# 70 gal display cube - Feedback appreciated



## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Hello all,

First of all I wanted to thank everyone who's provided me advice and support along the way, and all of those threads I've relied on for advice and inspiration.

I am finally making some progress on my build, so wanted to post this in order to get any feedback and advice anyone is willing to offer.

I am building a 24X24X28 tank with sliding glass doors and a Sherman vent. Going to stick this in the corner of my living room and plan to put 3 tincs in it.

I put a basic diagram in this thread: http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/beginner-discussion/219626-24x24x28-vivarium-plans-w-sliding-doors-sherman-vent.html, but didn't get any feedback, so I assumed that meant it wasn't too horrible and started building a couple weeks back.

Here's the box so far (please ignore the state of my living room - going to paint the walls after I get the tank planted):


I got silicone all over when trying to square it up. That took forever to scrape that off and clean the glass, and I've still got a little cleaning to do. The back piece is not 100% square - the top right edge of the back is pushed in about 1mm, but I just couldn't get it perfect while the silicone was wet. All the other edges are pretty much flush. I verified the top glass sits flat, so I'm hoping it's not a huge problem. My biggest fear is I'll have trouble aligning the sliding glass doors and vent after I add the top piece.

For the hardscape, I've got a piece of fairly smooth, curved Malaysian driftwood to section off a corner "pond." And I've got another piece of driftwood and a nice piece of ghostwood to use as "centerpieces." Here's some pictures of an arrangement I was thinking about, from left, center, and right perspective. The back piece of driftwood and ghostwood will sit higher after substrate is added. The front left piece of driftwood creates a corner pond, while the other piece kind of sections off the back left corner in case the frogs want a more secluded area to hang out. The ghostwood is just for decoration since I don't think it's wide enough for tincs to climb on.

View from the center: 


View from the left: 


View from the right: 



*I could use some feedback on what to do with the background*. I've got two large cork flats I squared up to fit along the left and right. But I'm not sure what to do in the middle - I've got 2 medium-sized pieces that fill up most of the middle area OR could fill the whole thing in with a bunch of small pieces, mosaic-style, sphagnum moss stuffed in the cracks. I've got 3 basic arrangements I'm thinking of:

Fill center section with small pieces: 


Fill with medium pieces (version 1): 


Fill with medium pieces (version 2): 


I would welcome any feedback if people like one of those best. I kind of like the mosaic with the small pieces in the center, but trying to plane down the backs of them to get them to stick would be pretty time consuming.

Other plans: I got a bunch of cool rocks, was going to stick a couple of those in. For a drainage layer I bought expanded glass aggregate, then to hide that, I was going to put a layer of small rocks around the perimeter, with a mesh barrier between the rocks outside and drainage layer inside, similar to what Glenn did here: http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/members-frogs-vivariums/72257-recent-shots-vivs-frogs-pic-heavy.html#post1400945

That's all I've got for now. Hoping to finish assembling the box and background this week and get it planted within 2 weeks.

Thanks for reading,
Thane


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## frogpecker (Mar 20, 2013)

You are off to a great start and I'll follow your build. I love following these build posts in real time just to see where your journey will take you. There'll be twists and unexpected turns along the way but that's what makes it exciting.

As to your question re background layout: I always found that less is more. That's why I find your option filling the middle section with larger pieces of cork bark more to my liking.

I like working cork bark into my backgrounds (the usual GS covered in silicone/peat moss/coco fiber). Recently I have switched to using round or half-round larger pieces (few of them; I'd use one or two in a build your size). I find this (i) gives the background much more perception of depth if you model/carve the GS around it a little; and (ii) allows for a more realistic impression when you attach plants to the cork bark. I also like filling some of the spaces between background cork with moss. But again, these are my tastes and the way you laid it out will work perfectly well.

Have fun and please keep the pictures coming!!


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thanks, I appreciate it. My original plan was to try and shape the large cork pieces so the whole thing would fit together seamlessly. But I quickly realized that would be extremely difficult and I hadn't bought enough pieces to cover the whole back panel anyways. 

I did consider whether I was sticking them too close together - how much gap to leave between. I'll have to go back and look at some other examples people have done to see what spacing looks best. I bought one large cork "stump", but I was planning on cutting that in half to use as a hide/coco hut substitute, rather than sticking it in the background.

I was trying to avoid using great stuff if at all possible. There's a big thread called "Beginner mistakes" on here and half of posts are these horror stories about great stuff, so that scared me off it. I hoped the big cork pieces would have enough texture to them to give a little depth. It's hard to see from the pictures but all the bigger pieces have some curvature and bow out a couple inches. I had to plane down the back edges a lot just to make them sit flat and give some surface area to silicone to the glass.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

For those waiting with bated breath, here's the winning arrangement:



I got impatient trying to use hand tools to shape the pieces. Had spent hours and hours using hand saws, rasp/planer, sander, and dremel to smooth out the edges and shape the sides. So I went over to my friend's house who has fancy power tools. He was able to flatten the back sides by running them vertically through a band saw, then straightened the back and edges with a joiner. 

I'm really excited about the results. Hard to tell from the photo, but it should hopefully sit a lot flatter against the edges and back now, and there's less of a gap for frogs to wedge their way into - I am planning on stuffing a bunch of sphagnum moss into any cracks or openings remaining.

My next steps are to silicone on the top and vents, and install the sliding doors. I'm hoping to complete the hardscaping this weekend. The local greenhouse gets their tropical plant shipment on Tuesday, so I would really like to have it ready to plant by then.

*Question:* does anyone know if there's any risk of uncured silicone harming plants? Like when I assembled the thing I waited 4 days for the silicone to cure. If I only wait a day or two between siliconing the cork background and top glass in, is that going to be a potential problem? I'm wondering also if the silicone would take an extra long time to cure with the added moisture? If so, I could be patient and wait a couple days longer to plant it, but the greenhouse is going to have maximum selection on Tuesday.


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## frogpecker (Mar 20, 2013)

Silicone cures relatively fast (depending on layer thickness). 24 hours is usually sufficient the way we layer it on for our vivarium backgrounds. 4 days is on the very safe side if not to say overkill.

As to how plants tolerate curing silicone: it depends but usually very well. Some plants (tillandsia, broms) are very resilient and sometimes even mounted to background surfaces with a tiny amount of silicone on their bases. I did this often with no ill effects ever observed. If plants are not in direct contact with the silicone it should be absolutely safe unless they are extremely susceptible to acidic conditions (curing silicone releases acetic acid). But by and large I'd say you are absolutely safe after 24 hours.

Concerning the horror stories about GS: we all have made our experiences. That's what is most commonly referred to as learning curve. I use it a lot and have my own love and hate relationship (don't EVER wear anything fancy...) but overall it's pretty useful, fast and benign. Try it some other time.

I really love how you went about planing the cork bark. Great idea. I can see you are already infected with the building bug.

Cheers and keep up the good work.


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## Nestle_ (Jan 28, 2014)

following this build!


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thanks everybody - I made some good progress over the week. I found out the local greenhouse won't get their tropical plants in until next Tues, so that gave me an extra week to get it ready for planting. I also ordered some plants and bugs from NE Herp, which should arrive early next week. So that gives me a nice firm deadline to shoot for. 

At this point, the tank is pretty much complete, just need to install the doors, so I'm going to start hardscaping tomorrow. I'll try to post some pictures of my progress tomorrow evening.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

So here's some pictures before I start work tonight.

I cleaned the glass up multiple times in order to get the extra silicone off - tried acetone, mineral spirits, rubbing alcohol, and window cleaner. The most effective method I've come up with is to use a sharp/new razor blade to scrape off as much silicone as possible, then use some 0000 steel wool in combination with mineral spirits to get the remaining silicone residue off. The mineral spirits smell awful and leave a greasy haze all over the glass, so then I use some foaming glass cleaner (Invisible glass) to get the haze off (have to wipe it down twice). Then I had to repeat this whole process again after I stuck the top on, but wasn't as bad as the first time.


