# 240 gallon vivarium : almost finished



## Guest (Jun 18, 2005)

My tank is almost finished, with the recent addition of my Mist King system (thanks Marty), all I have left are a few more plants. The tank is 4 feet x 4 feet x 2 feet and has a sump under the brick part. The waterfall runs through a river that winds around the tank and empties into a pool with an overflow that goes back to the sump. The "tree" is PVC pipe covered with great stuff and wrapped with sphagnum moss.

Right now I have two female cobalts, five subadult cobalts, and one male Basti in there, along with one day gecko.

This picture is of me and my oldest daughter putting the tank together.










Here's the finished (almost) product

















I opted away from the sliding door because I didn't want it to get all scratched, so the door is held in place by neodynium magnets, works real nice too.


















And here's Mr. Basti


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## Spar (Mar 27, 2004)

That is insane :shock: 

Keep up with the pics once the plants get going strong! You may never see the frogs


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## DaFrogMan (Oct 8, 2004)

Looks good so far I bet you'll enjoy having a bigger vivarium because you can have a more diverse array of plants, but like spar said - you might not see your frogs often.



Spar said:


> That is insane :shock:


If you think Cricket's viv is big, check this one out:

http://www.georgecramer.com/dutchvivariumsrb.html


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## Lukeomelas (Mar 15, 2005)

Wow, that tank really looks good now. I saw it in its early stage and was a little unsure, but now it looks great! Could you give us a little more info about the magnets and how you built the center support structure. Keep us posted.


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## mnchartier (May 9, 2005)

Cricket,

That is a superb viv. Question did you have the viv made or did you construct from scratch? If it was made who did you get to build it? 

We are in the process of building a new house and I will have my own room for my frogs and would like to have 2 vivs around that size. I am actually thinking of making them out of wood. But after seeing that I may have to change my mide and start practicing with either glass or acrylic.


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## Guest (Jun 19, 2005)

I made this from scratch with 1/4 inch thick acrylic. I haven't had a whole lot of experience with acrylic, but I really enjoyed working with it. There are a number of things I would have done differently,(and will with the next one) as I am already starting to get some cracks starting around the screws.  

See if you have a good plastics guy in your town. You can get a lot of good info from them.

Cricket


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## Guest (Jun 20, 2005)

Lukeomelas said:


> Wow, that tank really looks good now. I saw it in its early stage and was a little unsure, but now it looks great! Could you give us a little more info about the magnets and how you built the center support structure. Keep us posted.


The magnet idea was my wife's (and she wants credit for it...there I said it). Basically there I two high strength neodynium magnets on each of the four corners of the door, one on the inside and one on the outside. I have them held in place with just a little hot glue, the magnets really hold themselves on, but the glue keeps them in place when I open the door. I also have an acrylic bar at the bottom to keep it from slipping. I got the magnets off ebay, about $15 for eight of them. I can give you the name of the vendor if you're interested.



















The tree is just a PVC core









with some great stuff to add some shape to it









and covered with sphagnum moss








the moss is held in place by wrapping it with lightweight fishing line.

Cricket


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## Guest (Jun 20, 2005)

how did you make the stream?
Brooks


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## Guest (Jun 21, 2005)

Mantella Guy said:


> how did you make the stream?
> Brooks


The stream was a series of trial and errors. It started out as a pattern cut from 2" thick styrofoam in several layers glued toether. Then I shaped it up with a knife and a torch. I was trying to avoid using epoxy (cause I'm lazy) so I tried a whole bunch of other things to coat the styrofoam. Retrospecively, the epoxy probably would have been less work.

First thing I did was fill in spaces and build up parts with great stuff to shape it how I wanted. Then I tried coating it with flooring tile adhesive for strength (this sort of worked, but it never really dried hard, it was always sticky). So then I made some portland cement slurry and dipped cheesecloth in it and used that to cover the tile adhesive, but mostly just along the river and the pools. Then I painted the whole thing with Dry-Loc. Finally, since it still didn't feel real water tight, I coated all the water-holding parts with a polyurethane resin (kind of like epoxy, but it remains flexible). If I were to do it again, and I probably will, I would have just painted the styrofoam/greatstuff and epoxied that.

Cricket


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## Guest (Jun 21, 2005)

Gotchya

I think it looks great. I hope my 270 gallon comes out this good. :lol: 

Brooks


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## Marty (Feb 27, 2004)

WOW ! Great looking setup! Keep the pictures coming, I'm sure this will be insane once everything gets overgrown....actually it's already insane


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## Schism (Nov 12, 2004)

I am curious how much warping you are going to have with the door. I know on my tank the doors warped a bunch. I kept it under control, but I'm curious what will happen with yours with those magnets. It was pretty obvious on mine that it was mostly effected by the hinges on the sides. 

The tank is going to be nice!


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## mnchartier (May 9, 2005)

I think that adding a few more of the magnets will help reduce warping on the door. I have acrylic tops on my tank with a 6x6 inch hole for access without having to remove the entire cover that is covered with a 7x7 inch piece of acrylic that is held down by magnetic tape. The tops are held down on the corners with a 3" surface bolt to help prevent the warping on the edges that happened on the previous tops that I had and have work thus far.

