# DIY office Peru habitat



## Illustrator

Started a project for several months ago (about 1 january).
Have had small terrariums with geckos and saltwater aquariums and been thinking about getting me Poison Dart Frogs for years and years.

I desided to make a special habitat from Peru using only Peru plants and plants that grows naturally in the Peru region.

Dimensions are: 
35x40x100cm

Light:
55w T5 round 
W-reflektor, modded to the round t-5 light

Dekoration:
RockZolid (modded to a rock)
Epiweb (Product from Sweden, thanks Micke Epiweb)

Plants (all exist in Peru):
Microgramma squamulosa 
Masdevallia kimballiana x ampullacea 
Barbosella culcullata
Pleurothalis spec. Peru import
Masdevallia herradurae (Peru import)
Pleurothalis obovata
Platystele misera
Neoregelia Tarapotensis (Peru import bromeliad)
Microgramma lycopodioides
Pleopeltis polypodioides 
Microgramma latevegans

Frogs:
3 R.imitator Varadero/Jeberos (unknown sex)

So now I've finally done it and this is how its done and how the end result looks. The terrarium has been going for 4month now. Hope you get inspired to start your own habitat.

































4 small frogs enters the terrarium:

























The terrarium in my office:









Plant and moss progress 4 month of growing:


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## frogface

Beautiful!


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## Ben Wehr

very freakin awesome! I'd like to see how you constructed a door and that is glass right? not acrylic. Any more pics would be fun to see to. any pictures of the residents?


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## Julio

nice design!!


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## Illustrator

> Beautiful!


Thanks!



> very freakin awesome! I'd like to see how you constructed a door and that is glass right? not acrylic. Any more pics would be fun to see to. any pictures of the residents?


Thanks!
THe door slides along a aluminium list and works as a hole side when closed. I made the hole terrarium in 6mm and the doors and top are 5mm. The thickness of the glass helps the terrarium to be balanced.

Some more pics of the building in progress.

Black silicon inside of the glass for a clean look.

































Rockzolid background modding:









































Light 55w osram t5 in place:









Glassdoor aluminium sliding with ventilation:









Plants in place, some plants have died (to bad):









Final result of backgrund and the fake tree made of Epiweb at the floor of the terrarium:


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## eldalote2

Very nice! I have always wanted to build a 360 vertical like this. I hope your co workers don't mind the sound of the imitators when they call. They may never know what it is if you never tell them.


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## toksyn

Beautiful! I love the epiweb tree. How do you water the vivarium? Is the pipe running through the tree (I am assuming it provides some mechanical support) also functioning as a channel for airflow?


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## Vinnner

absolutely beautiful.....awesome frogs as well!


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## eos

Nicely done! That's a great piece of work.


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## Azurel

Beautiful tank.....R. imitator 'varadero' are such beautiful frogs.....Make them easy to see in that tank.


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## Azurel

Hey Illustrator

I see you have microgramma squamulosa listed.....How easy/hard is it? I got some but can't find much on it's care.


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## VicSkimmr

Wow epic work on hiding the fan, that's fantastic! Actually this whole build is pretty much amazing, so much innovation!


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## Illustrator

Thank´s every one!



> Hey Illustrator
> 
> I see you have microgramma squamulosa listed.....How easy/hard is it? I got some but can't find much on it's care.


Microgramma squamulosa is easy, don´t let it get to wet. That´s my opinion. Let it dry out between the misting. But i only got 4 month of experiens. 

Damn my English has become so bad, hope you guys can live with the Swenglish.


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## VicSkimmr

Wouldn't have even known if you hadn't said something about it not being your native language. Your typed english is better than 90% of people in the USA.


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## Woodsman

Pretty awesome vivarium! The only reason I would see that you might have lost some orchids is that they like to have a little drying time between waterings. Do you have the mist on a timer, so that you can manipulate the water cycle a bit?

The Varadero imitators are great. Have you had any calling/breeding since you introduced them to the vivarium?

Take care, Richard.


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## azure89

Very nicely done I bet those varaderos use all the space in there and just love it! I really like the tree and roots system that you've built


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## whatamithinking02

very very nice tank.. i would love to have that at my house.


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## DJboston

After seeing your illustrations and now this, I'm definitely a fan of your work! This is the type of tank I've wanted in my collection for a long time. Something unique with the center piece a huge tree trunk type thing. I'm jealous.


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## RNKot

Thanks for sharing on this board also. Pls keep us posted with new photoes


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## Okapi

Great tank, and your English is fine


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## fleshfrombone

Häpnadsväckande vivarium. Där i Sverige är du? Jag förstår lite norska och danska. Jag tror inte att svenska är olika. Jag vet inte om något av detta är rätt.


