# My First Vivarium Journal



## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Hello folks!

I decided to start writing up a journal of my vivarium build for a couple of reasons. 1) hopefully someone more experienced will read this and point out errors I am making before they become too horrible, and 2) so I can keep track of things like plant names etc.

I am pretty excited for this whole process and really enjoying gathering things for the build. I have started buying plants and also some needed tools for some diy portions. So here is the current plan.

I purchased an Aqueon 20 High a couple of days ago. This build will use the aquarium in a vertical configuration. I also purchased the Frog Cube modification system to make this come together. The Frog Cube is essentially 4 pieces of 3d printed plastic designed to be siliconed to the opening of the the tank with some pieces of 3/32 glass. This creates the bottom of the vivarium and door with fruit fly proof ventilation below and above the door. 

In addition to the Frog Cube I purchased a cheapy set of diamond hole saws and one cheapy 3" hole saw from amazon. I will use the set to drill a hole for a mistking starter package (also purchased recently) in the top of the tank. I will also drill another hole in either the rear or side of the tank (depending on if the bottom of the tank is tempered) to be used as an overflow drain. I also ordered a 2" bulkhead which will go in the top of the vivarium in the back (this is why I needed the 3" diamond hole saw). 

For the actual construction of the vivarium I am planning to use Safe-T-Sorb (a calcined clay product, like turface or oildry) for my false bottom. Since I get to make all the decisions on how thick my substrate and false bottom should be... this brings me to my first question. How deep should the false bottom be?

I am planning to bank my substrate pretty heavily with it being on the shallow end in the front and MUCH deeper in the back. How shallow can I make it and still be good? I am planning to plant the foreground so I want at least 2 inches of substrate, so is that enough or do I need to go deeper?

In order to bank my substrate I am thinking of making a terrace kind of effect. The reason to do this is 1) to give the froggies more floor space which from my readings seems considerably preferred, and 2) for aesthetics. To achieve the terrace effect I am planning to use rocks for the terraces. I will likely only have 1 rock outcropping given the depth of the tank but I am planning to have it visible in the tank itself. I am thinking I should put the rock directly on the false bottom and then build the substrate up around it and behind it. This will allow me to bank the substrate higher then I otherwise would so that it won't all slide forward. Does that make sense?

For plants I am thinking of having only 1 big plant in the back (an amazon sword to be precise) and the rest of the plants on the floor will be low growing plants. In the front of the tank I am planning to grow dwarf hairgrass, elechoaris acicularis specifically. (my other hobby is planted aquariums, hence the aquatic plants)

I picked up some Dwarf Mondo Grass (Ophiopogon japonicus nana), Asian Jasmine (trachelospermum asiaticum), Lemon Button Fern (Nephrolepis cordifolia), and Dragons Tongue (Hemigraphis Repanda) all at Lowes for prices much cheaper then can be found online.

I also purchased a cutting of Marcgravia sp. Suriname for as much as I paid for all the other plants in the previous paragraph. Plus a bunch of cuttings of Oak Leaf Creeping Fig (Ficus Pumila Quercifolia). 

And since this is a dart frog tank I bought a reasonably cool bromeliad which is a hybrid cross between a fireball and a royal burgundy. I plan to buy some other epiphyte plants down the line (likely anubias and bucephalandra) but that will have to wait till I actually have the tank set up. I don't want to try to keep those plants alive without a mister on a timer in a high humidity space. For mosses.. I have a hard time paying money for what I can probably just find when I go hiking and plan to go that route. 

A lot of these plants require a pretty powerful light. So I bought a Chihiros WRGB II for this tank. Its a light that pretty much has to be bought from overseas but in the planted aquarium hobby is considered to be an excellent budget high light solution. With the tank in vertical configuration putting the floor at 24" away I should be able to get at least 50 PPFD at substrate. Plus it has an app that will allow sunrise and sunset modes which will be fun.

The room this tank is going into is in my basement which tends to be about 68 degrees year round. This begs the question of how to heat the tank.. I haven't come to a conclusion on this but some reading on the subject indicates a very small heater on the side of the tank that turns on during the day is the way to go? Definitely open to suggestions on this point.

Oh and I also plan to buy some manzanita branches with lots of little twigs on the ends. This will give my tank more vertical space and provide locations for me to stick all the moss plus some of the other epiphtye plants. 2 sides of the tank will have diy backgrounds on them. I have not decided what method I want for the backgrounds other then that I want them to not look flat, and to allow for all my vine plants to crawl up them. 

And finally the big question... what the heck do I put in this tank? After reading various threads it seems like this tank is not going to be well suited for tincs because most of the space is vertical. I am therefore leaning towards thumbnails since my reading indicates they are more likely to enjoy climbing and thus need less floor space. Does this sound right?

Thank you to everyone that actually read this incredibly long post. In my next update I will have pictures of something.. I promise! Plus I plan to update this thread with the entire build so folks can follow along as I go.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

minorhero said:


> Hello folks!
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Dendrobates leucomelas will like the vertical height of that tank too and they're great for beginners. 

For drainage layer: I usually have mine be about 1-2", but the main thing is to make sure it's higher than your drain/bulkhead hole, that way the water line is below the substrate, preventing soggy rotting substrate... 

At 68F the temperature is a little on the low side but not terrible cold. Lights will add a decree or two to the temperatures. Others can chime in on temperatures. 

I think I answered most of your questions. If there were over I missed, sorry. I have a hard time finding questions in paragraphs lol.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> Dendrobates leucomelas will like the vertical height of that tank too and they're great for beginners.
> 
> For drainage layer: I usually have mine be about 1-2", but the main thing is to make sure it's higher than your drain/bulkhead hole, that way the water line is below the substrate, preventing soggy rotting substrate...
> 
> ...


Thank you for your response! I'm impressed you even read my crazy long post . 

I considered Leucomelas but honestly I am just not wild about them. I will get the wife's opinion (part of my secret plan to have her happy with the vivarium is consulting her on the froggies and some of the plants) but as it stands these fellows live way way too long for me not to be super happy with the look of the frog upfront.

2" is what I was thinking of for a drainage layer as well. I hear plastic window screen is the stuff to use between the drainage layer and the substrate? One video I saw was of someone who said it didn't need a barrier at all... unless its better without I am planning to use a barrier though.

Has anyone come up with a good method of heating a tank? I read one post where they were concerned the glass would crack if you put a heater under the tank and suggested one on the side instead.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Fibreglass or plastic Window screen works for a barrier, and yes you will want a barrier.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> Fibreglass or plastic Window screen works for a barrier, and yes you will want a barrier.


Much appreciated!

Small Update:

The first of the various things I ordered came in tonight, specifically a 3 inch diamond hole saw. I began by making sure none of the panels on my tank were tempered via the sunglass method, and they are not so yea, I can proceed. While I have seen a lot of videos on it, this is my first time actually drilling glass.

From those videos (as well as experience doing some woodworking) I know the secret to stopping chipout when drilling a hole is to fully support the backside of the hole. This means I needed a board clamped to the inside of the tank. Because the location was pretty deep in the tank itself I had to get a bit creative.... with my clamping solution. Here is what my drill setup looked like. The bit is in the picture just for reference.










Basically once you have decided on a location for the hole you need to have a way to keep the bit wet while it is in use. I decided to go with plumbers putty and building a little dam around the hole. I filled it with water and set to it. Other options include letting a hose constantly trickle water. I had frankly planned to use the hose and a guide but as it turns out I don't have a 3" wood hole saw and I was unwilling to use the diamond hole saw to cut wood when I was also planning to need the darn thing just once for cutting this glass. So I freehanded the hole and used the plumbers putty.

It took about 5 minutes to cut the hole but it came out pretty nice. There is only a very very tiny amount of chipout along one side where I suspect I pressed too hard after I drilled through.










This hole is purely for ventilation so I will be using a 2 inch bulkhead and covering it with some kind of fruit fly proof screen. I may also use this hole for temperature and humidity probes if I find something I like. Most of the other things I ordered from amazon are coming next week. I am less sure about my substrate supplies. I ordered tree fern and orchid bark from a rare orchid website, plus cork bark from another plant website. Once all of those come in I will be able to start considering the backgrounds.


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## DPfarr (Nov 24, 2017)

Nice work on the ventilation hole. That’s what I would prefer if I would go the vert route.


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## dartboard (Jan 30, 2011)

looks cool, Ill be following along


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

DPfarr said:


> Nice work on the ventilation hole. That’s what I would prefer if I would go the vert route.


Thank you, I think it will work. After looking at pictures of custom vivs I think the amount of ventilation in this tank will be pretty similar to euro designed vivs of a similar footprint. 



dartboard said:


> looks cool, Ill be following along


Thank you! I'm enjoying the process.

Small update:

I am continuing to get parts delivered to me. I recently received a shipment of cork bark I plan to use for a titebond 3 background just to break up the lines a bit. My plan right now is to add some calcined clay pieces (Safe-T-Sorb - similar to Turface) to the surface of the titebond 3 background along with the cork bark just so its not too uniform. I don't know if the safe-t-sorb will stick but I figure worst thing that happens the safe-t-sorb falls out.

I am also continuing to research what I am going to put in this darn thing 

I was thinking thumbnails because of the footprint but my research is turning up threads (many from this board) of people keeping a pair of tincs in a 10 gallon horizontal. The footprint of this tank once the substrate is banked will be slightly larger then a 10 gallon horizontal which makes me wonder if I can responsibly keep tincs in this vivarium. 

One thing to consider is that I can not under any circumstances have a frog with a loud call in this tank. My children's bedrooms are above this tank as well as my own and frankly if my kids get woken up by the frogs... well its not going to go over well with The Wife.

In other news I bought and received a bluetooth thermometer and hydrometer with pretty solid reviews from amazon for just 19 dollars. It's called Govee. It's pretty spiffy and will even track temperature and humidity over time so I can see how the temperature changes over the day. I also turned the heat up in the basement slightly and got the ambient air temperature to 69 degrees. If the lights boost me 1 or 2 degrees that puts me in a much happier froggy place.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update:

I received in the rest of my diamond drill bits. I wasted no time in putting in a few more holes. Here is a 1/2 inch bulkhead drilled for a drain in the back of the vivarium (formally the bottom of the aquarium).










It doesn't look it in the picture due to the angle but the bottom of the hole is 1-5/8 inch from the bottom glass. I am also going to install a strainer so my false bottom doesn't leak out of the hole. I will put down at least 2" of false bottom (probably a little deeper in the back) but this way all the water will drain out before it can soak my substrate.