So here's the box flipped upside down - I did this in order to put silicone on the top screen/vent and to get a better angle cleaning off the top of the thing. I couldn't come up with a better way to silicone the vent in. When putting the top on (the box was rightside up at the time), I put the glass in place with tape, then kind of wedged the edges of the screen under the glass, then bent the screen and taped it in place while the silicone cured on the glass. Then I flipped the whole thing over to finish the silicone on the vent.




Here's the screen after I siliconed it in. After learning the hard way twice, I decided to really do a good job masking this off. I masked off the inside and outside before putting silicone in, which led to a really clean job. Wish I had taken the time to do that with all the other silicone, could have saved hours of work and breathing in harsh chemicals.




Here's the doors, which I will install last, after I finish hardscaping. I got some door pulls at Home Depot that I thought would look nice and not take up too much space, measured those carefully and siliconed them in. It's sitting on a red towel in the picture.




Lastly, here's a very exciting bucket system I came up with in order to clean and soak everything. I got some expanded glass aggregate (grow stones) for the drainage layer, which I believe have some calcium carbonate in them, so I soaked those for a couple days and switched out the water. I did the same with the driftwood to remove some of the tannins to make the water look a little clearer. And I got a bunch of rocks to create kind of a border to hide the drainage layer and a few large ones for decoration. Cleaned all those off also and sorted by size. Not going to stick all those rocks in there, just wanted a nice selection. Then I've got another bucket just for all the towels I've used cleaning this thing off. Buying the giant "Rags in a Box" turned out to be a great purchase. I was using old washrags with mineral spirits to clean off the silicone at first, then I discovered if you try washing them with your towels, the whole thing will smell like mineral spirits and you have to watch the towels 5 more times to get the smell out.


If you look closely you can see my special assistant Arya in the background.

That's all I've got for now. The plan tonight is to flip the tank on the back side and put in the cork background, then tomorrow start putting in the drainage layer, mesh, and rocks.

*Question if anyone knows -* I'm going to basically use the cork bark mosaic method, but with larger pieces (pictured above in the thread), leaving some gaps between the pieces. I read that you're supposed to just jam some damp sphagnum moss in the cracks, but I don't know how easy that will be. Some of the cork is pretty thin near the edges, and will be sitting on flat glass, so might not have a very deep gap to stick it into. Would it be bad to kind of smear a thin layer of silicone directly on the glass to assist sticking the sphagnum to it? I believe this is normally not an issue because people are sticking the cork bark into great stuff, but I'm sticking the cork directly on the glass this time.

Thanks again everybody,
Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Background installed! I'm pretty excited about this - I think it looks a little cooler in person because you can see more depth and texture than the photo indicates.



Took a little longer than I expected - I boiled and baked the cork for a little bit, which took a while to dry out. Then I had to shape some of the pieces a little more. I guess the lesson I learned here was to use a large amount of silicone because even after all the planing they still weren't getting surface contact everywhere. Also I learned that a shallower tank (front to back) might be easier next time - hurt my back bending all the way over to reach the back of this thing.

Hopefully all the pieces are stuck in pretty well. I set rocks on them to hold them in place while the silicone cures. I guess my fear at this point would be that the cork might warp under humidity later on and break loose.

Tomorrow I'm going to spend filling all the gaps with sphagnum moss, then will spend the weekend putting in the bottom and installing the sliding doors.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

I made some good progress tonight. I tipped the box upright and removed the drop cloth from underneath. Then I filled in some of the larger gaps by siliconing some dry sphagnum in. I'm planning to stuff damp sphagnum into all the cracks in between the background pieces, however I was worried it might not hold in some of the larger gaps. So hopefully this should give it a more filled out look. I haven't put the damp sphagnum in yet because I wanted to let the silicone cure first.

Here's the background, upright, with sphagnum glued in the larger gaps (note: this is a larger photo, in case anyone feels like zooming in on the cork. I feel the shrunken down pictures kind of fail to capture the texture of it.)




Here's a view from the back. I tried to use a liberal amount of silicone around all the parts I thought would touch. I feel like the smaller pieces are stuck in a little better. Despite trying to plane them flat, the piece on the left isn't making very much contact on the back - it's mostly stuck in on the top and side. The piece on the right was more curved, it's making contact along the back edges and top. So I'm worried if these warp at all they might pop out.




And most exciting of all - I put in the doors for the first time. I had not siliconed the Sherman vent in at this time, because I wanted to have a little wiggle room if the top and bottom tracking did not alight. So first I installed the top tracking, holding the edge of a square inside the track to keep it straight (the plastic was slightly curved). I managed to get it installed okay, but not quite flush with the front. Then I tested out the doors with the Sherman vent and bottom tracking not attached, to test if it would stick at all. They moved okay so I stuck in the bottom tracking. Then while leaving the doors in, I siliconed the vent in. This made for some awkward angles, but now I have piece of mind the doors will slide, and the top and bottom tracking and vent are all aligned with each other. I will install the side tracking later - those aren't as critical.

So I'm very excited to see this all together for the first time:



I think the door handles look nice and seem solidly attached. The only thing I would have done differently with the doors is to mount the handles slightly further out. And I made a mistake when calculating the overlap. The front "hole" is 24 in wide, so I figured 13 in wide doors would overlap by a inch. But they overlap by 2 inches. Could have thought that out better.

Next steps: tonight I will test for water tightness by leaving some water in the bottom. Then tomorrow I'm going to work on adding the bottom layers.


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## Twisted46 (Jan 16, 2015)

That looks good! I kind of wish I would have gone cork bark for my background, but I wanted a more rocky look so I went wish GS and some bigger pieces of driftwood that stick out form the background. What is your plan for planting?


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Twisted46 said:


> That looks good! I kind of wish I would have gone cork bark for my background, but I wanted a more rocky look so I went wish GS and some bigger pieces of driftwood that stick out form the background. What is your plan for planting?


Thank you! I think if I used the great stuff I could have maybe not worried about trying to get the cork bark so flat on the back, so that might have been worth a try. My plan for planting was to try to grow some moss on the bottom of the background and maybe put some on the rocks and driftwood, but I would like the groundcover to be mostly leaf litter, since that's what the frogs are supposed to like. I ordered some of the "moss slurry" from NE Herp so I'll put that in a couple places and see what happens. I also bought some baby tears to see if those will spread and form a nice dense mat. The other stuff I ordered online was mostly ferns and vines. I'm going to try and buy some stuff like peperomias and aroids in town but couldn't find much vine or fern selection locally. I did not order any bromeliads though, since the tincs do not require them for egg laying, and I thought they might get too big for the tank. I was going to go for a more green, monochromatic look to kind of let the colors of the frogs stand out, so did not order any stuff with big blooms or colorful leaves. I also didn't order any golden pothos, creeping fig, or wandering jew because I heard all of those can spread rapidly and take over the vivarium. Ideally I'd like to not have too overgrown of a look.

Update for tonight: Here's what it looks like after sticking some damp moss in all the cracks. I also stuck some on the right and left outside edges to conceal some of the exposed silicone and kind of frame it up a bit.



It didn't leak any water overnight, so going to proceed with putting in the bottom layers tonight and tomorrow. The big local greenhouse gets their tropical plant shipment in Tuesday so I should be ready to plant by then.


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## Polypodium (Jan 3, 2011)

That's a really nice background and tank. Good job!


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## StayInclined (Mar 6, 2015)

Ah nice cork bark there!  I wish I could find some in bulk around here for less.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thanks, I appreciate it. I had originally intended to purchase a pre-made 18X18X24 tank, but got some encouragement from the forum that I could make my own. So I decided to do a bigger one with more area for the frogs. The glass wasn't that much more, but I forgot I had to get more cork, substrate, etc. The floor area is 77% larger, and overall volume is double. So costs kind of ballooned.

I think I paid $20 each for the two large pieces, $10 and $15 for the two medium sized, and the small pieces came from a gallon bag of bulk pieces from NE Herp, I think about $7. I got the large pieces at a reptile show from a lady who normally sells bird stuff. It was the only frog-related thing at the show so I got a little excited. I think if you were going to do multiple vivariums or a really big one, it would be more economical to just buy a bulk assortment.


