seal the water inside and a piece that will serve as a flush sealing surface for the door. Use silicone to fill the small gap between the 2 pieces of glass.

Lay your large door piece into place and figure out where you want your piano hinge. Mark the glass just below the rim at the top and bottom of the hinge. Use the hacksaw to cut through the rim. Basically I started by cutting the top of the rim down to the glass at each of the marks. Next I laid the tank on one side and cut through the wide part of the rim and then flipped it over to do the other. It was much easier taking the blade out of the saw and using it without the handle. A Dremel would be even easier. The rim is obviously still attached with silicone but not very much. Just run a razor blade under the rim and you can pull it right off.

This part is a little trickier. I used the epoxy to attached the hinge to the door/tank. I placed the tank opening up, put the door into place, then figured out how to best situate the hinge. Mark where the hinge will go, flip the tank on the side and epoxy the hinge into place on the side of the tank. Clamp the hinge into place. It will harden pretty quickly but let the tank sit for the full cure time before moving on.

Once cured, flip tank back to opening up position, put door into place, and epoxy other side of hinge to the door. It's not the easiest but either hold in place or put something on the hinge to hold it tight to the glass until it sets. (just don't epoxy anything unwanted to the tank ) You can now also epoxy the door handle to the front of the door.

Let cure and you should have a wonderful side opening tank door! If you end up with a gap just a little too large at the top of the door (like me) just use a piece of plastic tubing sliced open and placed on the top of the door glass.

I hope this description is at least somewhat helpful It was quite a process of looking through threads and muddling my way through it. Let me know if you have any questions and I can take pictures and/or clarify more for you.

Joe


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## Dart guy 16 (Jan 16, 2012)

jflick345 said:


> Hey Josh!
> 
> 
> Supplies:
> ...



I would 100% skip the piano hinge and get a living hinge there are a few places to get it from Like NEHERP or wherever. the glass will sin in the hinge rather than just be attached to it, I have used the piano hinge before and had to reattach it several times.. Its just not worth the hassle if there is a better solution


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## scoy (Jan 22, 2013)

I agree on the hinge. I've used both and if you dont use the piano hinge perfectly fruit flies will escape. You can get the living hinge from neherp but the kind dr foster and smith sells is the best.


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## dravenxavier (Mar 12, 2008)

jflick345 said:


> Hey Josh!
> If you end up with a gap just a little too large at the top of the door (like me) just use a piece of plastic tubing sliced open and placed on the top of the door glass.
> 
> Joe


Why didn't I think of that? Time to go pull off some silicone and get some black airline tubing....


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

Joe. Thanks for the incredibly detailed description of how you built your tank. 

Unfortunately I've already sealed the inside rim with the GE I silicone. I know I saw a tube of aquarium silicone once at Lowe's a few months back but have not come across it again since. I like the idea of having the two pieces of glass at the bottom. I may redo it.

As far as living hinge vs piano hinge... Will the living hinge still work in this situation for a side opening door? I can't really think of why it wouldn't. I guess I just normally think of the living hinge being in a neutral position when the door is closed (in a vertical door setup) where as it would be flexed at 90 degrees with the door closed in a side opening build.

I think I got my tree fern panels straightened out after soaking and setting a 24kg kettlebell on top.


IMG_3961 by jcyates1, on Flickr


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

Ok. So 11 months later and I'm finally getting on with this build. 

I got the tree fern panels trimmed and siliconed into place. I used great stuff to fill in the cracks and seams in between the panels. Then I did some titebond/coco/tree fern slurry to cover the GS foam.

So then, of course, I decided to make it more complicated by making drip walls out of the tree fern panels.


The fatter PVC will sit on top of the outside of the tank and support the smaller diameter piece on the inside. It will just be set up for manually dumping water in but it will be easy modify it so I can run a pump to it later if I want.


Close up of the hole size. There are 8 holes total.



Some photos of the pipe where it will sit inside the tank.