I also drilled a 5/8" hole for my mistking nozzle. Here is how that setup looked prior to drilling:










And the tank with all holes drilled:










And here is the vivarium on the stand in the corner it will rest once all is said and done:










In other news I was out hiking with my wife and kids today and my daughter kept wanting me to catch frogs (I think they were Northern or Southern Leopard Frogs). After I caught a few my daughter started making a lot of noises about how she wants to keep them. The Wife, to my complete shock, was all for it. The Wife was then disappointed when I had to nix all such plans since we do not even have a single vivarium up and running let alone one setup for a temperate froggy like what we were catching. Once I explained a bit more in depth about what the vivarium setup process is like she seemed only somewhat mollified. Instead she is already making big plans for a vivarium for temperate frogs.... I'm at a total loss... The Wife won't let me add any more aquariums for fish (I have one 5 gallon, one 7.5 gallon, one 5 gallon breeding box, and one 40 gallon, the last two are in an unfinished part of the basement), but she is practically insisting on having more frog vivariums.. It will be interesting to see if this level of interest on her part stays after the current vivarium is setup, running, and occupied.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

minorhero said:


> Update:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Take the enthusiasm!!!! 
Those are Nice clean drill holes.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Quick Update:

My orchid bark and tree fern are coming in tomorrow. I already have long fiber sphagnum moss as well as milled sphagnum moss and peat moss. So I have everything I need to make my substrate after tomorrow.. except the charcoal. Well I have cowboy natural charcoal from Lowes. But it is not the right size...

After reading some threads it seems the accepted method of correcting this issue is to put the charcoal in a pillow case and either beat it with a hammer or run over it with your car.

Between those 2, hitting it with a car sounds way cooler. 

I decided to put my own spin on it though and not use a pillow case. I frankly didn't want to ruin one. So I used a heavy duty contractor trash bag. This worked really well! Afterwards I had trashbag of coal chunks and a LOT of dust. I decided to fill the bag with water from my hose to wash the coal.

Do not do this.... seriously... its a mess.....

Anyway after I cleaned up the mess a bit I had a good sized bucket of coal chunks.










If all goes well then at some point tomorrow I will be making one side of my background.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

minorhero said:


> Quick Update:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I enjoy hitting the charcoal with a baseball bat


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> I enjoy hitting the charcoal with a baseball bat


LOL put that way I feel like I missed out ;P


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

minorhero said:


> LOL put that way I feel like I missed out ;P


It's messy as can be going at it with the baseball bat, and leaves a lot of charcoal dust.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update!:

I received my substrate supplies today as well as the rest of my plants. After opening the box I realized I am definitely going to need a lot more tree fern fiber since it is the main ingredient in my backgrounds. The two gallons I had already ordered would have been plenty for just the substrate, but not after I mix most/all with glue...

That brings me to my background! I hydrated most of a gallon of tree fern fiber and realized that I didn't quite like the texture by itself. I then added in some peat moss and safe-t-sorb I had previously hydrated and have been using for cuttings. The mixture was a much better consistency and this is what I used. I added glue until when I squeezed it into a ball it held together without immediately crumbling when I loosened my fingers. Kind of the consistency of wet sand when making a sand castle at the beach if that makes sense. Anyway I pressed this mixture into my tank when it was lying on it's back. I tried to create little hills and valleys (as much as I could with only about 1" of depth in the deepest areas) to add some visual interest. I also took my cork bark and stomped on it till I could break it up into smaller pieces. Those I added to background making sure to actually cover parts of the cork bark with some of the tree fern fiber mix. And finally I added some more safe-t-sorb and pressed it in. This last was done to break up the homogeneous nature of the tree fern fiber and add more aesthetic appeal.

Overall I am pretty happy with how it looked. The last step was to take a damp paper towel (actually a bunch of them) and wipe down the glass where the the gluey wood had smeared areas that were supposed to remain uncovered.

Here is how it looks:










The blue tape is there to cover up the area where the bulkhead goes. I don't want anything interfering with my seal in that location.

And just for giggles here is how my cuttings of Marcgravia sp. Suriname were shipped:










I've never gotten a plant in a tiny vial before. I thought it was a pretty cool way to make sure they got to their destination without being crushed.

I nipped off the end, dusted them in root hormone, and planted them in damp peat/safe-t-sorb mix. I then put a little cup overtop so they keep in some humidity and put them in a window that gets indirect light. 

I also got in my amazon sword plant (Echinodorus Hadi) which got a similar substrate but in a glass container I had lying around:



















I have no idea how long it will take my background to dry. I've heard as little as 3 days and as long as 10 days. I don't think mine is as wet as some (I saw a video of guy whose background was so wet he was squeezing the water/glue out of it as he placed each handful) so I am hoping I am on the lower end of the spectrum. Once it is dry I can roll the tank onto it's side and do this whole process again.


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## Organics (Jan 17, 2020)

Loving the look of the background, mind explaining the process a bit more in depth(glue/ratios)?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Organics said:


> Loving the look of the background, mind explaining the process a bit more in depth(glue/ratios)?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


So here is what I did. I took my tree fern fiber and dumped it in a 5 gallon bucket (highly recommend a 5 gallon bucket or something with similarly high sides.. seriously important).

Then added water till it was damp but not dripping. 

Then I didn't like the look of just the tree fern fiber I was using so I added some already wet sphagnum peat moss and safe-t-sorb I already had mixed (probably about 40% of the final mixture is peat moss and safe-t-sorb).

Then I dumped in the glue. For the amount you see on the background I used about half of a 16 OZ glue bottle. 

Wearing disposable gloves I mixed all of this together for a few minutes. Then I pulled out handfuls and deposited it on the glass. I did this till I had complete coverage at a pretty even depth. 

Then I added my cork bark pieces pressing it into the background pinching, pulling, redistributing the background mix over, around, and to the sides of the cork bark. 

Then I compacted and fluffed up the background mix in various spots to make the background bumpy (doesn't come across well in the picture, but it's there).

Then I dribbled some Safe-T-Sorb onto the background I pressed this lightly into the background mix as well. No idea if this will work, I haven't seen anyone else use this stuff but I think it looks good so I am willing to try.

Then I found something to act as a cover for the tank so my wife's cats don't jump into the tank and take a big steaming poop on my background ;P literally....

And that is it. A video I saw said that the whole process will feel like its not going to work right up to the point when it finally dries. That's how I feel now. Titebond is not a particularly sticky glue when wet... The background mix is only slightly more sticky then it would be if it was just water being used. 

Here are 2 videos I saw of the process. Mine is much closer to the second video, the drier of the two.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

And like that... I realized I've made a huge mistake....

You see I've been trying to figure out the frog selection for a while and mostly coming up short. I basically really wanted tincs. While some folks do indeed put tincs in a 10 gallon horizontal and I have slightly more space then that... it seems to generally be frowned upon. All of my reading indicates they will not climb much and prefer to spend their time on the ground. So the vertical space is less important to them.

I thus moved onto consider the Ranitomeya and recently thought I settled on imitator varadero. They have a quiet call, are bold, and I liked the look. But I was settling, I really wanted tincs. Then The Wife saw the frog I was considering. Her response was something to the effect of "what happened to the frogs we looked at before?" 

I explained that the vivarium I was building was not going to be suited for them, something I frankly didn't know when I bought the tank. 

Her response to this was essentially, "well what would we need to get the frogs we actually want?"

Well... folks... let me tell you that this was both disappointing (since my current vivarium I have been working on is now defunct) and uplifting (because.. I really wanted tincs). 

This brings us to The Wife giving the ok for an Insitu Vivarium. Which I have now ordered. 

Here is a picture of one from their website:










Soooooo yea this is going to pause for a bit while I wait for my vivarium to arrive. Then I can pick this all back up when it comes... well kind of..

Because you see.. I already have made a lot of progress on my current vivarium, and I already own all the supplies needed to make this one a reality (even if some of it is still in shipping). Essentially what The Wife doesn't realize yet, is that we did not replace the current vivarium, so much as just gain 2 vivariums.... The Insitu vivarium will be for tincs while my current vivarium build will be a plant growout location / baby frog rearing site.... or at least that is how I see it  The reality will likely not be as simple. My stand is not big enough for both tanks at the same time and my stand will have the mistking installed in it. So I would need to be pretty creative to find a place for a 2nd vivarium nearby.

Oh well, I will still go ahead and finish this build with the parts coming in, you never know when a second tank could be needed.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

minorhero said:


> And like that... I realized I've made a huge mistake....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Best wife ever! It's never a bad idea to have an extra ready to use vivarium. Gives you a fallback in case of an issue with the main tank, or for babies.


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## RyanD (Jul 18, 2006)

fishingguy12345 said:


> Best wife ever! It's never a bad idea to have an extra ready to use vivarium. Gives you a fallback in case of an issue with the main tank, or for babies.



Yep. I would agree! She’s a keeper for sure. Extra tanks are great for growing plants too. Or more frogs. 



minorhero said:


> Then I dribbled some Safe-T-Sorb onto the background I pressed this lightly into the background mix as well. No idea if this will work, I haven't seen anyone else use this stuff but I think it looks good so I am willing to try.



What do you like about the safe-t-sorb? That’s a clay, right? I appreciate you documenting this all. 

Using tables and stands can get tricky, I’ve spent way too many hours on Craigslist and online shopping for nightstands that are the perfect dimensions but still fit in with the room.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> Best wife ever! It's never a bad idea to have an extra ready to use vivarium. Gives you a fallback in case of an issue with the main tank, or for babies.


Absolutely, she is pretty awesome!



RyanD said:


> What do you like about the safe-t-sorb? That’s a clay, right? I appreciate you documenting this all.
> 
> Using tables and stands can get tricky, I’ve spent way too many hours on Craigslist and online shopping for nightstands that are the perfect dimensions but still fit in with the room.
> 
> ...


Safe-T-Sorb is the same stuff as turface or oildri it is just a different color. You can buy it at tractor supply stores for about 15 dollars for a 25 lb bag and since it's pretty light stuff, that's a BIG bag.

As to why I like it? It is a hardened calcined clay and that means it has a high Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC). In the aquarium side of things it is not uncommonly used as a substrate choice because the CEC capacity means it has buffering properties. It can absorb nutrients being released from fertilizers or other substrates and store them until plants use them. I love the stuff because I also think it looks just like a bunch of little pebbles but it is light enough to stay on the surface in most aquarium substrate mixes and here at least I hoped it wouldn't pull off of the background. In this application it has no practical purpose beyond aesthetics.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update:

Even though I won't be putting substrate or frogs into this tank anytime soon I decided to keep documenting my build, hopefully it will be helpful for other folks. 

The next morning after I made the background I touched the edges and frankly couldn't discern any real difference in the dryness level since I put it together the previous night.

