# Carnivorous Paludarium (Diagram added)



## Guest (Jul 26, 2005)

Well, here's my garden in a 20-gallon high tank! There are no frogs in here, just a betta who has been living in the two gallons or so in the water side and eating all the fruit-flies I am practicing culturing. 

I haven't figured out what kind of frog would be best to put in there. I was going to try to pick a bigger frog (not a thumnail) since there are a couple small venus flytraps in there. Or I could take the flytraps out, and then add the frog. 

The reason I have so many CPs in there is that I rescued most of them in a moment of weakness from their sad captivity in little plastic boxes at Lowe's, where they had been left to die on a shelf.  Although I have since learned a lot of them have different requirements, I figured I would let them grow out the season and replace them if and when it became necessary. 

The plants currently in there include: broms, a purple pitcher plant, a red pitcher plant, terrestrial bladderwort, aquatic bladderword (u. gibba), venus flytraps, cobra lillies, sundews (including a cape sundew), butterworts (including a mexican butterwort), nepenthe ampullaria, ficus pumilia, moss, a small fern, plus a couple aquatic plants and the leafy thing in the back right corner whose names escape me at the moment. The plants that didn't come from Lowes, I got on-line. 

Anyway, feedback would be appreciated.  What would you guys do to this setup? What, if anything, would you take out or put in?

More picts:










I found some shrooms in there today! I dunno where they came from, but I think they're nice!










And here's some close-ups of my favorite plants:

Butterwort:









Terrestrial bladderwort:









Enjoy!


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## Guest (Jul 26, 2005)

wow fantastic setup!! I dont know any more than you about this. How humid does it have to be?? What you are feeding your submersed utric's?? Daphnia??


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## Guest (Jul 26, 2005)

The u.gibba seems to be doing fine, I think they are eating microscopic life in the mildly dirty water. You can't see it, I should take a side-picture, (Edit: here's the picture)










The excess water from the land side drains out into the water side through little holes in the plexiglass that are hidden by the cement/rock wall. This causes the water in the front part to be perpetually brown and teaky. I've noticed tiny things living in it, so I'm pretty sure the utricularia has something to eat. The betta doesn't seem to mind the naturally black water at all-- in fact, I had to put him in my other tank to do some work in there, and he did NOT like the clear water at all. Apart from that, I occasionally add a couple drops of aquarium plant-vitamins to the water, which is all distilled. The humidity varies in there-- it's usually between 65% and 90%, and that's without me misting. The plants are watered from three rain bars stuck to the top of the tank. Anyway, I hope that answers some questions. Thanks! 

PS.
Here's some more shots of technical stuff, such as rainbars:









The waterfall:









And, erm, a random nepenthe shot:








:lol:

Enjoy!


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## c'est ma (Sep 11, 2004)

This tank just grows and grows on me. Each time I return to the thread I am more captivated by it.

When I first glanced at your first picture I thought it was a painting! You have really created a unique microcosm; and that waterfall is SO cool. The scale of the landscaping and the stages of the plants at the moment make the tank seem much bigger than a 20. 

Would you elaborate a little on the operation of the rain bars?

In a word: wow.

--Diane


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## reptileink (May 1, 2005)

I too, am interested in how you constructed the rainbars, and how well they work. I have been wanting to make some myself for my 55 Paludarium.


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## rattler_mt (Apr 15, 2005)

your terrestrial bladderwort is U. sandersonii "typical", its a lithophyte from Africa. very cool Utric, borders on being a weed it spreads so fast


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## Guest (Jul 26, 2005)

Ok, rainbars:

First what you have to understand is that my entire water system is being run by a 501 turtle canister filter that I've modified. The canister filter has two hoses coming off of it, one that is the inflow, which sucks up water, and one that is the outflow. The inflow to this canister filter I have basically installed in the tank unmodified from how it was built to be used. I don't think my pictures above are a wide enough shot for you to see the intake, and it's partially hidden behind some home-made driftwood and a plant. So here's the slightly wider shot:








Anyway, so that's where it goes in, in left corner of the water part there. 








It sucks up water from the water-section in the front and carries it to the filter, pretty much as the designers of the filter intended. 

