# First Vivarium Build Journal - 55 Gallon Display



## cfaas (Mar 7, 2016)

Hello all,

Here I will post and update the build journal for my first vivarium. 

As a kid I always wanted a 'mini-habitat' to keep frogs or lizards in, replicating their environment to make them feel as comfortable as possible. So when my stepfather gave me a 55 gallon fish tank I knew right away what I wanted to do with it.







I live in a 1 bedroom apartment with my girlfriend, so this thing is a focal point of my living room, whether I want it to be or not! After browsing these forums and other various resource sites I felt I was ready to begin building. 
It's been a slow process, taking my time, asking questions before making a decision I'm not 100% certain of, minimizing mistakes.

First step was designing the layout with egg crate. I wanted a 'water feature' (which I actually want to just be pebbles up to just below the water level) and lowest point to be the front left section, and build height back and right from there to create the most depth possible from the viewpoint most people will see the tank from (front left corner).







Eggcrate now covered in window screen. Used about 250 zip I think. Definitely a learning experience on how to streamline that process.







Shipment from NEHERP comes with 2 1Gallon bags of cork bark and a few orders or cork tube. I had already picked up silicone and Great Stuff so I got to work right away selecting and laying out cork.
1 gallon bag of cork from NEHERP, cat for scale.​












The goal going into the background was to keep it as thin as possible to allow for the most open space. This things only 13'' deep so I didn't want to take up 4'' of space with just the background.

After laying the cork out, I filled in around everything with Great Stuff. It was the first time I've ever used the stuff so it was pretty messy and I ended up using WAY too much. This was okay though because the next morning me and my girlfriend hacked away at it with razors and kitchen knives.

After that it was time to start laying the silicone and coconut fiber. 







Working in a horizontal tank like this kinda sucked because the fumes from the silicone and particles from the coconut husk invaded my sinuses. Finally finished covering everything with the dirt.







The lighting is a 'Marineland Aquatic Plant LED'. I traded a few bottles of nice wine to a friend that owns a small aquarium/amphibian shop for it, he seemed to think it was a good choice but I had never heard of it. 
Turns out there's not a lot of info on it so I went ahead and did some research and created a post which you can find Here

Custom background complete! Pretty happy with how it turned out. Now to send out some more orders and move onto step 2. More to Come!







Also shoutout to my girlfriend for researching and helping me realize this weird little dream of mine.​


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## multhor (Aug 5, 2013)

looks good , cant wait to see how it develops


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## cfaas (Mar 7, 2016)

Update:
Substrate and first order of plants now in the tank. 
I have a small pump running water up to the top of the rock, worked out about as well as I hoped it would.
The cork laying on the substrate is just for the microfauna until the leaf litter I've ordered arrives.

I'm not sure what kind of amphibians to keep in here. At it's deepest point the water is about 1.5 inches in depth. Any suggestions?


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