I then put a small desk fan literally hanging into the tank and turned it on full blast. 24 hours later it was pretty darn dry. Probably not 100% dry... but certainly dry enough for me to stand it up. Here is how it looks now:



















I also used some scrap molding from a bathroom remodel to make a hood for this tank. The original idea was to have something uptop that could hide the equipment. 



















I frankly do not love this hood and will definitely be doing something different for my Insitu once it arrives (which should be early next week). Also the final color of this hood is not white... heh that is just primer, the hood would be painted black.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Small Update:

I settled on a light solution for Insitu vivarium. I am going to build my own! I originally was going to buy an off the shelf light but some folks over at an aquarium forum I frequent suggested building my own and after thinking about it a bit I decided to give it a shot. 

I have extremely limited understanding of circuits so this is definitely pretty far outside of my wheelhouse. Fortunately the person I was talking with knows quite a bit about it and was able to tell me what to buy and diagram how to wire it up. 

So I bought a heatsink, 24 Luxeon Sunplus Cool White LEDs on pcb, 2 Sunplus Deep Red, and 3 Luxeon ES Cyan. Plus 3 drivers, power supply, and all the little fiddly bits to make it come together. 

I have in the past always rejected DIY lighting because I want the the light enclosures to look good. I put my aquariums in living spaces of my house. I want every part of them to look nice. But for the vivarium I am planning on having a hood which will obscure the misting system (and consequently the light as well). So it doesn't matter if the light looks like I made it myself as opposed to having someone with a design aesthetic putting it together. What matters is the color and the brightness. 

The cool whites are horticulture lights but in the 6500 spectrum range. They should easily grow the plants. The reds and cyan are to make the colors pop. The sunplus chips also have a crazy angle on them of 150 degrees, so they should do a really good job of spreading the light all around the vivarium including the back wall. 

In other news I got in some manzanita branches I bought from bloomsandbranches.com. I bought these when I assumed I was making a vivarium for thumbs. I still will try to use 1 or more for this build, but they are mostly for plant space. I am trying to find some driftwood that is more appropriate for tincs (meaning wider and slightly curved so I can use it to increase horizontal space).

Here is a picture of 2 of the 3 branches I purchased. The one on the right is in the same condition as when it arrived. The one on the left has already had me thin it out, and then file down the sharp stumps left by broken twigs.










And here are the two branches I thinned and filed down:










I don't know if this is a real concern or not, but I was worried that if I had sharp ends to the branches the frogs could injure themselves on the points. This is something I do for fish in aquariums. Not sure if its needed for froggies but I figured it couldn't hurt to do it.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

minorhero said:


> ]
> 
> 
> I don't know if this is a real concern or not, but I was worried that if I had sharp ends to the branches the frogs could injure themselves on the points. This is something I do for fish in aquariums. Not sure if its needed for froggies but I figured it couldn't hurt to do it.


It's not a bad idea to sand down sharp points . They can cause injury if the frogs scrape against them.


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## Organics (Jan 17, 2020)

minorhero said:


> Small Update:
> 
> I settled on a light solution for Insitu vivarium. I am going to build my own! I originally was going to buy an off the shelf light but some folks over at an aquarium forum I frequent suggested building my own and after thinking about it a bit I decided to give it a shot.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the info on the background, also from my understanding the red/blue won’t make color pop on plants, they will how ever change the type of growth you receive. Red for example will encourage more leggy growth this response is due to areas that receive higher amounts of “red” light tend to be areas shaded by other plants where its advantageous to grow fast and tall. Color tends to be a response to light intensity. 

I did a write up on DIY led light fixture where I explained the basics of the circuitry as well as how to size heat sink, power supplies, led holder, etc. 

https://www.dendroboard.com/forum/parts-construction/355070-diy-high-powered-led-no-soldering.html

Hopefully this can help you. 

I basically condensed this guy’s information 


https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFeGgzTAA8vkzWTM7SWiQPlYAhNe3GMGi

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## DPfarr (Nov 24, 2017)

Depends on the wavelength of the red in respect to becoming leggy. 










The shorter wavelength can travel through foliage or destruction by refraction. Conversion to the active form of phytochrome making it grow leggy.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Organics said:


> Thanks for the info on the background, also from my understanding the red/blue won’t make color pop on plants, they will how ever change the type of growth you receive. Red for example will encourage more leggy growth this response is due to areas that receive higher amounts of “red” light tend to be areas shaded by other plants where its advantageous to grow fast and tall. Color tends to be a response to light intensity.





DPfarr said:


> Depends on the wavelength of the red in respect to becoming leggy.
> 
> The shorter wavelength can travel through foliage or destruction by refraction. Conversion to the active form of phytochrome making it grow leggy.


My understanding is you both have a piece of it but the whole story is more complicated. Red light does make plants grow lanky but only if you use pretty much only red light. To be clear we are not talking about the far red part of the spectrum. If blue light is added you get normal plant growth. This is why so many people are selling these incredibly ugly grow bulbs that are a mix of red and blue leds to create this truly heinous purple light. Normal amounts of red light help plants flower, or in situations where they don't flower and are getting enough light otherwise to grow properly, and then if they can, red light helps plants turn red.

On the aquarium side this is a pretty common concern since some of the aquatic plants will turn various shades of red when exposed to enough co2 and light. But light with too much blue in it won't do the trick. Thus the best aquarium leds often have a much warmer spectrum, something in the 5000s to low 6000s.

Anyway in my case I am adding the reds and the greens for people not for the plants. The cool whites will grow the plants great, but if you shine green light on a plant it will mostly bounce off and thus make the plant look 'more' green. Same for red which is why I mention colors popping. 

Here is some random quick write up I found on red light plant growth:

https://www.canr.msu.edu/uploads/resources/pdfs/red-light.pdf


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update:

I received in my frog cube and my glass cutter so I was able to go ahead and (for all intents and purposes) finish the vivarium. I am pretty pleased with how it went together. 

First a word about cutting glass... I went to two Lowes looking for my glass to be cut to a specific size needed for this build. At the first Lowes they told me the glass cutter was out of service. (This as it turns out is just a lie). At the second Lowes they told me they are not offering glass cutting during the Pandemic... well shucks. 

Instead I bought the only glass cutting tool they had, a kobalt glass cutter. Now understand I hate the Kobalt brand. Every Kobalt tool I have seen has been awful compared to literally anything else I can find, but I figured the glass cutter had to at least cut glass, and I didn't need it for more then a handful of cuts...

I should have gone with my gut... Here is a picture of two glass cutters. The Kobalt is on the left. The one on the right is a Toyo glass cutter purchased from amazon. 










The Toyo cutter was purchased because the Kobalt cutter did not work AT ALL. I have never cut glass before, so when I ruined an entire 24"x36" piece of glass one small cut at a time, I assumed I was just horrible at cutting glass. I mean I worked at it for over 2 hours making dozens of cuts trying to get 2 relatively small pieces of intact glass out of the sheet. No luck.

Then I got the Toyo cutter and a new sheet of glass. Night and day difference. The Toyo cutter actually cut the glass.. So yea.. don't buy Kobalt. 

With the glass cut I was able to assemble the frog cube. Some of the pieces required some filing/sanding because they were a little too tight. Other then that the whole thing went together very easily. After dry fitting everything I took it all apart and applied silicone. Here is the tank now:










Overall very happy with how it came out. I have no immediate plans for this tank but its nice to have and maybe some day I can put it to work ;P

Now I just need to wait for my Insitu to arrive. It is scheduled for Tuesday. After it comes I will immediately put together the background. Really looking forward to that.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Nice! I'm sure you'll find a use for the extra tank soon enough. You Could also turn it into a plant only growing tank. 

I've never cut glass myself, I'm not very handy and am quite accident prone so I try to avoid things that I'm likely to mess up horribly lol.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

My Insitu Vivarium is coming sometime today. While waiting I decided to do a little project for the tank.

I bought some monkey pods a little while ago with plans of using them as egg depositories instead of petri dishes. I know the petri dishes are standard in the hobby but I just don't like the aesthetic of the coconut hut - petri dish combo. Since monkey pods are not necessarily waterproof I decided to coat them in something that is. Since black film canisters seem to be popular with smaller species I decided to go black for my coating. I've heard of folks using silicone for this but I didn't want to buy and waste most of a tube of silicone. Instead I went with 2 part epoxy and powdered tint. I've used this for woodworking before and it works very well and when dry, is just plastic so safety shouldn't be an issue.

Here is everything you need:










I am using loctite 5 minute epoxy but I have also used quickcure and I suspect any clear 2 part epoxy would work fine.

I added each part to a small disposable cup and then added a little of the powdered tint:










I mixed it up with a small scrap piece of wood (could use anything for this but it should be something disposable). Then dished it into the monkey pod:










At this point it doesn't look very black but that is normal. Once heat is applied it becomes substantially darker and also much less viscus (like the thickness of maple syrup once heat is used).

I basically just heated it up with the heat gun keeping it vertical in my hand. Once it was freely moving as a liquid I rolled it back and forth in the pod till it coated everything. The first one was the sloppiest, the 2nd better and I think I got a pretty good one by the time I got the third and biggest pod.










Once completely dry they won't be quite as shiny but you get the idea. Hopefully the froggies will appreciate them as well ;P


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update!:

My Insitu arrived and overall pretty happy. It was packed quite well and had zero damage. The first thing I noticed when I opened the box was an apology letter by the Insitu team. It seems their supply chain broke down and they could not get me tempered glass doors. They instead sent me annealed glass doors with a promise to send me the correct doors in the future. I contacted them by email and already got a response, they were very sorry and plan to can send me the correct part in 2 weeks. This mattered only because the doors they did send did not have the silicone seam along one end to keep fruit flies in. 

Still in 2 weeks I won't even be close to adding fruit flies so I doubt it will ultimately make much difference. And I am glad they sent me the vivarium now rather then put the whole thing on hold for 2 weeks.

After reading in another thread I posted about problems of growing moss on a titebond 3 background I decided to increase the amount of cork bark in this background (the moss will grow on the cork but not the titebond apparently). I didn't have enough of the cork I already had so I bought 2 small pieces of zoo med cork from amazon. It came in today as well and I was able to put the background together. 

This one is made from 50% tree fern fiber, 40% sphagnum peat moss, and 10% orchid bark (for texture). I definitely used about 16 oz of titebond 3 as well. 

Here is the tank on its back with the bark just laid out to see how it looked:










Here it is after I removed the bark, added the background material, and then re-added the bark:










And here it is after I added more background material to obscure some of the clean cut edges:










This background is not frankly as nice looking by itself as the previous background I made since the cork is just everywhere. But I think it will look a lot better once planted. There are a lot of nooks between the bark where I can shove plants and the bark itself will be able to support moss. 