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## epiphytes etc. (Nov 22, 2010)

Your background looks good. I'm a fan of the cork mosaic method. For future reference, you can use gorilla glue to attach your cork while it's still damp. This helps in two ways; a. It will expand to fill in more space, and b. The cork will already be expanded and in it's final shape, no need to worry about warping. Good luck.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

epiphytes etc. said:


> Your background looks good. I'm a fan of the cork mosaic method. For future reference, you can use gorilla glue to attach your cork while it's still damp. This helps in two ways; a. It will expand to fill in more space, and b. The cork will already be expanded and in it's final shape, no need to worry about warping. Good luck.


That's a good tip. I just assumed I was supposed to use silicone and figured it wouldn't stick to wet cork. Question for you - what do you think the likelihood is any of the pieces breaks free after it's planted and humidity increased? If that happens I assume the solution would be to stick it back in with gorilla glue? I'm going to get the frogs about mid April, so allowing for quarantine, it should give 2 months for "cycling the tank" so I hope any warping would occur before I add the frogs and I could make any repairs/adjustments.


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## epiphytes etc. (Nov 22, 2010)

I've never had any pieces come off from warping, but I've had bigger gaps form, which I just stuffed with more sphag. One time I made a tank by gluing a sphag-stuffed cork tube across an exo to make sort of a single horizontal branch. Anyhoo, after the tank got fully moistened, the cork swelled, causing the side glass to bow out. It kinda looked like this (=) I ended up having to cut a thin section out with a hacksaw and hiding the "wound" with more sphag. That's when I started using cork pre moistened.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

epiphytes etc. said:


> I've never had any pieces come off from warping, but I've had bigger gaps form, which I just stuffed with more sphag. One time I made a tank by gluing a sphag-stuffed cork tube across an exo to make sort of a single horizontal branch. Anyhoo, after the tank got fully moistened, the cork swelled, causing the side glass to bow out. It kinda looked like this (=) I ended up having to cut a thin section out with a hacksaw and hiding the "wound" with more sphag. That's when I started using cork pre moistened.


Okay I got it. I hope leaving some gaps between will prevent that, but will monitor and adjust if expanding becomes an issue.

Thanks again,
Thane


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## rigel10 (Jun 1, 2012)

Your background looks so natural! I like it!


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## smoosh (Oct 25, 2014)

Looks great so far. Looking forward to seeing more progress


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Going to add some pictures before I get back to work tonight. I made a border of river rocks, with expanded glass aggregate (grow stones) as a drainage layer, with mesh (plastic window screen) separating the grow stones from the river rocks. 

The mesh is siliconed to the bottom of the tank, behind the river rocks, and the river rocks will hopefully hide all of the mesh and grow stones from view. I had to make a thicker layer of river rocks around the border than I originally anticipated in order to hide the 3 in. high drainage layer. That might make the tank a little heavier but I think it looks nice. I was also worried about sacrificing some floor space for the border and pond, but Glenn pointed out on the following thread http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/members-frogs-vivariums/72257-recent-shots-vivs-frogs-pic-heavy.html#post1400945 that this is not really wasted space since the frogs will use it. I made sure to not leave hardly any gap under and behind the driftwood, and there's mesh siliconed to the glass all behind it so the frogs should not be able to get into the drainage layer. 

My biggest lesson learned of this phase was not to try and do it all with one big piece of mesh. I was trying to do that at first and it just made things more difficult, and I realized it would be impossible anyways since there would be no way to add rocks once it's in place. If I did this over again I would have used a smaller piece on each side rather than the one big piece and 3 small pieces.

I added the one piece of driftwood to form a shallow "pond" on the front left (which I'm told is the #1 most popular place to have a pond).

This is a view from the left side. Note: the place this is going to sit in my living room, the viewing angle will be from the front and left (i.e. it's going in the back right corner of the room):




Here's a view from the front, showing the overlapping layers of mesh:




Here's a view from the right side: 




Additional exciting development: I finally plugged in my lights for the first time. I wish I would have done this earlier. I was using a small lantern when I was cleaning and building everything. I could have just set these on top from the beginning and seen everything a lot easier. It also makes the photos turn out nicer since it doesn't require a flash and colors are coming out more true. These are 2 of the 24 in. Current Satellite LED + lights.

Here's the lights on top of the tank:




Next step is to add in the substrate, then tomorrow I should be getting some isopods and springtails in the mail. Going to add them right to the substrate (will have 6 weeks before frogs arrive, plus 4 more weeks for quarantine) before planting. So that should give the plants and bugs 2.5 mo. to get settled in.

Thanks,
Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Well, that plan failed pretty hard. After I put 3 gallons of NE Herp substrate in, I realized it wasn't going to work. The problem was the level of the rock border was too low, so the drainage layer was already at the level of the drainage layer, so when I added the substrate, it was all falling into the rock border - I had to keep it low around the edges, which created this big hump effect in the middle. So I pulled everything out and started over. I think if you wanted to do a rock border like I was attempting, you'd need a way bigger tank.

On my 2nd attempt, I did the rock border thing only in the front, and stacked the rocks a lot higher so the substrate would sit behind them after it was added. I also didn't silicone the mesh down this time, it's just kind of wedged between the drainage layer, rocks, driftwood, etc.


Here's a picture of the mesh and drainage layer, 2nd attempt:




And here's how the tank looks after adding the substrate, 2nd piece of driftwood, and some large rocks in the back corner.

Left view:




Front view:




Right view, showing a nice cross section of everything:




I'll add a thin layer of sphagnum and heavy layer of leaf litter after I add plants, springtails, and isopods. The 2 pieces of driftwood are pretty much fixed where they are now. I might move some of the rocks around and mound the dirt up a little differently. I also have the big piece of ghostwood pictured above, but not sure I have enough room to use it now, I think it would obstruct the view. 

If anyone has any comments or design suggestions, I'd really appreciate it. 

Thanks for reading,

Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Okay I stuck the ghostwood in the tank and installed the side tracking on the doors. I'm going to bed now.

Front view:




Left view:


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## chillplants (Jul 14, 2008)

I'm impressed so far. Every time I see a build like this, I want to go get some tools and start building a tank from scratch myself.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thanks - The actual assembly of the glass was not as intimidating as I thought. I am not a big DIY guy, so took some convincing to attempt this in the first place. The way I justified it was I could get a lot bigger (and hopefully nicer) tank than buying the 18X18X24 premade ones I was looking at, and I knew even with a premade tank you still have to do some modifications like bug-proofing. It did end up costing more, I think mainly because of the size.

The hardest thing was trying to source some of the parts - the tracking for the doors and stainless steel for example. Can only find some of that through industrial supply places. Also, the quotes I got for glass cutting were all over the place, from $200-600+. Then the glass cutter I went with had all sorts of trouble cutting 1/4 in. thick glass into the long thin pieces and small 1 in. squares for the Sherman

The main annoyance or thing I wish I had done better was dealing with all the silicone. I should have spent the extra time masking everything off really well, and practicing with the silicone on a cardboard box or something, because I made a mess of it the first couple attempts, which resulted in many hours of cleaning and scraping. 

I have a feeling if I had it to do over again, I could put this together in less than half the time and come up with a more polished product, however I only have the space and money for one tank, so this is it. I've tried to give detailed explanations of my "lessons learned" throughout this thread in case anyone else attempts something similar, they can learn from my mistakes.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

This tank looks great! Good job forging your own path  I went the 18x18x24 route with cork mosaic backgrounds and siliconed tree fern sides and I have been very pleased so far with the look and the plant attachment factor. I would have liked a little more space, though, so I think you will be happy with the choices you have made.

Don't worry about a little slop on the silicone. A brand new razor blade will handle any problems you might have fixed with masking 

Enjoy your tank!

Mark


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Okay this afternoon I got some bugs in the mail, purchased from the classifieds here. Got 2 types of isopods and 2 types of springtails. I just dumped the media onto the shallow lids of the containers they came in and turned all the lights off, hoping they'd crawl out overnight. If there's still a bunch of bugs in the media tomorrow I'll just mix the media in with the substrate. The big blue isopods are crawling all over the tank but harder to see the springtails and dwarf purple isopods. 