The outflow is a different story, however. The inflow and outflow hoses are about a half-inch tubing (I can't remember the exact size). The outflow hose, though, is connected to a metal connector which splits into two quarter-inch(? whatever standard aquarium tubing is) tubes. Each tube runs to a set of 3 aquarium valves that each connect to three more tubes. 

On the left side, the three valve-tubes lead to three destinations. The first is a long tube that leads out of the tank, usually into a bucket. When that valve is on, the system will empty water from the water-side. The second tube leads to the gargoyle. When that valve is on, the gargoyle spews water like a waterfall. The third tube leads to the far right side of the water-part, to insure that there's some circulation, but it's hidden under the water, so you can't see it in the pictures. Usually, at least two valves are always open, so that the filter won't be stressed out, because it's sucking up water through a half-inch hose, and it won't be happy if it can only return water through one quarter-inch hose. The two valves I normally always leave open are the two that return water to the tank: the gargoyle waterfall and the other return hose. If I want to drain the tank, I shut off the return hose, open the valve that lets water out of the tank, and leave the gargoyle going-- this drains the water gradually. 










Now, for the rainbars: on the right side of the splitter, there is another set of three valves. Each valve leads to a separate rainbar. The rainbars are made from very thin pvc pipe I found at Lowe's. Along their length, holes have been punctured. I used a clay-sculpting tool that basically was just a pointy metal thing to punch the holes in a row, but you could probably also do this with a small drill, like a dremel. I had to cap each end of the pvc pipe, and I did this by putting a larger section of tubing over it and then using silicon glue and teflon tape to block the opening out. When the silicon dries, the result is that the little piece of tubing with a silicon plug over the end which works like a cap. At the other end of the pipes, the standard aquarium hosing (I think it's a quarter inch, I could be wrong though) fits into the pipe snugly and is secured with teflon tape and more silicon. One can also use converters you can buy at home depot to go from the size of the hose to the size of the pvc. 










Anyway, each valve controls a rainbar, and the three rainbars are mounted over the land-portion. They are attached to the screen lid above by garbage-bag twist-ties. It's important to make sure they are level when they're attached, otherwise one side will rain more than the other. I have an unusual setup as far as the lid goes and being able to attach things to the screen, because the lip of this tank was ruined accidently, so instead of having the glass lid UNDER the screen, it's actually ON TOP of it and held in place with duct tape.  

The rainbars can all be turned on at once, though they seem to rain *slightly* more vigorously if only two are turned on, and if all the other water circulation valves are turned off. It usually takes a couple seconds for them to fill up, but once they are full, the pressure pushes the water out of the holes in average, rain-sized droplets. Similarly, it may take a couple seconds after turning them off for them to stop dripping. Also, for obvious reasons, the drips tend to fall in the same place. However, I haven't noticed this to be a problem for anything in there, although if left on for hours and hours, the soil may erode a bit in places where it is not held down by plants.

My experience with the rainbars is that they work fine for distributing water around to the various plants in the viv. The plants at the edges seem to get a little less water, but before I installed the cement wall, I could see through the plexiglass that their roots had grown in towards the center, and they don't seem dehydrated. Since I don't have frogs in there yet, I couldn't tell you how effective rainbars are at "washing" frog feces off plants. The effect produced appears to me to be basically similar to natural rain. Usually when I turn them on, I leave them on for 10 minutes to an hour-- but I also left them on for five hours once by accident (turned em on, got distracted and walked away-- whoops) with no apparent ill effects. (Hey, sometimes it rains all day, right?) I like to watch it rain in there. It's a soothing treat. I don't generally make it rain more than two or three times a week, though, unless the humidity looks low. Since the land-side drains into the water in the front, raining will cause the water in the water-part to turn brown. For reasons I don't really understand, my betta fish who lives in there seems to prefer it this way. But I usually change out his water once a week, just so I can still see him. 

Which brings me to my final point: adding new water to the tank. To do this, I unhook the intake tube from the filter and hook up another tube to the intake nozzle, and this tube leads to the bottle of distilled water I want to feed into the tank. This way the intake tube in the tank can stay in place for the vast majority of the time. Also, instead of being roughly dumped in there, this allows the new water to just cycle into the system in a gentle way, so that nothing in the tank is traumatized by me changing the water. When I'm done, I hook the tank intake-tube back up and put the refill-tube away.