In the last picture you can see the fan I have on it. Hopefully I can get this thing dried out in the next day or so and at that point turn it vertical to begin playing with hardscape.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Looks good so far


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

minorhero said:


> Update!:This background is not frankly as nice looking by itself as the previous background I made since the cork is just everywhere. But I think it will look a lot better once planted.


You are probably right. If there is one thing I have learned after building lots of dart frog tanks, it's that you don't really know how well you will like it after it grows in. Just last weekend I had to re-do a tank that I was sure I would like when I first planted it. However, when it grew in for a year or so, I ended up unhappy with it and starting again. I learn a little more each time that happens so I get a little better at it, but the possibility continues that I am not happy and I have to replant or adjust the hardscape. I use the cracked cork mosaic process for just about all of my tanks and it is similar to what you are doing. I would suggest some shinglers like Rhaphidophora or Marcgravia to cover the back. Oak-leaved ficus is another option, though it will take over eventually if you let it  Anyway, you have done a good job so far. Keep up the good work!

Mark


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Encyclia said:


> You are probably right. If there is one thing I have learned after building lots of dart frog tanks, it's that you don't really know how well you will like it after it grows in. Just last weekend I had to re-do a tank that I was sure I would like when I first planted it. However, when it grew in for a year or so, I ended up unhappy with it and starting again. I learn a little more each time that happens so I get a little better at it, but the possibility continues that I am not happy and I have to replant or adjust the hardscape. I use the cracked cork mosaic process for just about all of my tanks and it is similar to what you are doing. I would suggest some shinglers like Rhaphidophora or Marcgravia to cover the back. Oak-leaved ficus is another option, though it will take over eventually if you let it  Anyway, you have done a good job so far. Keep up the good work!
> 
> Mark


Thank you! I have oak leaved ficus and some marcgravia cuttings I am trying to root. I also have some unidentified species of Solanum sold to me by black jungle (they didn't know what it was either apparently). One small pot of Peperomia rotundifolia var. pilosior. Plus Asian Jasmine I bought at lowes. So between all of those I'm hoping to have a lot of vining plants. I also have a lot of low lying plants as well, which will hopefully not take up space the froggies could be using. Frankly I have more plants then I think I will use but that is on purpose. When scaping aquariums I found it was better to have too much and not need it then have not enough and wish you had just a few more plants to balance something out.


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## kblack3 (Mar 9, 2015)

One of the wall plants I like a lot is the ficus villosa. It has a ton of hairs on it which is fun. I also have a few awesome margravias including a very awesome peach colored one. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

The solanum looks nice. It'll love climbing the cork wall. 

I'm a big fan of climbing/shingling plants, I have an order of marcgravia's and a solanum coming next week


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

kblack3 said:


> One of the wall plants I like a lot is the ficus villosa. It has a ton of hairs on it which is fun. I also have a few awesome margravias including a very awesome peach colored one.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


I looked up ficus villosa and the pictures are pretty darn cool. Unfortunately it appears impossible to purchase. Even the all powerful ebay was easily defeated.


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## kblack3 (Mar 9, 2015)

Sent you a pm buddy


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update!

The background is not completely dry but it is dry enough for me to turn upright. I then got some time to experiment with some hardscape designs. Here is one possibility:










The rocks in this case would be mostly buried by substrate with just the tip of the rocks on the left jutting up and part of the front of that rock as well. The substrate would then slope lower to the right and cover about half of that rock there. 

Missing from this is the large piece of mopani wood I bought which will be going from near the top of the rocks on the left all the way across the tank and then curving down to the substrate. This will increase horizontal space (as does the sloping substrate) and it will create a kind of bridge the underside of which (with the help of some plantings) will be a natural hide. But I am still waiting for the darn wood to arrive heh, it was supposed to come today but alas the vagaries of the USPS have defeated me once more.

Anyway once I turned it upright and had some light shining behind it I noticed all those darn clear spots at the top. I laid it back down after taking this picture and added some more woodglue media to the top to plug up those holes. I put the fan back on and will give it another day or so of drying time before I try again.

Meanwhile I also made a hood for the top to hide equipment:










This one is made of crown molding and frankly does a much better job of not looking terrible.

And now an aside about Insitu being really really dumb. On the Insitu Website they list the dimensions of the vivarium as " (width x height x depth): 22.25 x 24 x 17.5" (56.5 x 61 x 44.5 cm)". This is just straight up a lie. 

Now it is the case that aquariums are commonly measured and their volume calculated by the exterior dimensions. Thus if you buy say a 20 gallon aquarium the measurements of the aquarium will be "24 1/4 x 12 1/2 x 16 3/4" and this is the outside of the tank. The volume of the tank is calculated not by what the tank actually holds but rather by an imaginary box that had interior dimensions the same size as the tanks exterior dimensions. This is just how the industry operates and it's been going on for quite some time.

The difference between that and Insitu is that the Insitu tanks have a splayed base. Aquariums do not. The measurements of the Insitu tank are from that splayed base, the widened base mind you is purely for aesthetics, it doesn't need to be splayed. If you measure the outside dimensions at the top of the tank the dimensions are 21.5 x 16.75

This is the actual appropriate dimensions of the Insitu. Does it change my opinion of the company or tank? No not really. But I do think it's really dumb for them to market themselves as a larger tank then it is based on an aesthetic design decision.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update!:

The background is all done and I moved the tank to it's final location. I also potentially finalized the hardscape. I won't know for sure till the substrate is in and I get a chance to really absorb placement. The biggest thing stopping me from planting is the light. I am still waiting for the majority of the components to come in. So far the only thing I have are the project box, thermal glue, drivers, heatsink, and power supply. All the LEDs plus some wire are coming in this week (hopefully by Wednesday). 

When I moved the tank to the stand I went ahead and filled the trough in the front of the Insitu with Safe-T-Sorb for my drainage layer. After reading some threads it seems fiberglass window screen is the preferred barrier so I cut an appropriate sized piece and laid that down as well:










Here is the hardscape in the tank currently:










The substrate will be at it's highest point in the back left corner and will slope down to the front and right. Most of these rocks will be covered completely with only the top rock on the left being partially uncovered and the rock on the front right will be mostly uncovered. 

Here is what the tank looks like on the stand:










Since I am waiting on light components I went ahead and installed the mistking. My reservoir and drain containers are 2.5 gallon jugs purchased from amazon. I went with these because they fit in the section of stand I have devoted to this purpose. The electronic parts to the mistking are located in a drawer in the stand next to the big compartment. Only the motor is in the section with the reservoirs. Here is how it looks:










I also setup a Wifi powerstrip which I will be using for my light. I originally thought I was going to DIY my misting system as well (which is why I bought a whole wifi powerstrip instead of just a plug) but after reading old threads from others who went down that road I decided it wasn't worth it and just bought the mistking. 

Next up is hopefully the making of the light!


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update:

I previously said that next would be the light... well who knows when that is going to happen. The place I bought the led components from sent an automated email saying it has shipped but in reality only the label has been printed. The order has not actually made it to the post office yet so le sigh at best I am 3 days away from having my leds once they do get it to the post office.

In the meantime I ordered bugs from a forum member. Specifically springtails, dwarf white isopods and powder oranges. I will add 75% of the springtails to the tank and all of the isopods when they come, so I need a place for them to actually go. With that in mind I mixed up my substrate and added it to the tank.

The ABG recipe I went with is:

1 part sphagnum peat moss
1 part milled sphagnum
1 part charcoal (actually added a little more then 1 part since a base layer in the back is some larger pieces of charcoal)
2 parts tree fern fiber
2 parts orchid bark

I actually mixed up a giant batch, pretty much exactly 5 gallons worth. I ended up only using about 2.5 gallons for the tank so... yea a lot left over.

Here is what the tank looks like with the substrate added:




























After adding the substrate I went ahead and re-hydrated some long fiber sphagnum and stuffed it into cracks in the background and in my driftwood. Here is how that looks:










All of these spots will have plants on them, moss and epiphytes of course. 

Heres hoping my leds ship tomorrow.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update:

Insitu vivariums by report have a silicone edge to one piece of door glass to keep in flies. I say by report because mine didn't come that way. They ran out of the good glass so I ended up with 2 random pieces of glass cut to fit. They are a bit rough... on the edges and lack the silicone seal. They are supposed to be sending me the right doors in a few weeks but in the meantime I want to get this tank essentially up and running since I plan to add bugs in the next few days. I don't want to need to remove a door and keep it off for hours (maybe a day?) if getting the right door in ends up taking longer then expected.

So with that in mind I decided to go ahead and add the silicone seam to the door. To make this happen I used the 'credit card method' discussed on this board. 

The first one I did was frankly terrible. Also I for whatever reason, didn't tape off the door appropriately so I made a bit of a mess. I scraped that off this morning and redid it. This time I taped the area that was not to be covered in a smear of silicone. The silicone I used dries pretty quickly so in just a few hours I was good to go. Difficult to photograph appropriately but here is how it looks:



















and installed:










I also got my misting system up and running (programmed, reservoir filled) and tested it (more then I intended when I didn't realize the "stop" function wasn't a time to stop it but rather a duration). 

And finally my LEDs shipped. Expected arrival is not until Friday... but ohs well that's how it is sometimes.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

minorhero said:


> Update:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I had the same experience using my misting system for the first time lol. I had accidently set mine to run for 9:10:20 instead of 20 seconds lol.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> I had the same experience using my misting system for the first time lol. I had accidently set mine to run for 9:10:20 instead of 20 seconds lol.


Yeah that's pretty much exactly what happened. I set it to 8:30:10 thinking I was setting it for 10 seconds. What is funny is that they don't bother to explain how to program the timer in the owners manual.

After it started going off I realized somewhere around 20 second mark that something was wrong. Then there was a bit of a scramble to figure out how to turn the gosh darn thing off heh. One youtube video later I knew how to make it work.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update!!:

A surprise was waiting for me on my doorstep this morning, but it was not the led parts I have been waiting for. It WAS and led light though! To be specific the Chihiros WRGB 2 (30cm model) had arrived.

I ordered this light about a month ago when I was still planning to use the frog cube conversion. It is therefore small for the Insitu but as it turns out, not wholly inadequate. I used my par meter to take some readings and found that it put out between 25 and 80 par/ppfd at substrate. This was good enough for me to get planting!

I began with the biggest and bulkiest plant I currently have, the Bromelaid. I ordered this plant from ebay where it was described as a hybrid between a fireball and a royal burgundy. When it arrived it had a pretty good size pup on it. I pulled that off and attached both to the background with toothpicks. The roots I laid over long fiber sphagnum I squeezed into nooks in the background.