I wrapped the pipe in weed block to camo it. I'm going to put a little titebond slurry over this to make it mostly disappear into the background.


Here's a front shot of the tank with all the cork pieces in place. The drip pipe looks pretty good. I'm going to tack it into place with a couple of spots of silicone and then stuff some moss in around any cracks that could be big enough for a frog to be tempted to squeeze into. Really though, it's a pretty tight fit.


Door side shot. The tank will be displayed with the previous image being the primary viewing side so it looks a little weirdly designed from this angle.

Alright. So next up I'll be putting in the false bottom and some partitions to keep the drip wall from saturating the substrate. Hopefully I'll have some updates tomorrow.


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## diggenem (Sep 2, 2011)

This is impressive! I can't wait to see it up and running!


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## SpaceMan (Aug 25, 2013)

Glad to see you've resurrected this!


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

Thanks for the comments guys.

I got quite a bit more work done over the weekend.


I had to cut out a chunk of background to fit the Sherman vent I made over the bottom piece of glass. (Donation to CRARC will be made)


One of the two dividers that will sit under the drip walls: Partial mesh at the bottom to allow water to flow freely but retain the hydroton. The angle is so that the substrate can be deeper on one side than the other.


Painted the outside the tank portion of the drip pipe.


False bottom, ready to go.


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

Here are the dividers siliconed into place to keep the substrate from being saturated by the tree fern drip walls. I have no idea how well this will work. Obviously you're fighting Murphy's Law when working with water features in a viv.


Siliconing vent into place


Ok, so I learned to cut glass for this viv. I cut the bottom glass and the Sherman vent out of scrap 1/4" glass from an old hex fish tank that had cracked. Anyway, I had some crappy 3/32" glass I had gotten from lowes to make a glass lid for my first build but decided not to use because it's so thin. I cut it into these pieces to make the top vent. the screen is sandwiched between two pieces of glass so the vent ends up being 3/16", or 1/16" thicker than the door.


Here it is assembled and siliconed into place:


Close up of the vent against the drip pipe. I cut out a little deeper into the rim just against the pipe to leave room for the fan cord to run into the tank. I'll have to silicone the holes up at some point.



I cut off the rim on both sides of the tank the height of the door.


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

I decided (against probably sound advice) to do a side opening door and attach it with an acrylic piano style hinge. I have seen several builds do this successfully though. 

I used some 50 grit sandpaper to scuff the glass a bit.


... and the hinges:


Since it would clearly look like crap to have the clear hinges and glass beneath them all scratched up, I painted the hinges black before using epoxy to attach them. I should have given them another coat. I think that with the backlight from the viv they will end up looking a little splotchy with just the one coat. Ah well. Next time.


Silicone and coco fiber to hide the top edge of the glass dividers:




I siliconed a 1x1 in. piece of 1/4" glass to the top and bottom outside corners of the opening and attached a small magnet to the back side. There will be another magnet on the outside of the door to hold it closed.


Here's a wider shot:


Now, I pretty much just need the door and the fan. I'm picking up the door from the glass cutters tomorrow. I was going to get a case fan from Best Buy but the were out of 80mm fans, except for a neon blue one with 3 colored LEDs. Could be cool but not what I'm going for here.

I'm sure I'll have some holes and cracks to deal with but hopefully I'll have this ready for planting before too long


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

Ok, I got the tank planted and all the "water features" working. I ended up playing around with a lot of unnecessary embellishments for this build. Included in that was making a swiveling stand top base so that I can keep the broad side of the 29 G facing out for viewing but easily turn the door side out for feeding/maintenance.

Another late addition was a rain system consisting of tubing, floral wire and magnets. I experimented with a few designs before I found something that worked and didn't expose any metal to water. 

I attached the fan and the rain system hose to the roof of the tank with magnets. They are strong and keep everything in place while still allowing me to make adjustments as needed. I was a bit leery of leaving the metal of the magnets exposed inside the tank but they are all against the top glass and should never contact frogs or water/condensation that will drip into the tank. (The top glass stays pretty dry between the light and the fan running) I'll watch for corrosion and see how it goes.