I gave the whole tank a light misting and put an inch of water in the bottom to increase the humidity so the bugs wouldn't just hide in the media they came in. One nice thing is I found the water was fairly free flowing underneath the piece of driftwood, so it hopefully shouldn't take forever to drain when I need to switch it out.

I also ran around town and bought a bunch of tropical plants. I was trying to stick to a green and white color scheme, so there's only a couple exceptions here. I'm also getting a shipment via FedEx tomorrow with some moss, ferns and vines. I realize all this won't fit in the tank, so I bought a plastic bin and cheap light with a CFL bulb to keep the excess plants in. I put a little water in the bin and put the plants in plastic trays and misted them. I'll put some sort of loose clear lid on to keep it humid in there.

Here's the plants I bought. I put the names right under the pictures for my own reference after I rinse them all off later and lose the labels. I went to 3 different stores and picked ones that were in the tropical plant section and looked cool.












I'm going to google the care for all these tomorrow, but *if anyone can say right off that any of these are unsuitable for dart frogs or terrariums, feel free to speak up. * I tried to stay away from succulents, thinking they wouldn't do well in humidity, but still bought a couple thinking I'd just put them in there and rarely mist them. 

The ones I'm particularly excited about are: 1. The sensitivity plant - I remember playing with these at the botanical gardens when I was little, 2. The pure white cryptanthus - This was in with a bunch of pink ones, but the lady said they all came off the same plant - I might mount that to the driftwood. 3. The pilea - this was a really cool looking one, just kind of solid silver, 4. The aroids - I think I got a nice mix here.

The ones I have the biggest question marks about: 1. The sundew - is this suitable for terrariums? Does it have the potential to spread spores all over the tank or harm the frogs in some way? I'm trying to avoid things that spread like crazy. 2. The ponytail palm - I think this could look really cool but don't know if these get crazy big. 3. The sensitivity plant - if these aren't suitable for vivariums I'm going to be depressed.

That's all I've got for this evening. I will post pictures of my attempt at a grow-out tank for the plants, and finalized setup within the vivarium tomorrow. Right now I'm leaving it dark to encourage the bugs to venture out.

Thanks everyone for your positive feedback and encouragement, I'm really happy to see the tank all coming together now.


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## prunfarm (Nov 8, 2013)

First of all, very well done. About the sensitivity plant - I'm not sure but I always remember them growing in more dry soil environments in PR. Also, they spread like crazy and have some serious thorns on them. No expert, but not sure if it would work for frogs.. I just kept mine in a pot on the windowsill. Can't wait to see the final result.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Nice plants! I would look to mount the tillandsias somewhere they are allowed to dry out. Close to the vents?

Mark


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thank you both - those are good suggestions. I'll be looking up the care sheets for everything today. I'll figure out which things need more light and place them up higher. Also need to figure out which ones like more water and mist them more. I don't know if I'll be able to get close to the top vent with anything - because the vent is near the top front, there's no cork or anything to stick it to.

I did do a little research on the sensitivity plant - I think the big thorns and potential for spreading mean I probably shouldn't stick it in the vivarium. I think I might just stick it in a container and bring it to work.


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## chillplants (Jul 14, 2008)

Ponytail palms get huge - 8-10 ft tall. It takes a while, but would be impossible to remove without destroying your layout.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Good advice on the pony tail palms, sounds like  You might not be able to get the tillandsias up next to the top vent, but you might be able to get them mounted next to the Sherman. I have a tank that I was trying to grow Riccia in and it was next to the bottom vent. It dried out in that spot to the point where I couldn't grow it at all, so don't underestimate the power of the bottom vent to dry things out, too! Can take advantage of it in this case, though 

Mark


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Okay good call. They had the ponytail palms in the tiny terrarium plants section so probably better to just stick those in their own little container so when they get too big you can just start over. I did wonder if ripping them out would cause all sorts of destruction because the roots are kind of big bulbs.

That's good advice about the vent drying things out. I was thinking of putting that selaginella down near the "pond" thinking it would be more humid and furthest away from the lights, however it would probably dry out there. I bought some of the NE Herp moss slurry also but was planning on just putting that on the background and driftwood. I'm also putting in some little hides made from cork bark so that would present another opportunity for mounting stuff.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Okay - I got my shipment in from NE Herp today, so this completes all the plant purchasing for now. Going to start looking up the care sheets, planning where everything goes, then process and plant them, hopefully all tonight.

I wanted to upload these photos and I did have one question about one thing I got in the shipment. I got 4 of these things, which were then wrapped in paper, but no labels on them. They were warm to the touch, so I assume these are some kind of hot pack used for shipping. I cut one open and looked like some sort of mulch on the inside. *Can anyone familiar with shipping confirm these are hot packs? *Other items ordered included fruit fly culture kit (including excelsior material and fruit fly media), but I can't see what these might be anywhere on the inventory.




Here's the plants I got:








I also got this little plant in town yesterday: 




That's all I've got for tonight. Gotta get busy dealing with all these plants!

Thanks,
Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Well I didn't get done planting tonight. It took too long to research the care for all the plants, and I had to go to the hydroponic supply store to get some more RO water. While I was there I picked up some grow trays with vented plastic domes though. So I put most of the plants in these overnight. And I'll keep the "spare" plants I don't put in the vivarium in these as backups to replace whatever plants die off.


Here's the plant "grow out" setup:



For those interested, I loaded all the plants in a google doc, with different care instructions (as best I could find on the internet). The ones with z's at the end of the sheet are ones I have ruled out planting in the vivarium for various reasons. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RKIZDwhK5rjcAWVucKl01fAUArRGSNKAdoY9RxI6dbo/edit?usp=sharing

I did make some additions to the vivarium this evening. I added another culture of springtails, and mixed all the cultures in with the substrate. Bugs included at this point are power blue and dwarf purple isopods, tropical pink, white, and small silver springtails. I also made some little "feeding stations" for them out of monkey pods, so I could put the food in those and monitor consumption. I put yeast, fish flakes, and a slice of potato in one and banana in the other.


Here's what one of the "feeding stations" looks like: 




After I mixed in the bug cultures, I spread a thin layer of spagnum all over the substrate (I tore it up with my hands first to make smaller pieces), to make it look more uniform and appealing. I still need to sterilize all the plants, so I didn't do anything with those tonight, but because the moss packs were pre-processed, I went ahead and added those tonight. I figured the sooner the better with those.

I also added a couple hides - a big seed pod on the right under the ghostwood branch, and a cork stump cut in half in the back left behind the driftwood. I hope those and the driftwood should provide some visual barriers and hiding/resting spots for the frogs.

Here's a view from the front:



And a "Bird's eye" view from the top, looking at the back half. Cork stump hide is on the back left but kind of blends in. I put some of the NE Herp moss slurry on top of it to see if that would grow in. I wonder if the frogs have room to get to this though? I cleared out some space below it so I think 2 or 3 frogs could fit in there but don't know if I should have a hide more out in the open?



That's all I've got for this evening - I'm going to bed now. In the morning I'll figure out where I'm going to plant everything, process the plants, and get it planted hopefully be the afternoon. Thank you everyone for your support.

Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

This morning I confirmed with NE Herp that those were hot packs - mystery solved!

After reading some on the forum, I went and removed the majority of the sphagnum layer I put over the substrate last night. There's still some remaining but definitely more substrate visible. Doesn't appear to have been any activity at the "Feeding stations" I set up for the springtails and isopods. I wonder if they're still hanging out down in the substrate with the media from the cultures.

I'm getting set to start processing the plants. I made a little station out of buckets and bins. I put labels on each.

1. Soak tub with tap water
2. 5% bleach solution
3. Rinse bucket with RO water
4. 2nd rinse/soak bucket with RO water
5. Sterilized bin for holding processed plants


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

All planted now. 

These are the plants I chose, after processing (plus the million hearts, baby tears, and selaginella not in this picture). I'm holding most of the other plants aside as backup, and returning the couple I found were not suitable for vivariums.



 "We who are about to die salute you!" 


Now we play the waiting game. I wasn't able to find a perfect ideal spot for everything, with the right combination of air flow, light, etc., but I did my best. I'm pretty pleased with the look of it now. 