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## konton

That some amazing work! Great job! Is the misting system circulating the water inside the tank?


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## dom

super cool vivarium design my friend, and the frogs are stunning!


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## Illustrator

It is two pumps in the water. One is circulating the water, and one is set on a timer pumping water up to the top soaking the Epiweb one time in the morning and one time late afternoon.
The misting system is also on timers. The misting is set for 25sek 3times a day. One time about 08.00, one time about 12.30 and one time about 17.00.

I have two 40mm computer fans installed. One is not at work and are for ventilation out of the tank. The other one witch is controlled with a singel-fan controller and is circulating the air in the terrarium. It is mounted in the top and inside the backgrund pipe/root/tree and there is a outlet just above the fake rocks down to the left:











> Häpnadsväckande vivarium. Där i Sverige är du? Jag förstår lite norska och danska. Jag tror inte att svenska är olika. Jag vet inte om något av detta är rätt.


Ha ha ha tack tack leshfrombone!

One of the frogs is calling, the only problem is to locate which one is the male?! I cant se him when he is calling so i cant identify him. The plan is to end up with one pair in the terrarium and to sell the other ones.


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## Frogilicious

Awesome viv! Definitely an inspiration to me.


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## varanoid

i like the nice lush moss growth. i love seeing how a tank grows in. keep up the good work.


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## Illustrator

More orchids to the jungle, now it is packed!!
All of the plants can be found in Peru: 
Masdevallia amabilis
Masdevallia picea
Masdevallia paivaeana	
Maxillaria pudica	
Stelis species sp
Stelis species sp
Zootrophion atropurpureum	
Pleurothallis undulata 
Pleurothallis ruscifolia










The two biggest plants did not fit in the terrarium and vas placed in my mini viv at home (also 100% Peru) with one little frog in it:


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## VicSkimmr

I love seeing tanks just crammed with small plants like that. It looks so natural.


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## davy

nice set up. 
love the peru set ups, to bad that you can't find that many specific plants of peru in europe.


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## eos

It looks even better now! Your other tank looks nice too


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## frogparty

Lookin absolutely awesome


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## Illustrator

> nice set up.
> love the peru set ups, to bad that you can't find that many specific plants of peru in europe.


I live in Sweden (EU) and can find loads of dealers with plants. To order from a EU country is so easy and they all (almost all) have webb-shops that makes a order within EU easy.
Before i started this project i spent hours and hours searching the web for plant dealers to see if this project was going to work, and if I could find what i was needing to complete this project. 
Check this links out:
Akerne Orchids: Akerne Orchids
products
AGRORIENTE.COM | Agro Oriente Viveros, Moyobamba, San Martín - Perú
Akerne Orchids: Akerne Orchids
BEFORT GARTENBAU
Home - For everything you need to grow your orchids
http://www.orchids-shop.com
Orchideen Lucke - Willkommen
Herzlich willkommen im Orchidarium Schronen! — Orchidarium und Alpengarten SCHRONEN
Popow-Orchid s -
Check out Ben´s jungle, Ben's Jungle Online-Shop
he got many terrarium plants for our hobby.
God luck finding the dreamplants for your tanks Davy!


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## PeanutbuttER

Ben's Jungle even sells mooses!

That's a lot of variety


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## TExeter

Some one help please

More and more post are unable to let me see the photos.

What am i doing wrong, it always sems to be the best ones


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## davy

thanks for all the links. yeah ben's jungle is the only site i know. so i'm going to try to find some more specific plants from peru.
i'm going to follow your project. it must be wonderfull to see this tank in a few months.
grtz davy


Illustrator said:


> I live in Sweden (EU) and can find loads of dealers with plants. To order from a EU country is so easy and they all (almost all) have webb-shops that makes a order within EU easy.
> Before i started this project i spent hours and hours searching the web for plant dealers to see if this project was going to work, and if I could find what i was needing to complete this project.
> Check this links out:
> Akerne Orchids: Akerne Orchids
> products
> AGRORIENTE.COM | Agro Oriente Viveros, Moyobamba, San Martín - Perú
> Akerne Orchids: Akerne Orchids
> BEFORT GARTENBAU
> Home - For everything you need to grow your orchids
> http://www.orchids-shop.com
> Orchideen Lucke - Willkommen
> Herzlich willkommen im Orchidarium Schronen! — Orchidarium und Alpengarten SCHRONEN
> Popow-Orchid s -
> Check out Ben´s jungle, Ben's Jungle Online-Shop
> he got many terrarium plants for our hobby.
> God luck finding the dreamplants for your tanks Davy!


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## Jon Mason

Cool tank, great job!