Oops: one more note I almost forgot: The only thing I think I might do differently, if I could, and I may end up doing this eventually, is to use black "stealth" tubing. This wouldn't be for any aesthetic reason, but just because I'm thinking it might cut down on algae growth in the tubes, which does, over time, clog them and mess up the efficiency of the set-up. I'd think that black or opaque tubes would discourage algea growth and cut down on how frequently I'd have to pull out and clean the tubes. So far, that's only been about once in three months, and only on certain tubes that got a lot of use. But if you're going to do this and you can find opaque tubing in the proper sizes, you'll probably save yourself a little hassle later.

Anyway, I hope this helps!


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## phishingpete (Jun 4, 2005)

First off that is a very unique tank. I like it!

My question is how did you do the wall? I saw in your post you said "cement wall". What type of cement and did you just find rocks that kind of fit together? Please explain?

Thanks phishingpete


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## Guest (Jul 26, 2005)

Ok, about the wall:

First of all, the "rocks" I found at Lowe's in the "tile" section. They came in two-inch tall by not quite 12-inch long sections. Although they were being sold with tiles, I'm pretty sure they're actually bits of polished marble or some other kind of rock. When you buy them, they are glued onto kind of a cardboard mesh. I bought two sections. Then I bought a piece of that plastic craft mesh. 

I used silicon aquarium glue to glue the cardboard backing the stones were glued to securely to the plastic mesh. Then I went back to Lowe's and bought a little bag of "mortar" which is just a fancy name for cement that is pre-mixed with sand. I had intended to use grout, since that's what usually goes around tiles, but I read here that it's a bad idea because of what they add to it. But the ciclid folks use cement all the time for making caves and such, so I figured it would be safe (I should mention that my background is years and years of aquarium fishkeeping, I'm only just getting into herpetology). 

So I added water to the morter until it was about the consistency of toothpaste, and then used it to carefully fill in around the rocks, and around the top and bottom. I sculpted it into a ledge on top as well. This didn't happen all at once, it took a few sittings to get all the way done, a few cycles of working with it wet, letting it dry, making changes, etc. Oh yeah, and if you decide to try this, please remember to wear latex gloves and one of those paper masks. Inhaling powdered cement is very bad for you, and if you leave it on your bare skin when it's wet, it will feel uncomfortable and make your skin peel away. 

After everything was dry, the last part was, cleaning it up with the dremel. I have a dremel with a diamond bit that chews away cement and rocks. I cleaned up the ledge with it, sanding it down to make it smooth and flat. I had to measure and re-measure, and dremel the sides down considerably to make sure it would fit in the space inside the tank, which was about 23.5 inches across. People should keep in mind, though, that dremelling cement also requires a paper mask and eye protection, since the cement will fly out from the dremel and basically spew out powedered cement and sand particles everywhere as you sand it away. After I was done, I washed the wall, and had to vacuum everything.

Then finally, I had to wedge it in there. After it dried from being washed, I put some silicon glue on the back of it, which you'll recall is plastic craft mesh, and stuck it to the plexiglass wall that was already in place. I was careful not to put glue too low on it, so I wouldn't block the drainage holes in the plexiglass. Some of the ledge overhangs the top of the plexiglass wall, so that helps keep it in place, but the main thing is, it's resting on a cement structure I'd built earlier and added to the water-side of the tank, so that if a frog fell in the water, it could climb out. It's also wedged in there pretty tight. So I don't think it's going anywhere. The wall goes down to the waterline, then it stops-- it's really only about three inches high. If I had to do it over again, I might've just built the wall onto the plexiglass to begin with instead of trying to add it later and saved myself some trouble, but that's neither here nor there. 

The end effect is, it looks really nice. My theme for this tank, or the idea I had in mind when I created it, was "forgotten garden". So I wanted the wall to look a little like a garden wall you might see near a decorative pond or something. 

About the waterfall: The gargoyle waterfall that people seem to like was also a tiny project-- we bought the gargoyle from a lady at a craft fair, but it didn't come with a hole through it for water (which is crazy, when you look at it's tongue sticking out, it was obviously meant to spew!) It turned out the gargoyle was made of resin, which is a really easy material to drill with a dremel if you're careful. The only problem really was finding a long enough, wide enough bit. You should also bring a spray-bottle while dremelling, and have somebody spray the hole to clean it out as you're going along. The drilled hole in this gargoyle goes right through the back of his mouth and out his butt. The hole is wider at the butt-end so that a piece of aquarium hose can fit in there, and I silicon glued around the hose to hold it in there. The gargoyle is connected to a valve in the back (as previously described) and one half of the return flow from the canister filter, usually.