I hope I mounted these correctly. I tried to mount them based on the care instructions. Ones specifying "well draining soil" I just put right in the substrate. Ones that said "keep constantly moist" I wrapped in a ball of sphagnum before mounting. The vines in the background I wrapped in spagnum, then stuck in with toothpicks. 

The tillandsia were kind of a headscratcher. The 3 sitting on the ghostwood branch are just kind of balanced on there and the one on the background is sitting on some toothpicks. I couldn't stick any toothpicks in the ghostwood, so I'm hoping they take root somehow. I know I could use some silicone to stick them on there but wanted to be able to move them if they fail to thrive.

Here's a bunch of pictures. I'll add one with all the plants labeled later. I've got to go run a bunch of errands now.















Thanks for viewing,

Thane


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## DendroKurt (Mar 19, 2013)

Wow this has really come together! Your new frogs have no idea how good they are going to have it. I wish you were closer, I would have you build me a tank and do the background! Such an incredible job for a first timer!
Good job Thane!


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## hydrophyte (Jun 5, 2009)

This looks really nice. I like how nice and simple you made the substrates, especially the cork background. I think your plants will really like that cork background.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thank you Kurt and Devin - I couldn't have done it without your assistance, and the support and advice of several other people who I reached out to individually and on the forums, as well as a bunch of garden store experts here in Omaha. I wish there was some sort of handbook on how to do this, but instead I've relied on the collective knowledge of the community. I really appreciate the willingness of the more experienced members to help beginners like myself get into the hobby. Now I just hope I can keep these plants (and later, frogs) alive. I'm sure I'll have plenty of more questions coming up. I need to make a quarantine tank next, but I'll start a separate thread for that.

Thanks again,
Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Hello,

I was hoping someone might be able to give me a little guidance on humidity and misting. So far I've been misting it 2X/day, about 8AM and 4PM, using about a cup of water each time. Because I just planted it, I was misting everything in the vivarium, putting more water on the moss and selaginella so they stay constantly moist, spraying around the roots of everything else including the hanging vines, and spraying all over the tillandsia (the instructions I got for these were to dunk them in water twice a week, so I assume they like it).

After I spray there's some water that gets on the glass, which takes about 6-8 hours to fully evaporate. Here's a picture of the droplets on the glass after watering (note - this is form misting, not condensation, this will all be clear by 8AM tomorrow). 





It feels humid when I stick my head in it, and still smells nice and "foresty," although it's only been planted for 2-3 days. I haven't seen any leaves turning brown or other signs of overwatering, but still paranoid I might be misting too much. Does 1 cup water 2X/day seem like a crazy amount? Should I maybe be misting only the mosses and giving everything else a break? 

My fear is I'm used to watering a plant more frequently after it's planted, to let the roots set in, so I feel like I need to water more now, then cut back later. I'm also a little distressed I haven't seen my bugs since they all burrowed into the substrate. I put the "feeding stations" with fish flakes, yeast, and vegetable slices but haven't seen any activity there so far. Maybe they have to get a little moldy first? Or maybe they don't like the humidity level? I even got up in the middle of the night a couple times to see if I could catch them running around but have only seen a couple big blue isopods.

Sorry if this is not enough information to go on. I didn't buy a hygrometer because people said they were inaccurate. I know this is kind of trial and error but I'd prefer not to screw things up in advance.

Thanks for any guidance anyone can provide,
Thane


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## Igot99problems (Jun 20, 2014)

thane said:


> All planted now.
> 
> These are the plants I chose, after processing (plus the million hearts, baby tears, and selaginella not in this picture). I'm holding most of the other plants aside as backup, and returning the couple I found were not suitable for vivariums.
> 
> ...


Looks beautiful man!


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thought people might like an update after 2 weeks.

A couple plants failed:
1. My poor cryptanthus is on its last legs. The tips of the leaves were brown when I got it and just kept getting darker and spreading towards the center. I opened a thread in the plants section where it was suggested I trim them with a clean pair of scissors and hope for the best. But the black portions kept spreading so I've got almost nothing left now. I took it out of the tank a couple days ago and put it in a pot to see if that would help. I really wish I could save this even if it's not going back in the tank.
2. The tillandsia with the fine needle-like leaves died. The other ones are doing just fine though. I spray them twice a day and let them dry off completely. The one with thin leaves just dried out. I tried putting it in all different places to try and get it more light or air flow. I took it out of the tank also and soaked it a couple times to try and revive it, but it didn't work.
3. The baby tears are not looking too great. I figured they weren't getting enough light near the bottom of the tank, I split the remaining portion into 2 - added one bunch halfway up the background and moved the other near the back of the substrate at higher elevation.

Everything else seems to be doing pretty well though. I'm suprised the moss and selaginella is doing so well. I asked above for some guidance on misting but didn't get a response, so I kind of figured it out by trial and error myself. I mist the moss and tillansia 2X/day, give the vines in the background a light misting near the roots 2X/day, and give the plants in the substrate a light misting near the roots once every couple days.

I don't plan on moving the plants around anymore at this point. The only exception might be the maidenhair fern seems to be getting overwatered since it's right next to the selaginella that's getting misted all the time. I ordered a green jewel orchid (macodes petola) online today, I think I'll pull the fern out and stick the jewel orchid in the "hole" in the driftwood on the front left. I'll have to figure out how to do that though - whether I can try and mount it epiphitically on the log or do I need to pack some soil in there. I've also got a rabbit foot fern and another autumn fern standing by in case anything else dies - I gave all the other plants away.

For those interested in a plant list, here's an updated picture with labels:



A. Codonanthe devosiana
B. Tillansia - supported by toothpicks
C. Senecio radicans - String of Bananas
D. Dischidia ruscifolia - Million Hearts (put one small cutting in the pond to see if it would grow some roots). Gave 2 extra cuttings to a friend who's good with plants in case I kill all of these.
E. Tillansia - just sitting on the branch
F. Tillansia - this one I had to use a little silicone to get to stay put.
G. Selaginella kraussiana - Krauss's clubmoss
H. Adiantum - Maidenhair fern
I. Dryopteris erythrosora - Autumn fern - this was originally planted where the maidenhair fern is now, but was getting overwatered. I moved it out into the substrate and trimmed the brown leaves and it's doing great now, leaves all green and new fronds emerging.
J. Pilea (possibly pilea pubescens)
K. Pteris fern
L. Hemianthus callitrichoides - Dwarf baby tears
M. Thuidium delicatulum - Delicate fern moss
N. NE Herp live moss slurry


And here's a couple more views:






Other updates:

Substrate: I removed pretty much all of the remaining sphagnum I had spread over the top. It just seemed like it was making the tank overly humid and seemed to be getting a musty odor and was preventing drainage.

Bugs: I was kind of depressed after I mixed all the bug cultures in - they all went into hiding and I only saw one of the big blue isopods a couple times. I was also worried I wasn't feeding them well enough, so I went and got a bunch of partially-decomposed leaves from the yard (bottom of a pile that's been sitting there all winter), boiled them, dried them out, crushed them up and mixed them into the substrate all over the tank. I've also been sprinkling baker's yeast and fish flakes in a couple times a week. Then a couple days ago I found out where the big blue isopods were hiding - they stay behind the cork background during the day. I was worried they might have got trapped but checked early in the AM and they were gone. I know there's plenty of springtails also because I took some of the baby tears out to soak them and a bunch of springtails floated up. Not sure if I'll ever see the dwarf purple isopods again, so I just have to hope they're doing well.

Tank: I ordered some new doors to replace the ones I put in (I screwed up the calculation which caused a large overlap) - still haven't installed the new ones though.

Flies: I just did my 3rd fruit fly culture tonight. Was making 1 culture/week. The first one has a huge number of larvae on it that are starting to emerge now, and the 2nd one has quite a few eggs/larvae on the side. I got a shelf to put them on, then they are in small tubs sprayed with mite spray and diatomaceous earth in the bottom.

Frogs: Spoke to Kurt Tuesday - he will be shipping my tincs in a month, arriving Cinco de Mayo, so I'm very excited about that. That should give 6 weeks after planting, plus another month in quarantine before they go in the tank.