I would add atleast on more magnet in the middle of each side to help prevent this before it becomes and issue.


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## josh_r (Feb 4, 2005)

your tank is great! how did you build the tank?? it looks to bescrews or something holding the panes together. sorry if you already posted it in here, but im late for work and need to rush. once again, awesome tank!

-josh


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## Schism (Nov 12, 2004)

mnchartier said:


> I think that adding a few more of the magnets will help reduce warping on the door. I have acrylic tops on my tank with a 6x6 inch hole for access without having to remove the entire cover that is covered with a 7x7 inch piece of acrylic that is held down by magnetic tape. The tops are held down on the corners with a 3" surface bolt to help prevent the warping on the edges that happened on the previous tops that I had and have work thus far.
> 
> I would add atleast on more magnet in the middle of each side to help prevent this before it becomes and issue.


I agree with you thinking it needs at least another set on each edge. It probably should be done right away, once its gets going its virtually impossible to get back to how it started.


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## Guest (Jun 21, 2005)

Cricket said:


> ......I am already starting to get some cracks starting around the screws.
> 
> Cricket


i see some one else asked about this, so i re-read and brought up a question of my own. could you take a picture of your corner detail? i woudl like to see how you attached the display panels to the sides. are they all 1/4"?


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2005)

Schism said:


> I am curious how much warping you are going to have with the door. I know on my tank the doors warped a bunch. I kept it under control, but I'm curious what will happen with yours with those magnets. It was pretty obvious on mine that it was mostly effected by the hinges on the sides.
> 
> The tank is going to be nice!


My plan with the warping was to reverse the door if it starts. Just pull off the magnets, flip the door over, and reglue them on the other side. Don't know if that will work or not, but there's about 10-20 pounds worth of pull on each of those magnets, so it's holding the door pretty flat.

Cricket


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## Schism (Nov 12, 2004)

You'll be amazed what acrylic can do It really won't warp uniformly, it will be based on where its getting more moisture, air, temp, etc. Flipping it may not help, and it may not fit once flipped (if it bubbled out). 

You do have one thing in your favor however with warping, It looks like it would be easy to make a new door if you do get a major problem. 



Also with regard to warping, did you fasten the sides together with anything more than the screws? If not this is probably why they are starting to crack. If its not completely solid it will warp, and it will only get worse. You may want to look into glueing those sides together so you don't end up with a big mess....


When I put my acrylic tank together I heard the warnings of warping, but was really astonished how much it actually does warp. HTH


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2005)

2mnytnx said:


> i see some one else asked about this, so i re-read and brought up a question of my own. could you take a picture of your corner detail? i woudl like to see how you attached the display panels to the sides. are they all 1/4"?


My original plan was to glue all the edges together with methylene chloride, but my wife wouldn't let me use it in the house cause we have three children and all the biohazard and carcinogenic warnings kinda turned her off the idea. So I had to make it so that I could glue some of it outside, but assemble it inside. So I glued 1/2 inch square acrylic rod to half of the corners and screwed the other panel into the rod. If anyone wants to do this I can save you some grief with a few pointers from the mistakes I made. It's a good system and it works great, but I made a few dumb errors that I can't correct at this stage.










Cricket


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2005)

Schism said:


> Also with regard to warping, did you fasten the sides together with anything more than the screws? If not this is probably why they are starting to crack. If its not completely solid it will warp, and it will only get worse. You may want to look into glueing those sides together so you don't end up with a big mess....


That may or may not end up being a problem, only time will tell, but the cracks I'm getting are where I had screws under too much pressure. I should have oversized the holes in the panels to give it some expansion room, but I made it too snug.

Cricket


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## Schism (Nov 12, 2004)

That makes sense... 
I was gonna say if you getting cracks from pressure already you do have a problem. 

Sounds like it should be fine, at least for now


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2005)

cricket, thanks for the explanation and pic. 

also in reguards to your door warping. if it does warp and is not able to be flipped, could you just get a piece of glass and glue the magnets to it? glass should last a long time, even 1/8" wont warp


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2005)

2mnytnx said:


> cricket, thanks for the explanation and pic.
> 
> also in reguards to your door warping. if it does warp and is not able to be flipped, could you just get a piece of glass and glue the magnets to it? glass should last a long time, even 1/8" wont warp


Good idea. I have been avoiding glass since I have 4 small children running around, but I could probably swing it for the door if needed.


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## Lukeomelas (Mar 15, 2005)

Cricket,

Thanks for the info, could you give me the name of the magnet vendor, I have a few projects that I think these magnets would work great for.


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## mnchartier (May 9, 2005)

Cricket,

After seeing you that you used them for the doors I started looking into them for the same reason. Here is a site that I found to have a huge selection and decent prices

http://www.kjmagnetics.com/


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## Guest (Jun 23, 2005)

Lukeomelas said:


> Cricket,
> 
> Thanks for the info, could you give me the name of the magnet vendor, I have a few projects that I think these magnets would work great for.


Already done, I got them from kjmagnetics. They have an ebay store and, I guess, a regular website too.

Cricket


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