I hope that answers your questions.  I know this tank looks pretty different from your typical PDF tank, and I've spent a long time wondering whether or not that was a good thing. Now that it's finished, I suppose the only thing to do would just be to get a frog and try it out, but I still appreciate any comments people might have about what they'd put in there, or if they wouldn't put anything, why not.
Thanks!


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## phishingpete (Jun 4, 2005)

Very neat thanks. I am new to frogs too; so I really don't have any suggestions on types of frogs.

Thanks for the info, Phishingpete


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## Arklier (Mar 1, 2004)

If you want frogs, make sure that you don't have any sundews or venus flytraps in there. Sundews are bad because the frogs would get stuck to them, and venus flytraps are bad because the frogs would stomp all over them and trigger the traps constantly. Nepenthes and butterworts are fine. I've got an N. alat in one of my tanks, and the frogs jump in and out all the time.

As for the tank itself, you'd probably want to add some branches that go from the water up to the land area, because most darts are notoriously bad swimmers and they might fall in and drown if there's no easy way up out of the water. And yes, they are NOT aquatic frogs, and they CAN drown.

Leucs or auratus would be a good addition to the tank, once you address the issues. Welcome to dendroboard and good luck with your tank and frogs.

:lol:


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## Hak (Jul 10, 2005)

Wow! I think that may be the most unique tank ive seen after almost a year surfing sites like this (this site being my favorite :lol
I am also new to keeping frogs so i cant point you in any direction there but i have had some experience with the Cobra Lilly.
I love that plant and did quite a bit of research on it (and had one in my viv for a little while) Its comes from cool banks of streams, ponds and swamps in the pacific northwest (mainly California from what i understood, hence its scientific nomenclature _Californicus Darlintonia_
or something like that i probly butchered it or got the name backwards 
Anyway i thought id let you know that since this plant is indigonous of a colder climate it does not fair so well in viv conditions. It constantly needs cold water supplied to the roots. I had mine in my viv for about 2 months untill it finally kicked the bucket, but it did shoot off one new leaf and several retarded leaves probly from lighting issues before it finally succumbed to the heat and java moss overtook it.
Its a wonderful plant but it may be one you may need to replace at least in my experience. I found researching this plant that many growers/breeders of Cobra Lilly actually will wrap its pot in ice duriing the summer to keeps its roots cool which shows how much it loves cool conditions.
Just thought id give you some info on them since i already read lots about em and attempted to keep them. I actually hope in the future to make a terrarium sufficient for plants like this since they are so interesting and the produce one of the oddest flowers you will ever see!
Again awesome viv :lol:


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## mack (May 17, 2005)

the tank is amazing to look at, and i'm glad you got some pics. that said, i'm going to rain on the parade a bit. i'm sorry to be a buzzkill, but the last post about cobra's is correct...they like it cold! both utrics will do well, and the nepenthes should be okay if it is a lowland morph(highland nepenthes need much cooler conditions), just keep it moist but not sitting wet. also the mexican pings turn into succulents in the dry(winter) season and need to dry out pretty completely for a few months. the vtf's and american pitcher plants also need a cold dormancy to survive. you could keep all of these in pots and pull them in the winter and put the vtf's and saracennia in the refrigerator for 5 months or so. the mex pings could be taken out to dry. the cobra will die at room temp no matter what. also, i would look carefully at the cement. it's almost certain to leech hardness into the water which might be fine for ciclids (hard water africans at least), but will certainly kill almost all carnivores. a great book which is cheap, fun, and thorough is "the savage garden" by peter d'amatto. you can pick up a copy for $20-ish if you wnat to know more about carnivores. again, i think the tank is really beautiful and enjoyed the pics. i really hope you figure out a way to make this setup sustainable, and keep us posted.