Thanks again to all of you for your support and words of advice along the way. I hope you're all doing well and have a nice Easter/Passover weekend.

Thanks,
Thane


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## chillplants (Jul 14, 2008)

Don't beat yourself up too much over losing plants. There is some trial and error with placement in the tank. I have a fern that I split in half and planted each piece within 6 inches of the other. One is doing great while the second one is struggling. I have no idea if it is due to light, water or substrate issues. 
My bugs stay hidden most of the day. I feed them Bug Burger once a week and drop in little pieces all around the tank. By the next day, you can see tons of isopods and springtails crawling all over the food.
The tank looks real good. I love the way the background looks. Should look real good once the plants and moss take over.


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## BrainBug (Aug 25, 2010)

That's a nice looking tank man, good job building it.

I'm afraid that cyptanthus was doomed from the get go. From my understanding those uncommon bromeliads that come out completely white lack chlorophyll and thus cannot photosynthesize to produce energy and once separated from the mother plant don't do well for long. On the plus side there are lots of other awesome cryptanthus out there in bright colors and unique shapes. If you get any of the pink or red varieties I would recommend mounting them high up in the tank near the light and the colors will explode.

As far as the tillandsia go I would say you where misting it to much. Also, most tillandsia seem to prefer a little more airflow then what is typically offered in a dart tank. For any remaining tillandsia I would say a light misting once or twice a week would be sufficient, maybe even less in a humid environment that is not drying after misting. You want to make sure your tillandsia are drying within 8 hours of misting, if kept constantly moist they will rot. 

As far as your microfauna go I wouldn't stress about it. In a tank that big it might take a little while before you see them everywhere, if that ever happens. Next time you order bug cultures I would recommend only dumping a part of each culture into the tank and adding more substrate to the remaining original culture to keep as a back up. The feeding stations are also probably making it more inconvenient for your critters to get food too. Just a little bakers yeast, or fish flakes along with the leaf litter on the substrate is more then sufficient.

The drosera you purchased should be kept out of the viv and put under BRIGHT light and watered with distilled or RO water. 

I wish you luck with the ferns, the few times I've planted ferns in vivs they have not done great, however in my real moist tanks after about 6 months I frequently have different species of ferns sprout up out of the coir on the background and do great.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thank you both - I actually have been seeing some more bugs recently, including the dwarf purple which have come out of hiding and tons of springtails. I removed the "Feeding stations" and just went to sprinkling baker's yeast around the viv, and putting fish flakes in dryer spots (from my understanding the isopods like the substrate a little drier). A bunch of blue and purple isopods spend the day hiding behind part of the background. I'll see if I can get a decent picture of them. I also plan to order another culture of the big blue ones to raise outside the vivarium as backup.

The 3 remaining tillandsia appear to be doing suprisingly well considering the one with the thin leaves died so quickly. I spray them each 2X/day and they dry completely within a few hours. I have them mounted pointing downwards so there shouldn't be any water just sitting in them.

I think if it wasn't disease that killed the cryptanthus, it would have been the lack of chlorophyll. There's probably a reason I couldn't find pictures of any other white cryptanthus online. I think the green and pink ones look really cool, and found some down at Wal-mart, but I don't know if I'll put another one in though - the person I'm buying my frogs from said he had some frogs injure themselves on the leaves. So I ordered a jewel orchid as a replacement. Wasn't in super great condition when I got it, but trying to get that in good shape before I stick it in the viv. I have pictures of the setup for that in this thread in the plants section: http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/plants/233858-jewel-orchid-macodes-petola-setup-question.html

2 of the ferns I stuck in aren't looking too great - not growing much and look like they're getting overwatered (I'm not watering them directly, they just get dripped on when I spray the plants on the background). But the autumn fern is doing great now that I moved it into a dryer spot, putting out new fronds every few days and all the leaves looking healthy. That's the one I was most excited about - the leaves should turn a nice bronze color I believe.

The sundew/drosera is one that I decided not to put in the vivarium and just returned it to the store. I can't remember the reason why, I think I read that they can be pretty invasive.

That's all the updates I can think of for now. Have to go run some errands but will try to get some pictures of the isopod's hangout later today.

Thanks again,
Thane


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## roxrgneiss (Sep 30, 2007)

Very nice tank and the background is one I have used in the past with great success. 

I have also used ABG substrate mix in every viviarum. I noticed that it appears as though you added your substrate to the tank without first pre-wetting it - but it is hard to tell for sure from the photos. It does look more moist, in places, in later photos though.

If it is still mostly dry: with consistent wetting, you should be able to get the substrate to eventually absorb and hold some water, but if vapor is regularly leaving the tank through the vents, it could take a while. I place the ABG mix in a bucket or gallon-size bag, add distilled water, mix it, and press it a few times to ensure I get the air out of the sphagnum. Some of the plants won't mind dryer substrate surrounding them, but a few could be reluctant to root in it. It also means that the plants could be at risk of drying out if they are not watered occasionally, something you normally wouldn't need to worry about as much with moist substrate. Some plants can tolerate or like drying, like the tillandsia, but some, like the Selaginella, don't want to dry out completely.

Having dryer substrate also means that the relative humidity could be lower between misting events. Again, not a problem for all plants, but maybe for some.

Mike


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Hey Mike - you're correct, I just added the substrate to the viv dry, however I've been misting 2X/day in an effort to keep the moss from drying out, so the substrate is pretty well moist at this point. And when I spray, some water gets on the sides and runs down into the substrate, so my worry is the substrate down there might actually be too wet. The viv overall seems to have pretty high humidity in it. I didn't by a hygrometer because people said they're innaccurate, but when I stick my head in I can feel the humidity, and I also judge by seeing how long it takes the water on the sides and driftwood to evaporate. It doesn't have a mildewy smell, so that's good. It basically smells like the indoor rainforest at the Omaha zoo at this point.

Also, some of the stuff I planted by wrapping the roots in sphagnum so they'd stay consistently moist. That trick was suggested to me by Jessica from NE Herp and seems to be working well. The stuff that was supposed to be planted in "fast draining soil" I put directly in the substrate (the ferns and pilea). The selaginella is doing great by the way - I went to move some of it yesterday and found it had laid down all sorts of little roots or whatever they're called.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Hey Mike - you're correct, I just added the substrate to the viv dry, however I've been misting 2X/day in an effort to keep the moss from drying out, so the substrate is pretty well moist at this point. When I added the sphagnum to the background, I did wet it first in RO water then squeezed it out. Someone earlier had a good suggestion - said you can soak cork before installing to avoid problems if it expands later, so I might try that if I do another.

The substrate does seem to be pretty moist now. When I spray, some water gets on the sides and runs down into the substrate, so my worry is the substrate down there might actually be too wet. The viv overall seems to have pretty high humidity in it. I didn't by a hygrometer because people said they're innaccurate, but when I stick my head in I can feel the humidity, and I also judge by seeing how long it takes the water on the sides and driftwood to evaporate. It doesn't have a mildewy smell, so that's good. It basically smells like the indoor rainforest at the Omaha zoo at this point.

Also, some of the stuff I planted by wrapping the roots in sphagnum so they'd stay consistently moist. That trick was suggested to me by Jessica from NE Herp and seems to be working well. The stuff that was supposed to be planted in "fast draining soil" I put directly in the substrate (the ferns and pilea). The selaginella is doing great by the way - I went to move some of it yesterday and found it had laid down all sorts of little roots or whatever they're called.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

I wanted to post some pictures of my isopods in case anyone's interested, and I did have a question. So a week or so back, I noticed some of the large blues were hanging out behind one of the cork bark pieces during the day. I figured they would just come out at night, but I'm kind of paranoid they're getting stuck in there, like a dead end. My understanding is they just kind of bumble around randomly looking for food, more like a roomba than a tiger on the prowl. So I do check early in the morning and it seems like most are gone, which seems to indicate they are finding their way out, but who knows...

Is there a risk that they are just stuck back there unable to get out? I jammed a bunch of sphagnum under the bark so the frogs couldn't get in there, and the substrate is pretty moist down there, so I wonder if/how they can get out of there to get in the tank to feed.


Here's a wider shot of their hangout behind the cork bark:




And a closeup, showing how I jammed the moss in there and the NE Herp substrate underneath.




