# Anti-fog Film



## gltjc (Apr 14, 2015)

Hi, 

Has anyone experimented with anti-fog films applied to the front glass of vivs? I'm thinking of the plastic applied films rather than the spray products, which I'm sure contain plenty of chemical nasties..!

This kind of thing: 

https://www.amazon.com/Sunice-Adhesive-Anti-fogging-Transparent-Protective/dp/B07WP1FND5/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=hydrophobic+mirror+film&qid=1597230548&sr=8-2

Would seem on first inspection like a valuable solution to condensation and fogging issues?


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

gltjc said:


> Hi,
> 
> Has anyone experimented with anti-fog films applied to the front glass of vivs? I'm thinking of the plastic applied films rather than the spray products, which I'm sure contain plenty of chemical nasties..!
> 
> ...


Troy Goldberg did a recent video on the stuff:






I read on facebook from a third party (thus unconfirmed) that he later had issues with it 48 hours later. 

Personally since Trey is making this stuff a product for vivariums I am going to wait till it comes out and see how others report on it before I commit. Just my 2 cents.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

"Boy, if only there were some way to have a viv without fogged glass that didn't require an imported, petrochemical-based, YouTuber-promoted, poorly-reviewed 'product'..." 

-some anarchist, probably


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## jgragg (Nov 23, 2009)

> "Boy, if only there were some way to have a viv without fogged glass that didn't require an imported, petrochemical-based, YouTuber-promoted, poorly-reviewed 'product'..."
> 
> -some anarchist, probably


More like a fucking moron. My God.

Anyway, thanks for the laugh. I think I'll go dust my vents & screens in tribute ("_there's_ a way..."), and do a little spot hand-misting.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

jgragg said:


> Anyway, thanks for the laugh.


You're welcome. Humor is kind of a canary in a coalmine; if we stop joking, it means the end is coming.

So I took this thread as an excuse to finally check out TG's videos. It made me uncomfortable thinking that this is some newcomers' _entrée_ into the dart frog hobby. Given how nearly exclusively focused on vivarium aesthetics these videos are, this is like twelve year old boys learning about girls from a Victoria's Secret catalogue. So beautiful, some of the videos, and so misleading.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Socratic Monologue said:


> So I took this thread as an excuse to finally check out TG's videos. It made me uncomfortable thinking that this is some newcomers' _entrée_ into the dart frog hobby. Given how nearly exclusively focused on vivarium aesthetics these videos are, this is like twelve year old boys learning about girls from a Victoria's Secret catalogue. So beautiful, some of the videos, and so misleading.


Oh my! This made me laugh. Thank you, I needed it today.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

There's a perfect solution for this that for some reason doesn't seem to have reached America yet. Its called a 'solar raptor heat strip'. https://www.reptilienkosmos.de/en/solarraptor-heatstrip-windscreen-heater_1419_4691
Unobtrusive and fixes to the glass just below the bottom vent. I use them on all my tanks and they work perfectly. 
The product only works on front opening enclopsures with a bottom vent but it works extremely well and I can't recommend it highly enough if you're using zoomed or exo terra tanks. My glass still fogs up straight after a heavy misting but it clears quickly and remains fog free the rest of the time.


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## jcross (Jul 26, 2020)

Louis said:


> There's a perfect solution for this that for some reason doesn't seem to have reached America yet. Its called a 'solar raptor heat strip'. https://www.reptilienkosmos.de/en/solarraptor-heatstrip-windscreen-heater_1419_4691
> Unobtrusive and fixes to the glass just below the bottom vent. I use them on all my tanks and they work perfectly.
> The product only works on front opening enclopsures with a bottom vent but it works extremely well and I can't recommend it highly enough if you're using zoomed or exo terra tanks. My glass still fogs up straight after a heavy misting but it clears quickly and remains fog free the rest of the time.


Just another thing to add to a frog-dedicated checked bag on the way back from a future trip to Europe  You guys really do have it good and seem to have such a higher general standard for keeping animals. Not to be on the "America bad" train as we are definitely improving, but it would be nice to already be at the point Europe is at, especially the Netherlands and Germany.