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## Guest (Jul 27, 2005)

Hey there,

I do have the D'Amato book. Signed copy, in fact. I'd purchased the Lowe's plants before I had it though. The cobra lillies seem fine, I am perpetually astonished that they don't die, but they keep throwing up new leaves. The water in the front part there stays cooler than the air in there, so maybe that makes a difference when it comes to watering? I couldn't guess. My plan is to just replace the plants that won't survive gradually with ones that will. I realize the die-offs will probably co-incide with the onset of winter, and I may pull the vfts and refrigerate-- we'll see. But you know, either way, they've had a good season, I've fed them lots of interesting bugs, and they would've had a much shorter life left on the shelf at the store, so whatever happens, I can't feel too bad about it.

About the water, I have tested it, and even with the cement, the PH in there is 6.0 or lower-- it's usually off the bottom of my chart. The water is distilled to start with, so it already has a low PH, then it filters through the peat/sand mix that the plants are growing in and gets even softer. So if that cement is leaching, I haven't seen a great effect. But I also change about half the water in the system every week (there's only about 2.5 gallons in the whole system), so maybe minerals from the cement just don't have time to build up. Anyway, thanks for the advice.


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## c'est ma (Sep 11, 2004)

Well, doesn't one thing just lead to another? I was immediately struck by the beautifully twisted woodwork in your tank. Would you please elaborate a little more on your 'homemade driftwood' technique?

(And do all pet stores charge as much for tank-safe wood as the ones around my area do? What a racket!)

Thanks!

--Diane


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## rattler_mt (Apr 15, 2005)

as far as the cobra lillys(Darlingtonia) if they are doing good LEAVE THEM ALONE!!! do you have any clue how many ppl continually kill them out right? they are extreamly picky in what conditions they will grow for a person. i killed several going by the book, doing everything right. it wasnt till i gave up and did the opposite of what most everything said that it started doing good for me. my hats off to you. your doing what most ppl in the carnivorous plant hobby either struggle to do or plain cant.


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## Guest (Jul 27, 2005)

Ok, regarding driftwood:

There's a tree growing in our yard called a "contorted hazelnut", also known as "Harry Lauder's Walkingstick", or "corylus avellana 'Contorta'". It produces the twisty branches. Every spring, we prune some of its twisty branches off if they look like they arent' growing. After pruning them, we used to just pile them on our back deck because they were cool, but we didn't know what to do with them. Then one day, I got this idea to make them into driftwood for my aquarium. 

I searched around on the internet for how to do this. The bad news is, it generally takes a rather long time. But I decided to do it anyway. I took the sticks that had been sitting out on the deck for a couple months and submerged them in a trashcan full of water and let them sit for a summer. (3 months). Every now and again, I would refill the water. It's important that the trashcan has a lid, otherwise mosquitos will breed like crazy in there! Anyway, so the sticks soaked and soaked all summer and I'd periodically go out, dump out the icky water, and refill. This is important because if you don't soak the wood, it will leach tannins into the water and turn it brown. Some fish, it turns out, like this, but at the time I didn't know that. Also, the soaking loosens the bark on the sticks. 

As the summer went along, whenever I emptied the trashcan, I'd look for sticks that looked like the bark was loosening. If I found one, I'd take a small knife and whittle away the bark. It works best if you can just get the blade under a hunk of bark and peel it off. If you have to "chop" into the wood, it doesn't look as good. There's kind of a natural break between the top layer of bark and the underlayer of wood, especially in the smaller sticks, you want to follow that as much as possible. Do not use sandpaper if you can help it, you scratch up all the natural lines of the wood and make it look bad. 

Once the bark is whittled away, you'll be left with a light-colored twisty twig. You can't put it in an aquarium like it is, because it's likely full of bugs and micro-organisms and other wierd stuff that you might not want in your tank. So you have to boil it for like a day. My biggest challenge there was finding a big enough container to do sticks of descent size. I finally found a big metal tub at Lowe's that covered all four burners on the oven, and used that. I put tinfoil over the top, to keep the steam in so it would boil. 

When you do this, the wood won't want to sink in the pot at first, but it has to stay sumberged, otherwise the boiling won't be effective. If it won't sink, tie it to rocks to hold it down. It's best if you've gotten all your sticks peeled so you can boil all of them at once, becuase it's kind of a pain and it takes at least a day. As you boil, you will notice the water turning yellowish-brown. Boil until this happens, then stop and change the water out, then boil again, then stop and change the water out, etc, all day. Eventually, the water will stop getting very brown, it will get yellow, then less yellow, then hardly yellow at all. If you've soaked for the whole summer, it may start at the yellow phase and not be brown at all. As you boil, the wood will also start to sink of it's own accord, because the boiling drives out the air. When you're satisfied that the water is clear and the wood is fully waterlogged so it sinks, then you're done and you should put the wood in the tank as soon as possible (though if your tank is occupied, let it cool down first!) 