As far as plants, I ended up doing almost a pure epiphyte tank. I'll post a detailed plant list later but roughly I've got six orchid species (mostly Pleurothallids), six Microgramma species and six small vining Peperomia species. Hmm, didn't realize I had six of all those things until I counted just now. Total accident. Also have an epiphytic blueberry a few neoregelias and a Philodendron micans cutting.

I intentionally stuck to mostly very small plants. I know it will grow in a good bit but am worried that my current plants may not provide a lot of cover for my thumbs that will be going in here.

Any other plant selections or rearrangement of current plants is welcome. I am trying to stick to purely neotropical species for this build.

top view of fan and "rain system":


close up of some ferns and peps on log:


full tank:


And here's a quick video of the rain. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TaIQKdmHIo&feature=youtu.be

Well, I can't figure out how to embed the video. But there's a link.


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

By the way, the rain will only be running for a few minutes a day.


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## Y0urbestfriend (Jan 31, 2014)

Do you have a pump hooked up to the raining system or is is just a higher standing bucket of water that pushes the water through the holes.


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

Originally I set it up with a 1" pvc pipe running around half of the top perimeter of the outside of the tank to act as a small reservoir of water. That way I could just dump some in the top of the pipe and let it run through. But I knew that would get old for me quickly and since I already had a drain and bucket in place, I decided to set up a sump under the tank. 

So, water runs from the sump up to the top of the tank where it's fed into both the rain/drip tube and another pipe which slowly seeps water into the tree fern panels on the background. Water returns to the sump via drain and bulkhead at the bottom of the tank. Also, since it's such a low volume drip, I had to set up an overflow at the top of the tank to return excess water to the sump. This is the trickling you can here in the video.

I'll try to post a better video today showing how it all works. I know it's not as good as a mister but for maybe $15 bucks in materials (minus pump) I'm pretty happy with it. It has a very relaxing appearance when the rain is going. It's more like water dripping down from a canopy I guess.


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## RandallW201 (Jun 27, 2014)

That looks nice man, great job!!!


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

RandallW201 said:


> That looks nice man, great job!!!



Thank you. I finally got a timer ordered for the rain/drip setup today. I had a hard time finding a digital timer that would go to the minute and allow multiple event settings per day. I wanted to find a power strip type with multiple outlets, all separately programmable, but that is a apparently a very tall order... Couldn't find anything like it.

I ended up going with a Titan Controls brand. Picked one up for about $18 including shipping from a hydroponics supply place. Also ordered a couple slightly larger foliage plants that I'm excited about.  I'll post pictures and another video once it all arrives and is setup/planted.


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

Ok, finally, after slowly working on it on and off for well over a year, I've gotten this viv to a point I'll call finished. I put most of the plants in a couple of months ago, but have moved a few things around and added a few things right up to this week.

Also, I finally moved my pair of southern variabilis in today.

(A short horror story on that. My male is extremely shy and stays hidden most of the time. I caught and moved the female in just a minute but had to literally tear the other vivarium completely apart to find the male. After I had taken out all the plants and wood, ripped out the background and carefully scooped out most of the soil I had actually given up and assumed that he had somehow escaped while I was removing the female or that I had crushed him during my search. 2.5 hours later, as I was pulling out the screen divider over the hydroton, he comes crawling up the side of the tank (three tadpoles in tow), literally out of nowhere. I have no idea where he could have been hiding.)

So, here's a shot of the finished tank:




I shot a short video showing the rain system. I'll try to post that in a few.


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## athiker04 (Nov 15, 2013)

Here's a video showing the rotating stand I set up for this tank, as well as the rain system. The quality is crap as I shot it with my phone. Can't hold my better camera and manipulate the tank at the same time.





I'll also get a plant list up shortly.


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## baskis (Jun 7, 2015)

Any growth updates for this tank? It's one I've had saved on my phone and go back to look at constantly


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