Edit: I found them on eBay here in the US! Here is the link for anyone interested: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Solar-Raptor-HeatStrip-/222168968625


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

jcross said:


> Edit: I found them on eBay here in the US! Here is the link for anyone interested: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Solar-Raptor-HeatStrip-/222168968625


Red flags here. That eBay seller has been on eBay for four years, has only one feedback (negative), and lists random products for 10x typical value (such as a roll of aluminum HVAC tape for $180). Proceed with caution.


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## jcross (Jul 26, 2020)

Good looking out SM, glad you caught that.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

If anyone was really determined to get one in the US I would just ask german retailers. They are incredibly helpful and will bend over backwards to help you most of the time if you're polite. I'm totally sure you could find one that would ship to the US for a reasonable price. Alternatively it wouldn't be that difficult to construct something like this yourself if you were into DIY. They really do work well. The increase in passive ventilation can be very useful too.


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## jgragg (Nov 23, 2009)

Heads up, in the event somebody reads this thread and decides to go gadget-shopping in German virtual retail space. *Have you guys ever traveled overseas? Tried to plug something into the wall there?* 

Electricity is electricity, sure, but systems and appliances (the details of how other people distribute & access their electricity) *vary* pretty widely:

https://whatplug.info/from/usa/to/germany

I still maintain that good viv design and operation are better - WAY BETTER - than workaround mitigation for bad design or operation. But if you really really needed to, it would be easy to DIY a gentle little window heater thing with something like a short piece of heat tape (e.g. FlexWatt) and a dimmer switch. Which if you buy here will be conformed in 120V, 60Hz, plug type A or B. Convenient...and less likely to start a fire.

I suppose it's possible that German outfit makes stuff for export to USA. But you'd want to verify that's the case before dropping thirty Euros plus shipping.


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## gjcarew (Feb 20, 2020)

Socratic Monologue said:


> You're welcome. Humor is kind of a canary in a coalmine; if we stop joking, it means the end is coming.
> 
> So I took this thread as an excuse to finally check out TG's videos. It made me uncomfortable thinking that this is some newcomers' _entrée_ into the dart frog hobby. Given how nearly exclusively focused on vivarium aesthetics these videos are, this is like twelve year old boys learning about girls from a Victoria's Secret catalogue. So beautiful, some of the videos, and so misleading.


Is there something wrong with his vivariums? It seems like he's able to keep and breed frogs just fine.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

gjcarew said:


> Is there something wrong with his vivariums? It seems like he's able to keep and breed frogs just fine.


Is there anything physically wrong? Well, not much, probably. Although, when vivs are kept as wet as shown in some videos (because they look really nice after a good misting), people seem (no hard data, of course, just lots of listening to people) to have many more health/death issues. 

My main point, though, is what I hoped the VS catalogue reference would illustrate: focusing on, and attempting to maximize, the aesthetic features of a viv (a) doesn't benefit the frogs, since they don't care how beautiful it is, and (b) detracts from every important aspect of viv building, since human attention and time is necessarily limited, and a novice keeper is only going to focus on what seems important -- in the videos, only the looks seem important. 

When a newcomer to the hobby thinks something like "if I make my viv look like TG's, my frogs are gonna be so happy", instead of, say, "if I learn about frog biology and natural history and learn what parameters benefit frogs in captivity and learn about where novices tend to fail and...." things are not proceeding in the direction of success. Quite a few newcomers here say things like "I'm gonna do X like in TG's videos" and it is apparent that they haven't thought through much about animal care, exactly. 

Like those twelve year old boys growing up and not even noticing the damage caused by female objectification and being unable to kick the habit of the male gaze because they don't even comprehend what that is, those who approach animal care as 'animal display' (which is what TG's videos are about, unless I'm missing the videos about supplement choices and the disadvantages of certain substrates and how to ensure adequate ventilation and so on), are going to care for their animals much less well than they display them, and I hope I don't have to point out that this is valuing exactly the wrong thing.