If you've done all this as I've just described, you probably won't have any problems when you put it into an aquarium or viv. My aquarium driftwood has grown a little algae, but not much since the plecos appear to love it and suck on it all the time. The driftwood in my viv, however, grew a little bit of mold at first, which I sprayed down with a hand-sprayer, and I haven't seen it since. While I can't testify to the longevity of this driftwood, I can say it's lasted at least six months in my aquarium, and doesn't appear to be deteriorating. 

So anyway, that's how you can get some cool twisty driftwood of your own. The contorted hazelnut plant is typically available at Lowe's for $70 or so, though you will probably have to let it grow for a couple years before you really start harvesting it. When you buy it, it may be grafted onto a tree trunk, so it will grow as a tree, or in it's natural form, which is as a bush. Unfortunately, it does grow slowly, but if you're willing to plant it and forget about it for a while, then eventually a day will come when you can harvest the branches. Be careful only to cut off the dead ones though-- otherwise your supply will dry up pretty quick. If you wish you had some of this stuff RIGHT NOW, you might try asking around, see if any of your neighbors have any that they wouldn't mind you pruning for free. Good luck!










About the cobra lillies:
Well, I have no plans to do anything to them, except keep their environment pretty much how it already is. My working theory is that it's not a matter of keeping their roots ice-cold, so much as there needs to be a certain amount of difference in temperature between their air and the water they get. Also, I should point out my setup has excellent drainage, which is a little different from what I see in a lot of CP setups. Lastly, I do add liquid aquarium vitamins to the water occasionally, just because I know the plants are not getting the same variety of bugs as they probably would get in nature. Although I've been assured fertilizers of any sort will kill CPs dead, I haven't noticed any bad effects from a couple drops of aquarium plant vitamins in the distilled water from time to time. I've put them both in the water they get rained with as well as the water I put in my hand-mister, which I use from time to time if the humidity looks low (though probably not as regularly as some folks). I can't think of anything else I really do differently. Anyway, I hope this helps anyone trying to raise them. They are a neat plant.


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## rattler_mt (Apr 15, 2005)

fertilizer will not kill CPs out right for the most part. infact its fairly common practice to use fertilizers with Nepenthes. the key is to use about 1/4 strength and not to use it to often.


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## c'est ma (Sep 11, 2004)

*RE: driftwood making*

Whew!

Thanks!

I think I'm glad I asked...

--Diane


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## rattler_mt (Apr 15, 2005)

i think the only Cp that may really tweak out on the fertilizer would be the U. sandersonii(terrestrial bladderwort) i know they will tweak out and keel over with most pesticides(i know your not using them in your tank) even those safe for everyother CP. but its an easy to find very hardy species so i wouldnt worry about it to much. being that your tank is a closed system for all intents and purposes i would go very easy on the fertilizer and stick to natural types that will break down safely. if/when yah put frogs in there they will probably give the plants all the nutrients they need for the most part.


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## Guest (Jul 28, 2005)

Hi there..nice looking viv!

Just a quick question...are the aquarium valves you are using to split your water the ones meant for airline tubing? I'm doing a similar setup in my viv and am still trying to find the best product for moving the water to different sides of the tank. I like the idea of being able to turn different sections on or off as needed.

Thanks-
Brooke


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## Guest (Jul 28, 2005)

Hi there,

Yes, they are the same aquarium valves that are generally used with air pumps. I've found that they are less unwieldy and more efficient than the individual Home Depot variety I had before. Even though the Home Depot valves are intended for use with water, I suspect they're not intended to be attached to aquarium hose, because I found them to be a big pain in the butt as far as the lengths one had to go to with the teflon tape to make them leak-proof. The aquarium valves, on the other hand, don't leak and are designed to attach to aquarium hose, and maybe most important: they detach easily enough for cleaning. I got them from PetSmart, and they came stuck to a clear plastic thing intended to help hang them on the back of a fishtank, which was easily removed. I've been really happy with them so far, my only problem is that the right-side ones are a really kind of stiff to turn. I don't know if I just got one defective set, or if it's a result of them not really being designed for water, or what. I may decide to replace them, since they're not expensive, just to see if that improves things. Anyway, good luck with your setup!


