# 65g ultimate control cloud forest vivarium



## PanicButton (Jul 8, 2016)

So I set out a while ago to build a tank for highland nepethes pitcher plants and later added dart frogs but as summer got longer, my tank got hotter. It was sustained in the upper 80s, no good. So I decided... go hard. I designed and built a day/night temperature controlled water cooled thermoelectric cooling system for the tank that brings air temps down to 65 at night, 75 during the day. It's also got a 125psi 12 point misting system that goes off every other hour during the day and mists about 1 gallon per day. Tank is saturated pretty much all the time. It does have some standing water so I have an automatic top off system running in reverse to pump water out when it gets to a certain level, this happens once a day, thus performing water changes at the same time. The water runs under the substrate and through an internal filtration system where it is pumped out of the tank, through a chiller that cools it to 72°F and then is deposited at the top of a waterfall. Theres also an ultrasonic fogger behind the waterfall that has yet to turn on bevause humidity doesnt fall below 85%. Lighting is 2x radion xr30w pro tablets and a 26w uvb bulb(30 mins a day). Among the pitcher plants(8 species) I also have a few drosera, a few sarracenia, many bromeliads, cryptanthus, dozens of mosses, some tillandansia, Butterworts, utricularia, and several other minor plants both aquatic and terrestrial. The tank has been seeded with 2 kinds of millipedes, 4+ kinds of springtails, 5 kinds of isopods, 3 types of beetle, 4 types of nematode, 2 types of worms, several bacterial cultures, phytoplankton cultures, daphnia, seed shrimp, gammarus shrimp, ghost shrimp, guppies, clam shrimp, and several other microorganisms, the list is practically endless. I used hydroponic rocks for my base layer, followed by a fiberglass screen plenum, followed by black sand, then reptibark, then cocofiber soil mix with some perlite and more reptibark mixed in, then a mixed bed of leaf litter sphagnum moss, and a few terrestrial mosses. Water level sits at the base of the first reptibark layer. The water is very heavily planted and is practically choked with floating plants to prevent accidental drowning. There's so much more to it but I don't want to ramble so I'll just post pictures....
Oh and everything electronic has been wired with arduino style controllers so any system can be accessed via wifi ))


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## PanicButton (Jul 8, 2016)

So far in this tank my epipedobates anthonyi have been laying eggs non stop, they've been in there a little over a month at this point and I've already got over 40 tadpoles in the water. I'm especially excited to see how they do morphing out because I specifically added every live food source for them I could come up with. Also I mist water and lipid(in polysorbate 20) soluable vitamins, amino acids, and trace minerals at a rate of 3-4ppm added to my 5g once per week. Judging by the activity of the tads im guessing they're going to be some impressive frogs


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## PanicButton (Jul 8, 2016)

Which reminds me, I'm definitely interested in trades of anyone's looking for epipedobates))


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## kev82 (Mar 7, 2015)

Cool. Can you share more details about your arduino setup? I am working on wififying my viv now, so far I have lights and misting controlled by an esp8266. I don't have a hygrometer in the viv yet since I have yet to find one I feel like using. Maybe I'll just end up using DHT22 but I'm afraid it'll break sooner than later in such high humidity..


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## Frogs123 (Jul 10, 2016)

PanicButton... that's a lot of mouths to feed eventually!!


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## ajimenez (Apr 12, 2016)

Sooo much going on! Koodos to you for taking on the challege and really dialing it in! Good luck!!


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## Stifle (Aug 13, 2015)

Just FYI if your UVB bulb is behind glass then most of the UVB is being filtered out and not reaching the tank. It doesn't really matter as dart frogs do fine without UVB exposure. It's nice that you only use it for 30 minutes a day though, research has shown that animals can produce a tremendous amount of vit D with a very small amount of UVB exposure so it's really not necessary to have a UVB bulb on throughout the day like many people do.

Your viv really is beautiful though great job setting it up. Keep us updated on how it progresses.


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## Colin C (Jun 27, 2011)

You've certainly put a lot of thought into this system, it looks like your top is made of acrylic? if so you will get UV penetrance into the enclosure but be prepared for that acrylic top to warp in that humid environment unless it is very thick. Also I fear you will have to tear down this system sooner rather than later due to your microfauna choices, millipedes and nematodes are two of the worst pests of any vivarium and their presence usually results in the eventual crash of the system, as well as predation on frog eggs, and are both very difficult to get rid of.


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## PanicButton (Jul 8, 2016)

Well the way I see things, it's an ecosystem, just because an animal may be harmful somewhere doesn't mean it doesn't have benefits that outweigh that harm elsewhere. My goal was to fill every vacancy for nutrient recycling. By the way my nematodes are detritivores that do not leave water and my millipedes are of the small varieties that only eat decaying matter. Don't worry, much research went into this. For hygrometer, as well as all my other components... cheapest options on ebay!! Haha yea some needed to be redone here and there but when you only pay $5 shipped for a sensor relay, who really cares?


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## PanicButton (Jul 8, 2016)

Here's an updated pic!


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