# Europe Is Better.



## Rocktaki (Apr 4, 2018)

Wondering what everyone’s take on why Europe seems to be so much farther ahead than the U.S when it comes to husbandry of the animal. 
Everything about it seems better. Such as there euro vivariums compared to almost everyone using exo terra, just seems like they offer many cooler products that don’t ship to the us! Or super expensive to ship.
P.s if anyone knows where I can order a euro Viv from in U.S that isn’t protean let me know!


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## gonzalez (Mar 28, 2018)

I wouldn’t really say that Europe is ahead of the U.S in terms of husbandry, I think that relies way more on the individual keeper, but I do wish a company like Dutch Rana existed in the U.S. Those cages look very nice and the racks are very clean. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Robru (Jan 1, 2021)

Rocktaki said:


> Wondering what everyone’s take on why Europe seems to be so much farther ahead than the U.S when it comes to husbandry of the animal.


In Europe, the trade in animals is increasingly restricted. The controls here are simply more stringent than in the U.S.


Rocktaki said:


> Everything about it seems better. Such as there euro vivariums compared to almost everyone using exo terra, just seems like they offer many cooler products that don’t ship to the us! Or super expensive to ship.
> P.s if anyone knows where I can order a euro Viv from in U.S that isn’t protean let me know!


I don't totally agree with you. The same applies the other way round, also the U.S. has beautiful products in web shops, which we cannot order because they do not want to ship them to Europe. Which is more difficult for us to get back to.


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## Rocktaki (Apr 4, 2018)

Robru said:


> In Europe, the trade in animals is increasingly restricted. The controls here are simply more stringent than in the U.S.
> 
> I don't totally agree with you. The same applies the other way round, also the U.S. has beautiful products in web shops, which we cannot order because they do not want to ship them to Europe. Which is more difficult for us to get back to.


Grass is always greener I suppose.


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## Socratic Monologue (Apr 7, 2018)

Rocktaki said:


> Everything about it seems better.


How so? In what way? How is "Europe" farther ahead? All European keepers, or what? Seems a plainly indefensible blanket statement.



Robru said:


> In Europe, the trade in animals is increasingly restricted. The controls here are simply more stringent than in the U.S.


The Lacey Act would like a word.


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## minorhero (Apr 24, 2020)

Rocktaki said:


> Wondering what everyone’s take on why Europe seems to be so much farther ahead than the U.S when it comes to husbandry of the animal.
> Everything about it seems better. Such as there euro vivariums compared to almost everyone using exo terra, just seems like they offer many cooler products that don’t ship to the us! Or super expensive to ship.
> P.s if anyone knows where I can order a euro Viv from in U.S that isn’t protean let me know!


This is definitely a grass is greener kind of thing. There was a post here a few months back from someone in europe complaining that everything in the states is soo much better ;P

Anyway I feel like a lot of this is coming from the desire for an enclosure that is not an exo-terra.

Insitu is the easy off the shelf option to fulfill this desire. If looking for something custom I know of two companies/people currently building. There is Alejandro Lozano of Exotic Reptiles | Emerald Exotics | United States and there is Vivarium's in the Mist. I am getting quotes from both right now for a 4 foot enclosure. Depending on where you live and size of tank one or both might be an option.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

I think we have better access to higher quality hardware and equipment in europe but Americans have easy access to some plants and animals that I'd kill to get my hands on. I would love to be able to buy animals from Josh's frogs, or plants from glassbox tropicals and I would gladly sell out my entire country and become a vassal state of america just to get ahold of Lepidobatrachus llanensis from the frog ranch in the USA.