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## Dart Frog

Beautiful tank! That must have taken a lot of time.


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## Arpeggio

That is really neat! Wow!


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## Youngherp420

WOW. this is an amazing tank you got there. what a great job and beautiful frogs and once agian amazing tank. This complety inspirered me to do a tank like this.


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## wayne scott

That tank is amazing


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## xixon

WoW,Wow.......That tank is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## exboyz04

This is one of my best smal vivs i have seen, amazing natural looking. Wear did the circular light tube come from!!!!


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## Neontra

Very cool little viv. I think with some coco/tree fern pannels you could stuff a lot more orchids and other things in there. Where are you buying your orchids anyways? You sure have a lot 

I really like to see small vivs with plants stuffed in there, it just looks so nice.


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## tachikoma

This tank is around 35 gal so it's not exactly as small as some might think. Op should put a coke can or some other everyday item next to it to give a better scale reference.


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## inAutumn

Wow! What an awesome light and viv. Well done, man! I've never seen a light like that before. 

inAutumn


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## phytotelmata

Did you just use the Epiweb as it comes, or did you cover them with anything?


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## Happy_Frogger

Updated picture?


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## raimeiken

I love tanks like this where you get a 360 view of the viv 

This is what I'm going to do on my next viv in the future. 

I also love the ventilation you did. very cool!


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## onetank

Great Job! Looks awsome


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## Nismo95

WOW. I love this setup. I wish we had epiweb in the states. Or maybe I just really wish we had the moss mix. I find it too hard to find a good tropical spreading mix


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## jacobi

Nismo95 said:


> WOW. I love this setup. I wish we had epiweb in the states. Or maybe I just really wish we had the moss mix. I find it too hard to find a good tropical spreading mix


Orchid Growing Supplies Semi-hydroponics Hydroponics Orchid Books PrimeAgra


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## poohmalley

You should make and sell these...i would buy one in a heartbeat..


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## teggner

poohmalley said:


> You should make and sell these...i would buy one in a heartbeat..


Same here! Sell it to me mattias


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## RibbidyReptiles

By far the best vivarium I've seen in my life!!! I'm gathering the supplies for my first vivarium build. It a 35 gallon hexagonal tank and I'm planning to have a similar layout as yours. Great post!


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## Totenkampf

very realistic looking artificial rocks and trees...very innovative!


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## hydrophyte

Illustrator said:


> More orchids to the jungle, now it is packed!!
> All of the plants can be found in Peru:
> Masdevallia amabilis
> Masdevallia picea
> Masdevallia paivaeana
> Maxillaria pudica
> Stelis species sp
> Stelis species sp
> Zootrophion atropurpureum
> Pleurothallis undulata
> Pleurothallis ruscifolia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The two biggest plants did not fit in the terrarium and vas placed in my mini viv at home (also 100% Peru) with one little frog in it:


Are there any updates for this setup? It's been a long time.


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## nelcadiz

I love this viv!!. Can you say further information about lighting? what kelvin grades you use?


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## drutt

I cant see anything...wERE ARE THE PHOTOS????


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## nburns

Stunning build. Great job and thanks for sharing with the rest of us to enjoy.


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## Styx

Wow, that is amazing.


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## drutt

Tjena

jag vill bara säga att ja e imponerad, jäv..ligt snygg. Fatt manga bra ideer,fast de tog ett tag innan jag kunde se dina bilder...
va e de för matt du har pa terrariet? funderar pa att bygga ett liknande vertikalt terrarium med minst 1 m i höjd.


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## Sammie

drutt said:


> Tjena
> 
> jag vill bara säga att ja e imponerad, jäv..ligt snygg. Fatt manga bra ideer,fast de tog ett tag innan jag kunde se dina bilder...
> va e de för matt du har pa terrariet? funderar pa att bygga ett liknande vertikalt terrarium med minst 1 m i höjd.


Här kan du se hela bygget från start pilgift.se - Visa tråd - Habitat terrarium

Tror nämligen inte att han kommer svara, han verkar inte vara så aktiv här.


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## drutt

Sammie said:


> Här kan du se hela bygget från start pilgift.se - Visa tråd - Habitat terrarium
> 
> Tror nämligen inte att han kommer svara, han verkar inte vara så aktiv här.


kanoon, tack ska du ha..


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## B-NICE

How did you get the moss going?


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## KarmaPolice

Any chance on an update of growth? inhabitants? etc.


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## eyadinuae

AMAZING tank , very beautiful


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## Keister

Wow what an awesome design! It looks great grown in!


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## NorCal Frogger

One of the most inspirational builds I have ever seen.


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## Wolf Guy

This is a work of art.


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