After that was in place I began with.. well pretty much everything else.










Dwarf mondo grass is on the left. Alocasia "Tiny Dancers" is in the middle next to the lemon button fern. I have the asian jasmine behind that. Dragons tongue is planted.. well most everywhere. The rabbits foot fern is attached to the background and the fluffy ruffle fern is planted at the base of the background.










Here I added the other rabbits foot fern to the background. I had a lot of trouble figuring out where to put this one. I almost got rid of it entirely but I think this location will work. 

And here is how it looks now:










I added some anubias to the background in a few places. There is anubias afzelii added to the driftwood up front and some minima added in back. Plus some nana on the background (though you can't see it). On the twiggier driftwood there is some Java fern (Microsorum Pteropus). This last I made a bundle of long fiber sphagnum and wrapped some cotton thread around to keep the roots moist and then just wedged into the wood. I may end up moving this around, not sure I like it's location or not.

I still need to plant my hair grass and all of my moss, plus add leaf litter, but it already looks SOOOO much better then before.

In other news, I also need to troubleshoot my mistking. The darn thing is not going off when the timer is set for it to run. I can manually make it run (either by setting it to "on" or by using the quick start setting) but it doesn't run when the auto program P0 or P1 time comes about. Anyone run into this before? The manual was no help.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

minorhero said:


> Update!!:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Looks great. 

On the misting: pressing mode will cycle the different modes (on/off/auto) , you want it in auto mode.

A picture of the timer as it currently looks would help ;-)


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> Looks great.
> 
> On the misting: pressing mode will cycle the different modes (on/off/auto) , you want it in auto mode.
> 
> A picture of the timer as it currently looks would help ;-)


Ya I figured out the "auto" mode after watching a video yesterday when setting it up. But it still skipped last night's misting and this mornings as well. Here is the 'home screen'










And the P1 screen (next misting)


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Ok disregard the mistking issue. No idea what changed but it went off as planned tonight.

In other news I have been collecting moss for a month now from hikes in the forest. I soaked it to get rid of any hitchhikers and added some of it to the tank tonight. I will likely add some more but for now here is how it looks:



















I just misted when I took these pictures so... not the greatest shots. I will have to get some better ones when this is all done (will likely just remove the doors for the photos.

I also just bought a used macro lens off of ebay for my camera. I have been wanting a good 1:1 macro for a while now and the deal (if the lens is as advertised) was too good to pass up.


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## Gar732 (May 11, 2020)

Tank is looking great! I like the mondo grass, I was just checking it out online the other day. 

Question on the moss, does it need to go dormant? I have a ton of moss in my yard, I use it for my landscaping, but I was under the impression that it wouldn’t survive in a vivarium?


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Gar732 said:


> Tank is looking great! I like the mondo grass, I was just checking it out online the other day.
> 
> Question on the moss, does it need to go dormant? I have a ton of moss in my yard, I use it for my landscaping, but I was under the impression that it wouldn’t survive in a vivarium?


Thank you!

Moss does not need a dormancy period. Moss pictures or mosaics are becoming popular and they are just moss stuffed into a frame, no need to put them outside for winter etc. I have seen a lot of folks drawing a distinction between temperate plants and tropical but I think the reality is more nuanced. At least some species of hair grass for instance require cold stratification for seeds to germinate but will happily reproduce via runners forever in terrarium. They are definitely temperate but for our purposes it doesn't matter. 

Anyway there are a LOT of moss species out there and most are difficult to identify if you are not trained in such. Like other plants different mosses have different requirements. I collected moss from the shadiest and wettest locations I could find. Will they take? No idea, but I should know in the next month. I have at least 4 different species in here so far and they are planted on different surfaces. If some don't make it while others do I will have a better understanding of what they need. Plus they were all free so you know, easy to replace.


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

Out of curiosity what made you go decide against the Amazonia model? Been thinking about ordering one and kind of liked the idea of it coming with lights and fans.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

SkubaSTI said:


> Out of curiosity what made you go decide against the Amazonia model? Been thinking about ordering one and kind of liked the idea of it coming with lights and fans.


The fan may be useful, not sure myself whether I will add one down the road. The light though.... Insitu provide very few details about their light. They basically just say that spectral designs make it and that it comes with a manual dimmer. They charge an extra 150 dollars to go from the Selva Plus to the amazonia. For that money you get a fan (worth 50 dollars if you buy it from them), the light, and a back panel made out of something not glass. I could care less about the back panel since I knew I was going to make a background. And for 100 dollars I figured I could easily buy a better light. I was right to, since the undersized light I am currently using is more powerful then their light (according to some numbers put out on their facebook group) and has an app that lets me control spectrum, timer, and has a sunrise and sunset mode. The light I will be building costs significantly more just in parts but will likely be about twice as powerful allowing me to grow plants in parts of the vivarium I wouldn't otherwise be able to and frankly will be fun for me to build so /shrug no reason to go to the Amazonia for a fan I may or may not ever use.


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

minorhero said:


> SkubaSTI said:
> 
> 
> > Out of curiosity what made you go decide against the Amazonia model? Been thinking about ordering one and kind of liked the idea of it coming with lights and fans.
> ...


That’s a pretty valid point. I figure the fan would help keep the glass clear, it perhaps their ventilation is good enough without it. I’ve built
LEDs for reef tanks before, but for this build I think I want a clean
Manufactured fixture. But I do
Like your compulsory canopy to hide everything as well. Is there any fixtures you’d reccomend for this if I didn’t want to diy? I do like the idea of controlling the light to give you the sunrise and sunset look. But isn’t mandatory. But would
Like a night lighting option too


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

SkubaSTI said:


> That’s a pretty valid point. I figure the fan would help keep the glass clear, it perhaps their ventilation is good enough without it. I’ve built
> LEDs for reef tanks before, but for this build I think I want a clean
> Manufactured fixture. But I do
> Like your compulsory canopy to hide everything as well. Is there any fixtures you’d reccomend for this if I didn’t want to diy? I do like the idea of controlling the light to give you the sunrise and sunset look. But isn’t mandatory. But would
> Like a night lighting option too


I knew no matter what I did I would have misting lines running around on the top of the tank so with that in mind I figured I would have to have a canopy if I wanted it to look clean. with a black plastic lid its not like we can achieve a rimless look anyway. 

Anyway if you only need around 50 - 80 ppfd at substrate for most parts of the tank (medium light to lower end of 'high' for house plants) then I would go with the larger version of what I have on my tank right now. Chihiros WRGB 2 (45cm model). They are not available in the States so you will need to order from China. Mine is the 30cm model, was guaranteed to arrive in 12 days but took almost a month so /shrug.

For reference the the Insitu Facebook group has a photo show their par values of their light saying theirs produces 50 ppfd at substrate.

To be completely honest though... if I had it all to do over again I would be VERY tempted to build my own tank. The fit and finish on the Insitu is just..ok... really nothing to be impressed about at all. With 50 dollars in shipping the Plus model cost almost 300 dollars. I think I could realistically build a plywood tank with glass top, glass side window and glass sliding doors that will look nicer then their tank for about half the cost.


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

minorhero said:


> SkubaSTI said:
> 
> 
> > That’s a pretty valid point. I figure the fan would help keep the glass clear, it perhaps their ventilation is good enough without it. I’ve built
> ...


Yea with the current situation who knows how long anything from China would take to ship. Canopy looks easy enough to make with a nail gun and miter saw at least. How hard is it to build a plywood one? Do you have any good resources on a diy I could look over? I’m fairly handy, but sometimes my ocd gets the best of me and I’ll over think and complicate things. Sorry didn’t mean to hijack your journal.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

SkubaSTI said:


> Yea with the current situation who knows how long anything from China would take to ship. Canopy looks easy enough to make with a nail gun and miter saw at least. How hard is it to build a plywood one? Do you have any good resources on a diy I could look over? I’m fairly handy, but sometimes my ocd gets the best of me and I’ll over think and complicate things. Sorry didn’t mean to hijack your journal.


No worries! This is what journals are for in my opinion. Places for me to learn by going over what I did and for others to learn by seeing what I did and either copying it or doing it better ;P

You are basically just building a plywood aquarium with extra viewing windows. Normally these things are built to hold hundreds of pounds of water, obviously a vivarium only needs a few inches at most so it won't need to be as strong (thus you can use much thinner glass and more of it). There are a few people out there offering pre-made tempered glass table-tops at very reasonable prices which could be used as windows or as the glass top. For that matter you don't need the entire top to be glass, just a section big enough to let your light shine through. A tempered glass 'shelf' will work great for this purpose. Similarly the doors could be a pre-made tabletops or even just regular annealed glass since they are commonly 1/8th" glass to begin with. Hardware stores commonly have this size in and many will cut the glass to your specifications for free. I would only use that size for the doors though just to be safe. Any viewing windows should be at least 1/4" thick if annealed or 3/16" if tempered since you will not want to replace those if they break.

Anyway I have been thinking for a few weeks about how I would go about building a 4 foot long vivarium.. That build may be in my future at some point. Before I get there though I want to live with my current vivarium and see how I like actual frog keeping. If I like it enough I may go on to build what will essentially be a 120 gallon vivarium in the middle of my family room/entry way. I was planning for an aquarium to go in that spot but I think a vivarium might be significantly less maintenance.

Here is a video/series on making a plywood aquarium from the king of diy fishkeeping:


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

minorhero said:


> SkubaSTI said:
> 
> 
> > Yea with the current situation who knows how long anything from China would take to ship. Canopy looks easy enough to make with a nail gun and miter saw at least. How hard is it to build a plywood one? Do you have any good resources on a diy I could look over? I’m fairly handy, but sometimes my ocd gets the best of me and I’ll over think and complicate things. Sorry didn’t mean to hijack your journal.
> ...


Yea I’m in a similar situation. I really want a centerpiece for my living room. Was goin g to go back to reefs or a high tech planted ada tank (I was recently obsessed with high end aqua scaping, but knew that rabbit hole would get super expensive to go down) so for years I been telling my wife when we get a house I’m going back to frogs, so now I think that’s the route I want to go. I figure a couple small setups until I get back into the swing of things, haven’t had darts for like 15 years.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

SkubaSTI said:


> Yea I’m in a similar situation. I really want a centerpiece for my living room. Was goin g to go back to reefs or a high tech planted ada tank (I was recently obsessed with high end aqua scaping, but knew that rabbit hole would get super expensive to go down) so for years I been telling my wife when we get a house I’m going back to frogs, so now I think that’s the route I want to go. I figure a couple small setups until I get back into the swing of things, haven’t had darts for like 15 years.