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## Ryan (Feb 18, 2004)

VERRY cool post on driftwood! Should make a whole thread bout that!


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## Guest (Jul 30, 2005)

Where exactly is the canister hidden. This tank is great and I am looking to pattern mine after it. I am also currious about the drain holes in the plexiglass. If you mortared the tile to the plexiglass how would these holes be effective? Thanks for the pics and your great advice . Rich


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## Guest (Jul 31, 2005)

Hi there,

The canister filter is outside the tank to the left of it. It's not really "hidden" per se, I just didn't put up a wide enough picture to show it before. Though it's possible to "hide" a canister filter behind a tank, under a tank, basically anywhere you want, as long as you've got long enough tubing. If you need more tubing, you can usually get some of the appropriate size at Home Depot-- they have a lot of different sizes of tubing.










Ok, the drain holes are a little harder to explain, because I don't have good pictures of them. So here's a lame diagram:









The wall is not mortared directly onto the plexiglass where the holes are drilled. The rocks and mortar are attached to a strip of plastic craft screen. Then I put a layer of silicon glue onto the plexiglass, but I only put the glue on the top two inches or so above the holes. Otherwise the glue would block the holes. The back of the craft-screen wall is thus glued onto the plexiglass, but not sealed over the holes. Since the glue doesn't extend down to cover the holes, there's actually a tiny bit of airspace between the back of the wall and the plexiglass, where the water seeps out from the holes behind the wall. Although it does not drain quickly, I can still tell it's draining because A. I can look at the side-view of the tank and see the land part drying out and B. it still turns my water brown after it "rains" on the land-side. When I say "holes in the plexiglass", what I mean is, a row of little holes, like one every half-inch, drilled in a horizontal line. The floor of the land section, which is angled to move excess water forward and out the holes, is glued on just below the line of holes. The water is filled up to just under where the holes are. If you look at the picture of the side-view of the tank in my previous post, it should give you a good idea of what's going on. I think I should also mention the sponge strip that covers the holes on the inside of the land-part-- this is so the dirt doesn't erode directly through the holes, so the water will only carry away what parts of it dissolve small enough to go through the sponge.

Personally, I like this setup a lot, the only drawback for me initially was committing a bunch of space in the tank to being "unusable", which is the area behind the water part and below the angled floor of the land part. This had to be done, though, in order for the extra water to drain into an area lower than the land in the front of the tank. I put a block of styrofoam carved at an angle in the unusable portion to support the plexiglass bottom, and then surrounded it with gravel, so it looks like gravel on the outside, but it's not as heavy as it would be if there was nothing but gravel in there. I figured this might be a good idea, in case I ever want to move the tank. That part is pretty much permanently inaccessable, since it's silicon-sealed so that no water in the front or above it will leak in. Anyway, I hope this helps, good luck.


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## Guest (Jul 31, 2005)

Excellent diagram! I really LOVE this tank, the whole idea of it is just terrific!


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## Guest (Feb 8, 2006)

What a unique viv! Maybe I could retrofit on of my gargoyles. HHhhmmm...So many great ideas...


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## back2eight (Dec 19, 2005)

It is beautiful and unique. I wish it would last because it really is awesome. I would put some more of my CPs in there, but don't want to kill them. I'm afraid that some of those you have in there will not last too long, like others have said they need a cold season. A VERY weakened fertilizer used only VERY, VERY rarely might would be okay, but for CPs you don't put it in their water, you're supposed to foliar feed them. In a tank, there really is nowhere for the fertilizer to go so its just going to build up in there. Also, aren't you afraid of the fertilizer killing any animal you put in there? Someone else mentioned not to put sundews, I don't agree with that. I have several in both of my frog tanks. I have mostly sundews and butterworts, and some seedling nepenthes that I will remove when they get bigger. VFTs are a no-no for a terrarium unless you take them out for the winter, as are any sarracenia species and the darlingtonia. Too bad, because they are the coolest plants. I am lucky enough to live in an area where these grow naturally, so my climate is perfect for growing them outdoors here, and I stick to just the tropical CPs for my tanks.


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