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## kthomas (Oct 12, 2019)

minorhero said:


> This is definitely a grass is greener kind of thing. There was a post here a few months back from someone in europe complaining that everything in the states is soo much better ;P
> 
> Anyway I feel like a lot of this is coming from the desire for an enclosure that is not an exo-terra.
> 
> Insitu is the easy off the shelf option to fulfill this desire. If looking for something custom I know of two companies/people currently building. There is Alejandro Lozano of Exotic Reptiles | Emerald Exotics | United States and there is Vivarium's in the Mist. I am getting quotes from both right now for a 4 foot enclosure. Depending on where you live and size of tank one or both might be an option.


As someone new to the hobby (no frogs, yet, but built a bioactive crested gecko enclosure a year ago), I have to say that I'm pretty surprised at the lack of vivarium options in the US.

Myself, like most others I imagine, had to settle for an exo-terra and modify it for my purposes. I was surprised at the lack of fit-for-purpose vivariums that are designed specifically for our hobby, with our needs, wants and purposes in mind. Surely with the amount of people in this hobby (or perhaps I'm overestimating it?), there's a place in the market for a company that can produce such a product. 

And with more people staying and working at home, this hobby is only going to get more and more popular, furthering the demand of such a product.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

The new 'thrive' range of glass vivariums from petsmart in the US are all quite small but look pretty good and are cheap compared to what you would pay in the UK. I wouldn't mind one of their 20 gallon corner vivariums for some Phidippus regius.


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## Pubfiction (Feb 3, 2013)

If you want an EU styled vivarium in the USA you can get one from custom builders which is why there is no market to ship from from Europe, and obviously they are not that popular in Europe because no one has made a major company out of it just like the USA. Exo terras actually are from Europe if my memory is right. I do not consider Eurostyle vivariums to be a better design, its had its fad time in North America and it passed. If it was so great it would have stuck but it didnt. The design has multiple issues. 1 the front euro vent is very ugly and obtrusive. And yet at the same time despite its size, it doesnt solve the problem of fogging. Different people have different levels of luck with it. Then the only other part that is particularly different is that lots of Eurostyle vivariums have that angled glass tray in the bottom. The idea is the drain the water. But most people have figured out that is completely not needed and just creates an annoying obstacle to build around it gives you far less buffer capacity in the drainage layer. I actually consider the angled tray to be a significantly poor choice in vivarium design. And even if I built with a euro vent I would specifically request that part be removed. Not only do I want a drainage layer I want it to have a large capacity of water and to create a pond in it in all of my vivariums. There are a handful of products on both sides of the pond that dont exist on the other. Also in the many years I have been dart frogging I have seen a number of vendors pop up to make custom sliding glass vivariums of different styles. Sooner or later they all seem to give up. I think the problem is the profit just isnt there to keep them going. And the only guy whom i wont mention that seems to keep going is a con artist, again pointing to the evidence there is no profit margin. 
At any rate its all a mute point because Asia, largely driven by China is starting to really wake up to our and other vivarium hobbies and I suspect in the not too distance future like most industries they will gut the market and effectively kill exo terra, zoomed and most of the Euro builders.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

The bigggest advance made in Europe as far as I'm concerned is developing a simple and foolproof solution for the issue of fogged up front glass. There is a fairly inexpensive low wattage product called a solar raptor heat strip that discretely attaches beneath your front bottom vent and creates just enough rising warmer air to clear the front glass and promote a little more air flow through the tank. It really works and given how often I see people complaining about fogged up glass on here and other forums I find it truly bizarre that they're not more widely available.
You can even have them on a timer to only clear the glass at certain times of day and it doesn't produce enough heat to be problematic for species that need cooler ambient temperatures under most circumstances.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Good stuff in this thread, Louis. 
I have 2 questions: 
1) Are the under-vent heaters a good enough solution to heat the whole tank in a too-cool room or is the function mainly to dry the air through expansion and mop up the condensation? There are lots of folks on here that are trying to keep darts in basements that are too cool for them without a heat source of some kind.
2) Out of all the stuff that we have that you don't what makes Budgett's Frog the one at the top of your list?  For me, _if they weren't originally smuggled_, I would love to try out Mysteriosus. 