Heh we are in the exact same place except you have the advantage of actually having kept frogs before. I got permission from The Wife almost 2 years ago to have a 120 gallon rimless high tech planted tank in the main area of our house when we bought one. I am rethinking it now after keeping a 40 gallon high tech in my basement for the past year. It's a lot of work to keep it looking nice and easy to let it look terrible. I can make a low tech nano tank look great and it keep it that way effortlessly, my 40 gallon has been an ongoing trial. It doesn't help that that tank is all native species and frankly doesn't have a good algae eater among them. Anyway, with how easy vivariums are I am really thinking a 120 gallon with a drip wall and a species that is group friendly like auratus might be the way to go. But... if the bugs gross the wife out too much there is no way we can put it within sight of our dining room table...


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

minorhero said:


> SkubaSTI said:
> 
> 
> > Yea I’m in a similar situation. I really want a centerpiece for my living room. Was goin g to go back to reefs or a high tech planted ada tank (I was recently obsessed with high end aqua scaping, but knew that rabbit hole would get super expensive to go down) so for years I been telling my wife when we get a house I’m going back to frogs, so now I think that’s the route I want to go. I figure a couple small setups until I get back into the swing of things, haven’t had darts for like 15 years.
> ...


Believe it or not mine was ok with one in the kitchen, but someone on my other thread mentioned with small kids salmonella in the kitchen is unwise so I’m thinking a low tech with shrimp in that spot. But yea in our loving rooms having a giant box of water brings it own headaches and has made me realize vivarium not only looks cooler, but is less of a accident waiting to happen as well. I already know the group I want in that main display. Terribilis. Big, bold and loud calls


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update!:

Planting done??? Maybe!

When I left off most of my plants were in but I was still missing leaf litter and y dwarf hair grass carpet. For the leaf litter I decided to go with 100% Genuine Backyard Leaves. These leaves are all free range and collected with highest sustainability practices possible. ;P

Anyway my 3 year old loved going around and stuffing leaves into a plastic bag. After we collected enough (way more then I need truly) I boiled the leaves for 20 minutes to get rid of any hitchhikers. I strained the leaves and dried them somewhat on a storage container lid I had laying around. After that I added them to the back right as well as under the mopani wood, near the back wall and part of the front right as well. The front left section is all open which is where the dwarf hair grass carpet comes in.

I have grown dwarf hair grass for aquariums before several times and it is largely an undemanding plant once established. Previously I have always used grown plants (either tissue culture or potted) but here I wanted to try something a little different. I had 1 cup of tissue culture eleocharis acicularis which I would separate and plant, but I also had a bunch of eleocharis acicularis seeds that I have been cold stratifying in a cup of water in my fridge for the past several weeks. Once a day (or every few days when I forgot....) I would change the water in the cup. These I dried out and then sprinkled over the surface. This is what it looks like:










I also added some more moss to branches in the tank either by squeezing them into nooks, or by tying them with cotton thread to the branches. Hopefully they root, at which point they will look way awesome. I may also decide to do slurry mix of moss as well as I think the effect of those is pretty great looking when they work. Here is how it looked:











And finally I added some Tillandsia to the background and some branches. Several twigs/plants of Ficus Pumila Quercifolia to the base of the background and on the background itself. And a pot of Peperomia Rotundifolia got split up and hung from some moss on the branchy driftwood plus some marcgravia suriname got the same treatment.

And then I added the first inhabitants... BUGS. Not a big deal for anyone on this board but for me it was something new. In aquariums we actively try to keep bugs out of our tanks. I ordered from Michael Shrom from whom I got springtails, dwarf white isopods and nosy peach isopods, plus some advice. He only charged for the bugs. Very pleased with the order which was very generous. I got a picture of this fellow before he disappeared into the substrate: 










And here is where I am at now:



















The rest of my light parts are finally coming today according to usps tracker so here is hoping that the next post really is about making a light.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

The tank looks great but... I would recommend A LOT more leaf litter. 

It's going to be far more important to your future frogs' success and health than ground moss, or virtually anything else you could put in the tank.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> The tank looks great but... I would recommend A LOT more leaf litter.
> 
> It's going to be far more important to your future frogs' success and health than ground moss, or virtually anything else you could put in the tank.


Its not moss but hair grass. From what I have found people use leaf litter because it creates hunting zones for the frogs, they can hide in it, they can use the leaves to stay cool, and it keeps the substrate from sticking to their skin. The grass accomplishes most of this as well. 

The grass is "dwarf" but that only goes so far, it will actually grow at least 3 or 4 inches tall. I will "mow" the grass using scissors and the cuttings will be left in the vivarium which becomes food for springtails and isopods which the frogs can hunt. I don't know if the frogs will feel like the grass is 'hiding' them or not, certainly it can obscure them from their eye level but they will definitely be visible from above. It also will keep substrate off of them but it won't do anything to make them stay cool. That said, I have a lot of plants that create shady spots so I don't think that will be much of an issue. 

Doing research online I keep seeing mentions that while some frogs are found in forested environments others are found in grasslands. I haven't found good pictures of this in the wild but it at least indicates that this is not an alien environment for them. 

Plus its hard to see in the pictures because a lot of the plants are in the middle of the tank and block access to the back, but at least half of the tank's floor space is covered in several layers of leaf litter. It's only the front left section that is to be planted in grass.

Edit for some of the research I found:

Blog of someone finding tri-color dart frogs in pasture wetland.

Small article noting that frogs were tracked depositing tadpoles - 2 were noted to go into flooded pasture.

Anyway I am not totally oblivious to the needs of animals. If after things grow in and I actually put frogs in the tank I observe they appear to avoid the hair grass I can always rip it out and replace it with more leaf litter. Ripping it out and adding leaf litter is a few minutes work, but it will be a month or more before hair grass carpets can grow in. Thus if I am ever going to try it, it has to be now.


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

Looking great. Forgot if you mentioned it, but have you narrowed down which frogs you may go with?


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## ashdavisa (Oct 27, 2018)

I'm not sure a carpet of hairgrass is comparable to a tropical grassland, which would have large plants & clumping-type grasses that create protected pockets beneath them... Plus the ecosystem's entire history of growth, death, & decomp built up on the surface which is basically what leaf litter is meant to replicate.

Thriving hairgrass grows pretty dense- I'm not sure that frogs would be able to hide _in_ it more so than trample & sit on top of it. It would keep the frogs off the substrate & create an interesting hunting zone for sure, but it just doesn't have all the benefits of leaf litter. 

I'd recommend adding a section of leaf litter to the front as well for the sake of your frogs and clean-up crew. Plus, it'd prevent your hairgrass from eventually growing into your dragon's tongue.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

SkubaSTI said:


> Looking great. Forgot if you mentioned it, but have you narrowed down which frogs you may go with?


I am going with tincs, beyond that not sure as of yet. Part of the ultimate decision will be what The Wife likes ;P Right now its looking like either Azureus or Powder Blues. If I can find some fine spotted Azureus that would certainly be my preference.



ashdavisa said:


> I'm not sure a carpet of hairgrass is comparable to a tropical grassland, which would have large plants & clumping-type grasses that create protected pockets beneath them... Plus the ecosystem's entire history of growth, death, & decomp built up on the surface which is basically what leaf litter is meant to replicate.
> 
> Thriving hairgrass grows pretty dense- I'm not sure that frogs would be able to hide _in_ it more so than trample & sit on top of it. It would keep the frogs off the substrate & create an interesting hunting zone for sure, but it just doesn't have all the benefits of leaf litter.
> 
> I'd recommend adding a section of leaf litter to the front as well for the sake of your frogs and clean-up crew. Plus, it'd prevent your hairgrass from eventually growing into your dragon's tongue.


I may definitely add more leaf litter and rip out some/all the hair grass depending on how the frogs take to it. I haven't really seen anyone with a hair grass carpet in their tanks either on this forum, other forums, or on the social media websites. I am reluctant to reject the idea wholly when no one has really tried it before. I have seen some old threads of folks trying to grow hair grass and just failing (probably a light level issue). You are right of course that hair grass is vastly different from tall grasses, I was just pointing out that grass is something frogs would have encountered. Plus this particular species of grass does grow as far south as Ecuador according to wikipedia, so you know.. its actually possible frogs would have encountered this exact grass in the wild. /shrug 

Leaf litter works in tanks that is a given. I want to know what else works in tanks and there is only one way to find out.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Dealing with another issue, a question regarding ventilation. I have a bluetooth thermometer and hydrometer in the tank so I am monitoring the temperature and humidity over time. What I am seeing is that the humidity stays pretty high.. like in the upper 90s. Is this acceptable for the plants in the tank? I see folks remarking that plants may prefer less humidity? I have every vent open to maximum right now and its currently at 98% humidity. I am wondering if I need to add a fan.

Here is a screenshot from my monitoring app:


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Have you verified that the hygrometer is correct by calibrating/comparing with other hydrometers?


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> Have you verified that the hygrometer is correct by calibrating/comparing with other hydrometers?


I have not, I actually do not own another one. By report mine is pretty accurate. This from reviews on Amazon. Do you think it likely to be that far off? My glass stays pretty foggy, especially near the top where the hydrometer stays. I am currently misting 3 times a day. Twice for 20 seconds and once for 15. Perhaps I should make it less? 

If a second hydrometer is required, any recommendations, preferably on the cheaper end


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

I would take a day off of misting. You don't have any frogs in there, the plants will be fine for a day with no misting. If the hygrometer you have is correct then it's going to be too humid in the tank for frogs and plants to thrive long-term


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

Hey I meant to ask, any pics of your high tech setup? Or did you tear it down?


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

SkubaSTI said:


> Hey I meant to ask, any pics of your high tech setup? Or did you tear it down?


My high tech aquarium? No its defintiely still running. It's just not pretty ;P My low tech nano tanks are cake walks but this 40 breeder is kicking my butt. Right now I have a horrendous case of staghorn algae that keeps coming back. There is bba as well. Here is a current pic:










All native fishes I caught myself from local streams which is fun. Most of the plants are also native and collected by yours truly.


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

That’s actually pretty unique using all local stuff. Where is that?


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

SkubaSTI said:


> That’s actually pretty unique using all local stuff. Where is that?


Most of the fish and all of the plants come from central Maryland. I live in Ellicott City, basically within a few miles of my house. I have 3 mountain redbelly dace in there as well that come from central Virginia. The tank is in the unfinished section of my basement. It's actually my quarantine tank. My plan was to move the co2 tank and all the fish and plants to a much bigger setup in my living room. But now with froggies.. rethinking that.


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

minorhero said:


> SkubaSTI said:
> 
> 
> > That’s actually pretty unique using all local stuff. Where is that?
> ...