Then just this week I started noticing some of the dwarf purples had made their way back there. That makes me kind of happy to see them, since they all disappeared into the substrate and I figured I'd never see them again. But at the same time somewhat nervous they might get eaten by the much larger blues, or might have got stuck in there also.


But then just a couple days ago I found a bunch of these white things. I'm assuming these are some sort of larvae. They look bigger than the springtails and different shaped.




And here's a picture of everyone together. I circled and color coded some of each type.




Not sure if this is super interesting or exciting for other people to see. I would be curious to hear if someone has some knowledge on their burrowing ability - whether they should be able to make their way through the substrate at the bottom or if there's a possibility they're trapped back there. That would put my mind at ease.

Thanks,
Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Big excitement today - just picked up my frogs from Fedex and put in the QT bin. All appear to be doing well, they're kind of just settling into the bin right now, doing some light exploring.

First, some updated pictures of my vivarium. I added some pilea (unknown species, maybe aquamarine) in the front center and rear center, added a jewel orchid to the right of the rocks, moved the codanthe to the substrate, in an area that doesn't get as much mist (looked like it was getting overwatered), added rabbit foot fern to the left, and replaced 2 of the ferns that were getting overwatered with a "heart fern" that should hopefully like water better than the others. Removed a lot of the moss that wasn't doing as well and trimmed it up in the back so you can see the driftwood better. All the plants seem to be doing well. Microfauna population is booming - I seen tons of springtails and small isopods in there. I add a liberal amount of fish flakes which disappear overnight.






Here's the QT container I made, using a sterelite bin. I sanitized the bin and cut a small vent in the front, smoothed off the edges, put some plastic screen over that and taped it on with Gorilla brand clear tape. 




Put in a layer of damp sphagnum on the bottom, then leaf litter over that. The plants are an african violet I had and a staghorn fern which I mounted to a piece of cork. I rinsed both plants off but did not sanitize with bleach. Added a long cork piece for climbing and some seed pods for hides. Put in a shallow plastic tray with a little RO water.




The light on it is just a CFL light which is the same as my tabletop greenhouse but off to the side so it's not as bright. It will also get some light from the kitchen window (east-facing)




Here's the frogs - got them fedex overnight this morning, just got a little antsy and didn't realize the customer service counter didn't open until 9AM so I drove down early and had to wait in my car a long time.

These pictures are taken through the plastic bin, so I'll get some better ones with the lid off after they've settled in a while. I'm going to let them get acclimated for a few hours then give them some fruit flies.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thought I'd post an update. Finally took the time to upload some new pictures.

I didn't keep the frogs in QT very long. I got nervous because after they explored a little bit they all went into hiding for several days. I was worried maybe the humidity was too low, or the light was too hot, so I just stuck them in the main vivarium where I felt I had a little more control over the variables. Temperature is kept 72-75F, and humidity is around 75-90. Was over 90 constantly. I felt I was overmisting, so I cut back on the misting a little, and now the A/C in my house is running a lot more the humidity has dropped around 75-85 in the vivarium. I bought a nice digital hygrometer because I was nervous about it.

The frogs are 4 Tinctorius robertus. They mostly stay hidden all day, under the cork stump hides or in the leaf litter. 3 of them are at the point where they come out when I mist the tank or add fruit flies. One still hides all the time, but I just checked on him and he's plenty fat, just a little smaller than the others because he came from a younger clutch. The other 3 are extremely fat. Considering cutting down on feeding. I have been feeding 6-7 times a week, might switch to 5 times, but I want to make sure the smaller frog gets fed. I assume he's just eating all the flies that come into his hiding spot. I've seen him back there catching them, but he burrows back when he sees me.


Here's some update shots:

Whole vivarium:




Background: The fern moss was getting pretty crazy so I trimmed a whole bunch of that off the background and also around the driftwood, which makes it look a lot cleaner in my opinion. I also removed the "String of bananas" plant because rather than growing all downward and droopy, there were all these branches coming off pointing upward towards the lights, which I thought looked stupid. The baby tears are doing really well since I moved them upward into the background. Might need to trim those soon.




Heart fern: I'm really pleased with this. This replaced a maidenhead fern and a pteris fern which were getting overwatered, since they were so close to the moss which gets misted a lot. The heart fern seems to have no trouble with the water. Growing slow and steady but not getting huge.




Jewel orchid and codanthe: I had more trouble with these than any of the plants, and they're both doing well now. I documented my struggles with the jewel orchid here. The codanthe I moved all over the place - had it in the background, seemed to be getting overwatered, then moved it to a tabletop greenhouse, where it wasn't thriving either, then just moved it into the substrate in a well-drained spot and finally it's doing well, green up and growing (slowly but surely).




Tillandsia: The 3 that didn't die are all doing well. This one is putting off a flower with a couple stamen or pistils or whatever. I'm not up on tillandsia reproduction but wondering if that means it's about to put off some pups. 




Sphagnum: Most all of the spagnum in the background has sprung to life, and seeing some random plants sprout out of it also. I assumed this was because I was overmisting , so I cut back on that. But the moss has stayed alive and I think it looks really cool. I actually like the look of it quite a bit better than the fern moss. I think I just put way too much of the fern moss in, so I trimmed that back a lot. I like that the sphagnum is more compact (at least for the time being).




Nautilocalyx pemphidius: I saw this in the "what have you got in foliage?" thread, thought it looked really cool, and managed to track down a cutting from a member. I think this is the coolest looking plant in the vivarium. I kept it in my tabletop greenhouse for a month, was doing really well there and putting off new leaves, then I mounted it in the background in some sphagnum. Seems to still be doing well. 




*Frogs*!

Here's one of them coming out from his hidey hole today:




I don't have any good newer pics, but here's some photos from a month ago. They're getting a little more bluish and starting to get spottier than in these pictures (starting to look more like a Robertus than a Cobalt):








Thanks for reading!

Thane


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## rigel10 (Jun 1, 2012)

They look happy frogs! Compliments


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## chillplants (Jul 14, 2008)

I'm not sure how I missed the updates to this over the last couple months, but everything is looking real good. The tank is filling in nicely. I'm impressed with the overall growth on the plants. Keep up the good work.
btw, what kind of light are you using?


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

chillplants said:


> I'm not sure how I missed the updates to this over the last couple months, but everything is looking real good. The tank is filling in nicely. I'm impressed with the overall growth on the plants. Keep up the good work.
> btw, what kind of light are you using?


I have two 24-inch Current Satellite LED+. Saw these on NE Herp's site and used their lighting recommendation chart. I was just planning to get the Jungle Dawn LEDs, but couldn't find a fixture that I liked to put them in. And I'm not smart enough to try and wire up some cheaper LED rope-type lighting.

I had to talk myself into spending more for the Current Satellite but I'm happy I did. They are very low profile and fit really well on top of the tank. I also bought the "ramp timer" from Current, however it was not totally compatible with the lights - could turn them on/off but the "ramp" function didn't work (gradually dimming on and off). So before I turn them off at night I switch to the blue/moonlight setting for a while before turning them off. I don't mess around with the lightening/storm settings too much. Figure that's more for fish and don't want to freak the frogs out.


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## chillplants (Jul 14, 2008)

I'm getting ready to build a cube myself and was looking at LEDs too. I'm starting to see a lot of threads with them and all the plants look great.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Yeah the only plants that were not doing well for lack of light were some moss and baby tears (HC) that I had towards the front/bottom of the tank, furthest away from the lights. I moved the baby tears higher and it started doing well. All of the moss that's within about 18 inches of the lights seems to be doing fine. Sometimes I do wonder if maybe the lights are too bright for the frogs though, causing them to hide more - I would imagine the floor of the rainforest would be pretty dim - but I think they're mostly just hiding because they're younger.


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## DendroKurt (Mar 19, 2013)

Thane tank is looking good, loving those ferns and the tillandsia. Look how fat those froglets are getting! It's hard to capture the blues that come through on the robertus froglets. Here's a picture of some that are close to two months now that I messed with the settings to show how blue they look in person










Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Yeah they are getting a little more blueish/greenish as they get older. They also have a kind of iridescence/reflective quality when the light hits them, like I've seen on some of the metallic-colored auratus photos. I think you'd probably have to have bright lights and get up real close with a macro lens to capture it properly.