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## bssknox (Apr 24, 2017)

Socratic Monologue said:


> Like those twelve year old boys growing up and not even noticing the damage caused by female objectification and being unable to kick the habit of the male gaze because they don't even comprehend what that is, those who approach animal care as 'animal display' (which is what TG's videos are about, unless I'm missing the videos about supplement choices and the disadvantages of certain substrates and how to ensure adequate ventilation and so on), are going to care for their animals much less well than they display them, and I hope I don't have to point out that this is valuing exactly the wrong thing.


Just to throw it out there. There are several videos on his channel that do talk about supplements, lighting, etc. But to your point SM, the views on those videos are nowhere near the views that he gets on his lush, moss filled, viv videos.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

bssknox said:


> Just to throw it out there. There are several videos on his channel that do talk about supplements, lighting, etc. But to your point SM, the views on those videos are nowhere near the views that he gets on his lush, moss filled, viv videos.


Fair enough. I looked harder and found a couple. You're right about the views: Frogroom Tour get 136K views in a month, Supplements gets 3K in two months, and comments such as this (exact quote):

"Another good thing about caretenoids is that it's the safest way to give your animal vitamin A without the risk of vitamin A toxicity. Their body will convert the caretenoids into vitamin A when needed, almost eliminating the chance of an OD.

I always thought this was the best thing about caretenoids, but most companies just advertise it as a color enhancer, which is cool too.

Great vid as always, we still need that histo care vid lol" 

There are no replies to this comment, BTW.


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## gonzalez (Mar 28, 2018)

bssknox said:


> Just to throw it out there. There are several videos on his channel that do talk about supplements, lighting, etc. But to your point SM, the views on those videos are nowhere near the views that he gets on his lush, moss filled, viv videos.



He definitely has some good videos on his channel, my favorite being the guide on how to build euro slider terrariums. It’s a shame he keeps his tanks so ridiculously wet, and I have noticed he started doing more of it as he grows in popularity. In his older videos the tanks are still quite wet, but since then he’s reduced ventilation to just a single inch on the doors and lid, and started implementing a bunch of water features. Poor example for beginners yet one of the biggest , if not the biggest, influencers on the hobby. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

I just want to touch on the implication here that lush moss growth = too wet. 
This can be true when people are attempting to grow commonly available aquarium mosses like 'java moss' in a terrestrial environment or even some species of live sphagnum but beyond these instances it should be obvious that moss growth is not a reliable indication of excessive moisture.
Moss grows in almost every environment on earth in full sun to almost total darkness and from deserts like Antarctica and the Mojave to the wettest jungles - I have moss that's grown from spore in a dry spot just a few inches beneath a UV basking lamp where the temperature is around 30c during the day, it get's misted once a day and dries quickly.
The idea that vigorous moss growth is essentially incompatable with dart frogs due to moisture requirements seems to have become a popular notion on dendroboard but is objectively incorrect. 
People often seem to conflate humidity with wetness and vice versa too and overlook the fact that under different circumstances you could have a tank with very high humidity that would appear almost completely dry to the naked eye or that was visably wet and dripping whilst actually having quite low absolute humidity.
I recently spent several months in Antigua where the absolute humidity would often be higher than is recommend as safe for dart frogs even in dry scrubland populated by cacti and succulents whilst beneath the canopy of the jungle you could find much lower absolute humidity in a cooler environment that dendroboard wouldn't hesitate to identify as 'too wet'.
I think it might be more productive to emphasise the importance of establishing different microclimates and 'water shadows' that don't get misted within enclosures as well as adequate ventilation rather than a specific range for humidity as cheap hygrometers are often unreliable and other common ways of guaging humidity such as the amount of condensation on glass sometimes tell you as more about conditions outside the tank than they do the inside. 
I strongly suspect frogs would fare better in a wetter environment with more airflow than a drier and less humid environment with stagnant air.
This is another reason why I like the solar raptor heat strips as although they are unobtrusive and relatively low power, they significantly increase airflow through the enclosure whilst keeping it constant and steady unlike fans on a timer.


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