The dace are pretty cool to have in there. I’m in NJ, not too far from there. Once the shows ever start back up you should check out the Hamburg pa one. Pretty cool since out there everything is legal. Surreal to walk around knowing if you really want to win a Darwin Award you could leave with a mamba or a spitter lol


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

Which temp/hygrometer you using?


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

SkubaSTI said:


> The dace are pretty cool to have in there. I’m in NJ, not too far from there. Once the shows ever start back up you should check out the Hamburg pa one. Pretty cool since out there everything is legal. Surreal to walk around knowing if you really want to win a Darwin Award you could leave with a mamba or a spitter lol


Yea I am definitely not into anything poisonous heh. I have avoided dart frogs for years because I didn't do enough research to know they were not poisonous in captivity. I wouldn't mind going to a show/expo but I would need to get the wife on board. Someone would need to watch my kiddos while I got the heck out of dodge ;P



SkubaSTI said:


> Which temp/hygrometer you using?


I am using the Govee Wireless Thermometer Hygrometer.


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

minorhero said:


> SkubaSTI said:
> 
> 
> > The dace are pretty cool to have in there. I’m in NJ, not too far from there. Once the shows ever start back up you should check out the Hamburg pa one. Pretty cool since out there everything is legal. Surreal to walk around knowing if you really want to win a Darwin Award you could leave with a mamba or a spitter lol
> ...


Never seen that one. Pretty cheap too. Is it waterproof? I seen a similar one people were using that was waterproof but can’t think of the name. I like the idea of monitoring remotely and having a chart for the whole day to see what conditions were. 
I haven’t been to a expo in probably 5-10 years. I’m sure like everything else they e changed somewhat, but buy when I first started going as a teenager and seen the stuff you could buy I felt like a kid in a candy store. I refrained since I knew at the time I couldn’t provide the proper care for those exotics. Well except the 2 gator babies I had for years, but also got those knowing I had a person that bred and collected large crocodilians ready to rehome them once they grew too large.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

SkubaSTI said:


> I refrained since I knew at the time I couldn’t provide the proper care for those exotics. Well except the 2 gator babies I had for years, but also got those knowing I had a person that bred and collected large crocodilians ready to rehome them once they grew too large.


LOL

I think my wife would freak out if I brought home an alligator ;P

I doubt it is 'waterproof' but I don't really immerse it either. I used double sided tape to stick it to the roof of the vivarium. Direct spray is not an issue in those conditions. The mistking kind of fills the enclosure with a very fine .. well mist. If it gives out I can get something else but in the meantime its small, cheap, and has better feature set then models that cost twice as much.


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## SkubaSTI (May 20, 2020)

Most awesome creatures I had the pleasure of watching grow. Wish I could find my old phones with pics of them. Had them with a alligator snapper and electric cat


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update!

Lets build a light!

So on plantedtank.net (the aquarium forum I visit) a fellow basically held my hand through the planning stages. I could not have made this light without their assistance. I am saying this because I don't want folks thinking I have a clue about what I am doing ;P

I began by using thermal glue to attach the LEDs I purchased to the heatsink. In total I have twenty-nine 3 watt leds. They were laid out in the following pattern:

WWWWWWWWWW
W C R W C W R C W
WWWWWWWWWW​
Where the 'W' is for cool white leds. The 'C' is for cyan, and the 'R' is for deep red LEDs. These are all Luxeon Sunplus except the cyan which is regular Luxeon Rebel ES (sunplus not being available). 

Once everything was attached I tined the pads and wired each row together. Here is how that looked:










The light needed to have a power supply and drivers. I also needed a place to put them and a cord between that place and the leds. For the cord I used the same 22 gauge wire I was using to wire the leds. I twisted those wires together and used an expanding braid sheeth (purely for aesthetics). This got poked through a hole I drilled in the plastic endcap on my heatsink and a knot was tied to keep the cord from being ripped back through the hole:










The drivers and power supply were attached inside a project box using double sided carpet tape. They got wired together and holes were drilled for a power cord and the LED cord.



















That looks like a mess, so to describe what is happening, the power is coming from the wall to the power supply. From the power supply it comes out and goes to 3 drivers. Each driver then has the power go to one row of led lights. 

Here is the finished product:










Before taking off the old light I broke out my par meter which I haven't used since planting the tank.

From the darkest spot in the tank I got a miserable reading of 2-3 ppfd. 










The front center being one of the brightest spots was around 40 ppfd.










Then I added the new light. First off the colors are SOOOOO much better. It doesn't show up well in the pictures but wow, it looks good. The old light had a LOT of greenish hues to it unless I really turned down the green and blue levels significantly. I didn't want to do that because when I did my ppfd at substrate dropped too much for me to be happy. The new light has none of those issues. 

It is not as powerful as I thought it was going to be (I am assuming because the LEDs have a crazy wide 150 degree coverage area) but I think it will be bright enough for my needs. 

In the same corner as before I now got around 10 ppfd:










And in the same front center location as before I now got just over 50 ppfd:










If you look at the pictures with the par meter in it from the old light and compare to the new you get some idea about the color shift between the two lights.



















And in other news I just bought a used macro lens for my 'real' camera. All of the pictures so far have been from my phone. But I actually have a nice camera that gets used mostly for taking pictures of my kids. With a new lens I pretty much had to put it to the test. Nothing to warrant a good macro but I figured I could use it to shoot a portrait of the tank:










Next up will likely be fruit fly culturing. I am still a month (more?) away from froggies but I want to make sure I am good to go on culturing fruit flies. I read in some thread somewhere that one beginner mistake to avoid is making sure your food supply is well secured before the frogs come. Makes a lot of sense to me. I have read a stupid amount of fruit fly media formulas and also watched some videos. Near as I can tell fruit fly media is basically just 3 ingredients. A starch, a protein, and an anti-molding agent. The protein is almost always yeast, the starch is typically either oats or instant mashed potatoes. The anti-molding agent is either methyl paraben (which apparently works great) or vinegar/cinnamon which may or may not do much of anything if old threads are to be believed. Some folks throw other things into the mix like sugar, bananas, apple sauce, etc basically something sweet, those things seem to be unneeded though so /shrug. 

Right now I am thinking of making my own that uses cream of wheat, yeast, and methyl paraben.


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## notsoencrypted (Jun 5, 2020)

Thank you for sharing your journey so far! Your modification of the aquarium looks very similar to what I plan on doing with my 20H once finances are in a place to start, though I'm planning on going horizontal instead of vertical, since I'm particularly interested in phyllobates vittatus, another terrestrial-preferring frog!

It's also super cool to see you visit planted tank dot net. I hung out there a lot while researching doing planted tanks, but aquariums ended up being too high maintenance for me. I gave up on the idea of cool nature things indoors until a few months ago when a friend who has some darts opened my eyes to the awesomeness of vivariums and darts. It all seems to be exactly in line with what I was wanting when I dabbled in planted tanks.

Anyway, it's cool to see another beginner go through the process after doing lots of research! I will be in the research stage for quite a bit longer, but this thread has been very encouraging. I hadn't seen the type of background you made before, so that's really appealing to me. I had been planning on going with the tree fern panels, but this looks like it might be a better option. I just know I like both much better than the spray foam backgrounds I've been seeing. 😁

I can't wait to see your future progress!


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

notsoencrypted said:


> Thank you for sharing your journey so far! Your modification of the aquarium looks very similar to what I plan on doing with my 20H once finances are in a place to start, though I'm planning on going horizontal instead of vertical, since I'm particularly interested in phyllobates vittatus, another terrestrial-preferring frog!
> 
> It's also super cool to see you visit planted tank dot net. I hung out there a lot while researching doing planted tanks, but aquariums ended up being too high maintenance for me. I gave up on the idea of cool nature things indoors until a few months ago when a friend who has some darts opened my eyes to the awesomeness of vivariums and darts. It all seems to be exactly in line with what I was wanting when I dabbled in planted tanks.
> 
> ...


Thank you! The research, building, and planting have all been a lot of fun. Another background method to look into is the "cracked cork mosaic" mentioned in the thread. I think both have a lot of potential long term. I like my background but if I build another tank I will probably do a cracked cork mosaic for ease of planting. 

I find a lot of similarities between a planted aquarium and a vivarium so far. The biggest difference being no need for water changes (assuming you have a drain) and a lot easier to grow... well everything heh.


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## notsoencrypted (Jun 5, 2020)

minorhero said:


> Thank you! The research, building, and planting have all been a lot of fun. Another background method to look into is the "cracked cork mosaic" mentioned in the thread. I think both have a lot of potential long term. I like my background but if I build another tank I will probably do a cracked cork mosaic for ease of planting.
> 
> I find a lot of similarities between a planted aquarium and a vivarium so far. The biggest difference being no need for water changes (assuming you have a drain) and a lot easier to grow... well everything heh.


Researching stuff is possibly my favorite part of any hobby. I'm glad I'm not alone in enjoying that part, either, haha.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Update!

Its been about 2 months since I finished the vivarium and it is time to add frogs! 

I have known for a while now that I would be getting tincs but which morph?? I am pretty familiar with a lot of the bigger breeders having researched things the last few months but also from that research I learned its significantly better to buy from a local breeder if you can help it. Not only is it less stress on the frogs, but you also get to make a local connection with someone if you find yourself in a jam one day.

Fortunately there is actually a 'Virginia, DC & Maryland Dart Froggers' facebook group. I made a post there asking around for breeders and was informed that Dr. Sean Stewart lives in Ellicott City (the same city I live in). I had never heard of him before being new to the dart frog hobby. But apparently he has been working with the National Aquarium In Baltimore for some time and is responsible for (among other things) the importation of 'True' Sipaliwini frogs. That he is literally 12 minutes from my house was too cool to turn down. I contacted him through an email on his website and after a little delay (he is a medical doctor and dealing with the pandemic) was able to purchase a producing pair of True Sipaliwini frogs 18 months out of water. I originally wanted younger frogs but ultimately didn't want to gamble on sexes, so I decided to just go with what I knew would work. 

Leading up to my actually picking up the frogs, the vivarium itself has evolved slightly. All of the aquarium plants (anubias, java fern, and amazon swords) got zapped pretty hard when I dried out the vivarium a few days after starting it up. I was concerned about the humidity level at the time and really took things too far lowering the humidity with plants that were just placed. They might not have made it anyway but /shrug its hard to say.

I also took out one of the rabbits foot ferns as it was frankly crowding my background too much. The hair grass 'carpet' on the other hand never really took off. I got it to grow but it didn't form a dense enough mat. I decided instead to try Creeping Jenny and so far that is working great. Its definitely one of those plants that can take over the world so I will need to keep trimming it but that is not a hardship to me. I only have one vivarium after all. 