Will try to get some updated pics soon. They're becoming bolder now, all coming out when I open the doors but still skittish if I put my hand too close, so hard to get pictures with my small camera.

Thanks again for all your support. These frogs arrived in great condition and have really had no problems other than my own inexperience and second guessing myself.

Thanks,
Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Here's an updated picture from today, showing how they're getting more blueish/greenish. This is with no flash. I think it will be really interesting to see their colors and patterns when they're full grown. 

When I open the doors to feed them, this guy will hop right out and post up under the driftwood where flies tend to fall down. He's probably the boldest one. I was able to get within about 8 in. to take this picture.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Here's some updated pictures from today.

Whole viv:


The Wall - I added some Ecuadorian Pilea (with the red stem and silver leaves) and "Machu Picchu fern" (small fern at top right). I made the mistake of treating them with bleach right after I received them in the mail and they all wilted within hours. Pilea have recovered. The fern still has some brown spots but new fronds are starting to sprout and I'm hopeful it will make it. But I think the wall in general is looking nice.


Here's a fern that sprouted out of some sphagnum. I opened a thread in the Identification forum but has not been identified yet.


Here's a small piece of Peruvian selaginella I received:



And here's the frogs!

Larry, Moe, and Curly, out catching some flies:


I couldn't get a close up of any except this one. He just sat right there staring at me.




You wanna fight?


The frogs in general are still hiding most of the time, but come out when I spray the tank, and especially when I feed them. My roommate says he'll see them out sometimes during the day. I'm still hopeful as they get older they'll start becoming more bolder. The humidity is good, and they seem to have plenty of leaf litter. Sometimes I wonder if maybe the lights are too bright and that makes them shyer. Sometimes they'll come out in the morning when there's daylight in the room but I haven't turned on the LEDs yet. Or maybe there's just not enough plants in the middle of the vivarium for them to venture out there much. Or maybe I coddle them by putting the flies right next to their hides. But they're all looking healthy, so I'm happy about that.

Thanks for reading!
Thane


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## TheLuckiestMommy (Aug 6, 2015)

This is awesome. I'm new at this and I appreciate all the detail you have put into the posts.


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## eos (Dec 6, 2008)

Just read through the progress... very nice setup!


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thank you D and Riko, I appreciate it. I tried to keep a thorough log of everything, hopefully so people could learn from my mistakes. I'm starting a few more builds soon and I think it will be quite a bit easier the second time around (famous last words).

All the frogs were out and about tonight so I took a few pictures.

Here's the boldest one. He's out quite a bit. The other day I was doing some trimming and he burst out from beneath a leaf and charged at me, all the way from the back to the front of the tank. I had the sliding glass doors out and I was afraid he was going to jump out of the tank. He's really bold - I can get right up next to him to take all these pictures and he doesn't care.



This is without the flash:




Here's his buddy. This is the 2nd boldest frog, and I consider this one a big success because she was smaller than the others (came from a younger clutch), and would hide out in one corner and get tromped on by the bigger one for a long time, but now she's very bold and always the first one out for feeding time.




Here's the two shyer ones. They've gotten a whole lot spottier since I first got them. Will be really interesting to see how they all turn out when they're full grown (I believe they're about 6 mo. OOTW right now).




And here's a mystery from last week. If you can solve it, you get a gold star. I have no clue how they would have done this, but the other day there was a poo all the way up on the glass, above the ghostwood branch that I've never seen them climb on ever. And even if they got up on the branch the poo was way out on the window, above the tillandsia. They climbed on the sides of their plastic sterelite QT container a little bit, but I've never seen them climb on the glass, and haven't seen any climb on the cork background for a couple months. Go figure. I do find it interesting I find poos all over the tank though where I never see them hanging out. They must go explore while I'm at work during the day.




Well that's all the updates for now. Thanks for reading,
Thane


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

I did kind of a big remodel today. I took the week off work to work on a different tank, but I've been meaning to change some stuff on this one too. First, I cleaned the inside glass with a mixture of 2 cups hot water, 1/4 cup citric acid, which worked GREAT. I took the idea from this old thread. I just used some paper shop towels and tried to wipe them off really good to remove all the solution after I was done.

I have also been kind of frustrated the frogs don't use the main part of the tank much. I think they like to stick in the more shadowy places, and the way I built it the middle of the tank was too bright and exposed. So I wanted to give them some shadowy area. First I tried putting in a big cork tube to replace the cork hide under the existing ghostwood branch at back right, but it looked awkward. So then just for fun, I tried this big heavy piece of ghostwood which fit great. I think this should give them a good shadowy area to hang out in. 





I put really heavy leaf litter underneath too. I had to move some plants and rocks around, and filled in with ABG mix. All the frogs scattered under the leaf litter, so I had to take care not to squash them with the big heavy branch. I was able to salvage the tillandsia bulbosa that I had siliconed to the last piece of ghostwood - I just cut it off with an X-acto knife (the silicone was really only stuck to one leaf on the bottom. Not sure if I'll try to grow anything on the new piece of wood or just leave it alone. I'd maybe like to have a little more height in the tank but not sure how I'd accomplish that. But I accomplished my primary task of giving the frogs some more shady area, and I think the new piece of wood looks cool, so I hope this works out better in the long run.

I think I stressed the frogs out with all the cleaning and remodeling, but one brave soul came and explored the new log. 



I really love the colors and texture of the new log. Reminds me of some of those canyons in Utah.



The last piece of ghostwood was too narrow and vertical to be useful for anything, so I'm hoping because this one is a lot wider and has a more shallow slope, the frogs might actually climb around on it some. They don't climb a whole lot, but they do have some climbing ability. I'll see them on top of their hides sometimes, and when I first put them in the tank one of them climbed up on the wall and stayed there for a week.

Lastly, here's a picture of the whole tank (should have taken this while I had the doors out).



And the background. I've removed pretty much all of the delicate fern moss, as it was getting really stringy and not very attractive. The sphagnum all came to life, but I haven't been misting as much lately so we'll see if it stays alive. The build I'm doing now is with some cork pieces and Great Stuff, and I don't intend to use moss in it, so hopefully the plants should stand out a little better. 



Thanks for reading,
Thane


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## seed60 (Aug 26, 2015)

That looks amazing. I really like how the moss did on the wall and the new wood.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Thanks, I appreciate it. The moss is mostly just sphagnum moss that came to life. I think because I was misting it a lot and because the lights are pretty bright.

Here's a couple more pictures from today. Frogs seem to be settling in, out and about exploring the new setup. I seem them climbing around on stuff a little bit more, which is nice.

Here's one frog exploring the cave of wonders:



And here's my boldest frog. I think he was looking at his reflection in the glass because I cleaned it off yesterday. Either that or he's pondering the meaning of life.


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## Mantella71 (Oct 7, 2013)

Super nice tank. The white insects you posred awhile back were termites.


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## thane (Sep 11, 2014)

Mantella71 said:


> Super nice tank. The white insects you posred awhile back were termites.


Really? I wonder how those would have gotten in there. When I built this I was pretty vigilant about boiling, bleaching, etc... everything that I put in there. The only thing I can think of that wouldn't have gotten treated was the springtail and isopod cultures - I just put dumped those right in and combined them with the substrate. 

I guess I haven't seen any more of these, so maybe they don't like eating the woods I have in there or the frogs ate all of them up. After I put the frogs in I stopped adding fish flakes and yeast for the isopods and springtails. And the frogs kind of went to town on the springtails so I don't see them as much anymore. Was wondering if I should try adding some yeast under the leaf litter to boost the population. 

I haven't seen the dwarf isopods hardly ever, but I do see the big blue ones regularly, so I assume they're keeping a breeding population. I actually made a grow out container for more big blue isopods, which are doing great, but haven't added any to the tank because I figure there's enough in there to keep the population stable, and the frogs don't appear to be eating them, so I don't know what the point would be. Maybe someone with a little more biological knowledge could comment.

Thanks,
Thane


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