Here is what the vivarium looks like shortly after introducing the froggies:










And here is a close-up of one of the froggies: 



















The male frog my 3 year old daughter promptly named Oreo. My wife named the female Biscuit. I have been keeping track of them by markings on the top of their head so given the angle not quite sure which is pictured. 

-----------

Meanwhile one of the main tasks I had in preparation for the frogs arrival was squaring away my fruit fly supply. I had read on the forum that it was important to get your supply up and running well before frogs arrived so you could get a handle on fly production. This sounded like good advice. I did a lot of research into fruit fly media recipes both on this forum and elsewhere. What I concluded was that there are a LOT of ways to make media. At its core the only things you need to make a media is a starch, a protein, (and usually an anti fungal). Typically the starch is ether potato flakes or oatmeal, and the protein is yeast. This will make a functional fly media but in my research I also came across the idea of a 'nutritious' media to make a nutritious fly. Specifically there was a study that found the addition of carotenoids in fruit fly media increased the successful production of tadpoles. There was a mention in this same study that feeding fish food to feeders of a different species of frog (not a dart frog) had a similar effect. 

After reading this I decided I didn't want to just make any ol random fruit fly media but rather a nutritious fruit fly media. At first I planned to buy the various components to add appropriate levels of carotenoids but it quickly became apparent that this was going to be far too expensive. I switched gears and decided to add color enhancing fish food instead (since this already has the very same carotenoids I would be adding in a more pure form). In the end I settled on the following recipe.

1000 ml of Quick Oats
200 ml of Color Enhancing fish Food (I settled on Aqueon Cichlid Food Color Enhancing Pellets)
200 ml of Distillers Yeast (at the time of purchase I could not find regular active bakers yeast due to everyone deciding the pandemic meant baking was awesome)
50 ml of methyl paraben



















All of this was ground up in a blender till it was a fine powder. 










Here is a look at the 'active' ingredients:










So why do this instead of just buying Repashy Superfly like everyone else?

Well I decided there will always be folks that want to DIY their own media (I being one). I also decided that most diy recipes care nothing for nutrition. This was my attempt at making a DIY recipe that would be nutritious while also trying to save as much money as possible. 

The cost breakdown is this. The oats cost me 2 dollars. The fish food cost my 5 dollars. The yeast cost me 10 dollars and the methyl paraben cost me 20 dollars. The yeast and methyl paraben will last me a while though. This produced enough media to last me for 20 cultures. My best guess is that each culture costs me 55 cents. These are 1/4 cup cultures. Through trial and error I have found that 1/4 cup of media plus 1/2 cup of water produces a reasonably dry culture which lasts more then a month. At the end of a month the culture is actually gone, the flies have eaten it all. So far nothing has gone to mold even when I let the cultures go into week 5 or 6. Fly production dropped a lot though (I suspect due to lack of media). 

I have been putting my cultures in an open container with diatomaceous earth on the bottom and eggcrate on the bottom as well to hold the cups just above the height of the diatomaceous earth. Here is what that looks like:










So far no mite issues. 

And that brings me up to current! In the weeks to come I am looking forward to taking more pictures of the frogs as they become more accustomed to my presence.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

Lovely frogs! 
I'll admit I didn't read the fly culturing information lol. 

The vivarium looks good.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

fishingguy12345 said:


> Lovely frogs!
> I'll admit I didn't read the fly culturing information lol.
> 
> The vivarium looks good.


Thank you!

Yeah I am treating this thread as a means of documenting my build for my own memory and use as much as anyone else


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Quick question folks, how much to feed?

I know its been answered a bunch but more precisely, when should the frogs run out of flies? I am seeing varying answers on this. I feed within an hour of misting usually before 11am. My frogs are both adults so I am feeding about a teaspoon of dusted mels every other day. This is enough that the frogs eat the majority of the flies somewhere within the first 24 hours but there is definitely some flies that manage to make it to the next day. By the next feed all the flies are gone. I thought this was optimal but I am seeing some folks say all the flies should be gone before 24 hours?

I am trying to keep my frogs physique trim without the chub chub some folks have if that makes sense.

And just for giggles here is a picture of Oreo my male:


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

The frog looks very healthy so your doing fine 🙂 I always have some fruitflies wandering around in the vivs..


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

Dont align yourself too avidly with what could be considered dietary anthropocentricism. 

There is no data to support moderate yet visual adipose pad accumulate is a health deficit.

Novel fats ingest, chronically applied, like feeding heavy mammalian prey to primary insectivores inducing pancreatic and liver problems - arent same as caloric abundance of normal lipids.

When you are feeding appropriate non-novel food items you have plenty of time and wiggle room to amend over provision. 

Its not an emergency.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

I went with Rapashy after disappointment with another "brand" and noting the astute, well founded "not over the top' nutrient composure of the media.

Retainment of values in justaposition with media breakdown over time, decomposition, microbial fecudity, ammonia, plus the fact that the flies are going to be freshly coated with all necessary supplementation per Rapashy protocol mere seconds before feeding to my subjects, made putting too much effort into making a super duper DIY media formula something that seemed not relevant, even as I actually lean generously that way, toward my feeder colonies.


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

It may sound crazy but ive relied on pinhead crickets at my last job feeding darts and mantellas. 

Pins to FF, 80 to 20% on a moving scale.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

The main reason I try to avoid the stragglers, minorhero, is that I want them getting mostly recently-dusted flies rather than be consuming mostly less-dusted flies over the next couple of days til I feed again. I am sure there is a large variation in how much vitamin powder our frogs consume. I also think it's likely that one could, theoretically, feed so many flies that a lot get away and the balance of freshly-dusted vs. not as dusted flies becomes less favorable. If you come back to your tank and you are just seeing a handful of them crawling around, I doubt you are anywhere close to the unfavorable point. tl:dr - keep doing what you are doing 

Oh yeah, I have been meaning to say that if you use the "large thumbnail" option in Imgur, the pictures won't force the text to be in super-wide columns that need to be scrolled horizontally to read. Might just be on my computer that this happens, though...

Mark


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## Kmc (Jul 26, 2019)

Oreo looks as energetic as you are Minorhero. 

Beautiful & Exciting for frog set up. I like the manzanita, its under used pretty wood. 

Are there going to be draping lovelies of some sort someday? I dont know much about plants - even without dressing such a clean, pretty wood.

Your FF media would make a good human breakfast, i aint gonna lie.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Tijl said:


> The frog looks very healthy so your doing fine 🙂 I always have some fruitflies wandering around in the vivs..





Kmc said:


> Dont align yourself too avidly with what could be considered dietary anthropocentricism.
> 
> There is no data to support moderate yet visual adipose pad accumulate is a health deficit.
> 
> ...





Encyclia said:


> The main reason I try to avoid the stragglers, minorhero, is that I want them getting mostly recently-dusted flies rather than be consuming mostly less-dusted flies over the next couple of days til I feed again. I am sure there is a large variation in how much vitamin powder our frogs consume. I also think it's likely that one could, theoretically, feed so many flies that a lot get away and the balance of freshly-dusted vs. not as dusted flies becomes less favorable. If you come back to your tank and you are just seeing a handful of them crawling around, I doubt you are anywhere close to the unfavorable point. tl:dr - keep doing what you are doing
> 
> Oh yeah, I have been meaning to say that if you use the "large thumbnail" option in Imgur, the pictures won't force the text to be in super-wide columns that need to be scrolled horizontally to read. Might just be on my computer that this happens, though...
> 
> Mark


Thank you guys! I'll leave things be then. Just wanted to make sure I was keeping things optimized.



Kmc said:


> Oreo looks as energetic as you are Minorhero.
> 
> Beautiful & Exciting for frog set up. I like the manzanita, its under used pretty wood.
> 
> ...


I have some Peperomia Rotundifolia 'planted' on some mossy spots on the branches. They are flowering but not really growing much yet. the plan is to have the branches draped in cascading peperomia but... we will see how it goes ;P

I like the idea of oats as a media base over potatoes, whether it actually matters is a different story ;P Other then the nutritional content the next most important thing for me is that the media doesn't smell. I haven't had mold issues or smell issues (beyond what it smells like at the start) even after 6 weeks. Thanks to the addition of the fish food though it tends to smell a lot like... fish food, so you know, not great but there are worse things. I'm glad I keep them in my unfinished basement.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

When I bought my frogs they were 18 months out of water and a producing pair. So I have been on the lookout for eggs since day 1. 

I have a petri dish in the tank and an epoxy coated monkey pod. 

They still decided to lay their clutch on a brom leaf 

I scooped them off with a metal spoon after a few days and here is what I got!










3 good ones and 3 bad ones. The good ones have the unmistakable sign of a developing tadpole (though that might be hard to make out in the picture). These will be F4 from the original 'True' Sip imports and I am pretty excited.


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## fishingguy12345 (Apr 7, 2019)

minorhero said:


> When I bought my frogs they were 18 months out of water and a producing pair. So I have been on the lookout for eggs since day 1.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Congratulations!!!!


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## Tihsho (Sep 21, 2009)

Great journal! Glad to see another MD'er in here!


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Tihsho said:


> Great journal! Glad to see another MD'er in here!


Thank you and likewise! It's a fun hobby and while the frog hobby is not so numerous as the aquarium hobby in Maryland there is a few of us wandering around.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

About 2 weeks after the first clutch was laid I found this on yet another brom leaf:










Sadly it looks to me like none of this clutch is fertile. That said I ended up with 2 tadpoles out of the first clutch. One hatched a few days ahead of the other and after a couple of days in a cup to make sure he could swim on his own I added him to official tadpole rearing tank:










The tadpole is in the center of the image. The other critters are some freshwater shrimp that were already in this tank.

In other news, I got my first proper mushroom! I would have preferred for my froggy to actually sit on top of it to pose but you take what you can get ;P


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## Tihsho (Sep 21, 2009)

Great update! Viv looks great. I love the last picture, great composition! 

As for your rearing tank, interesting to keep shrimp in there to keep up the tank. I'd be worried about amano's being overly aggressive to the tads. They seem to try to touch everything that sits still for a second. Looks like you have a solid colony of blue neo's going as well.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Tihsho said:


> Great update! Viv looks great. I love the last picture, great composition!
> 
> As for your rearing tank, interesting to keep shrimp in there to keep up the tank. I'd be worried about amano's being overly aggressive to the tads. They seem to try to touch everything that sits still for a second. Looks like you have a solid colony of blue neo's going as well.


Thank you! I raised local frogs in this tank earlier without issue (same inhabitants) so while I can't promise there won't be an issue it seems unlikely. Meanwhile all the plants in this tank should give the tadpoles plenty of cover from each other so hopefully they don't go cannibalistic.


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