Mark


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Pubfiction said:


> I do not consider Eurostyle vivariums to be a better design, its had its fad time in North America and it passed. If it was so great it would have stuck but it didnt. The design has multiple issues.


I completely agree. I have never understood the allure.

Mark


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

Pubfiction said:


> If you want an EU styled vivarium in the USA you can get one from custom builders which is why there is no market to ship from from Europe, and obviously they are not that popular in Europe because no one has made a major company out of it just like the USA.


I'm Canadian so our market is a lot smaller. It looks like it's still relatively niche in the US but you have more people = more custom options.

I'm not sure how popular or not they are in Europe, maybe @Tijil or someone else can chime in, but I do see a few smaller companies with what looks like high quality product.



Pubfiction said:


> Exo terras actually are from Europe if my memory is right. I do not consider Eurostyle vivariums to be a better design, its had its fad time in North America and it passed. If it was so great it would have stuck but it didnt. The design has multiple issues.


First I've heard of this take on the design. I've never used one, so I can't speak to the efficacy of the tilted floor; I suspect the way I tend to design and run tanks it wouldn't be much of an issue for me. The one place I feel Exo-Terras are superior is the swing-out doors; I really like them and there's no track to be concerned with cleaning etc.



Pubfiction said:


> Also in the many years I have been dart frogging I have seen a number of vendors pop up to make custom sliding glass vivariums of different styles. Sooner or later they all seem to give up. I think the problem is the profit just isnt there to keep them going.


No argument there, but I always thought it was because custom built enclosures like that are inevitably expensive and at least here in Canada, I've seen a lot of hobbyists are either acutely budget conscious and/or would rather spend the funds on accumulating more species. That's not a judgement one way or the other, the frogs don't care if they're living in something expensive so long as their needs are met, it's just what I've seen both with frogs and reptiles in general over 20 or 30 years in and out of the hobby.



Louis said:


> [...snip...] and I would gladly sell out my entire country and become a vassal state of america just to get ahold of Lepidobatrachus llanensis from the frog ranch in the USA.


That's ... veeerrry specific. 

Canadians are envious of the somewhat easier accessibility of large Oophaga species in Europe and the US. Given the expense and risk in shipping long distances, and the need to create a large founder colony to ensure the sex ratio, it's prohibitively expensive to get that started here. Not impossible, they're around here and there, but we're years behind on that front.



kthomas said:


> [...snip...]
> Myself, like most others I imagine, had to settle for an exo-terra and modify it for my purposes.
> 
> [...snip...]
> ...


My only major gripe with Exo Terras are the lids and the lack of larger options. As for the popularity of this hobby, I have no idea. Herpetoculture in general is bigger than ever, but I don't know about frogs, especially here in North America.


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## Louis (Apr 23, 2014)

Encyclia said:


> Good stuff in this thread, Louis.
> I have 2 questions:
> 1) Are the under-vent heaters a good enough solution to heat the whole tank in a too-cool room or is the function mainly to dry the air through expansion and mop up the condensation? There are lots of folks on here that are trying to keep darts in basements that are too cool for them without a heat source of some kind.


I very much doubt it. They won't even clear condensation from the sides of the enclosure. The product is very good at what it does which is cear fog from the front glass and not much else but the slight increase in airflow does cause my tanks to dry out faster which is useful for me as my geckos don't like wet surfaces after misting. 
A couple of orchids really took off after I started using them too which makes me suspect that they also benefitted from the slightly increased airflow through the tank.



Encyclia said:


> 2) Out of all the stuff that we have that you don't what makes Budgett's Frog the one at the top of your list?  For me, _if they weren't originally smuggled_, I would love to try out Mysteriosus.
> Mark


Believe it or not as a child I had a recurring dream that involved two kinds of frogs - much later in life I identified the frogs in the dream as Chacophrys pierotti and Lepidobatrachus llanensis . I have wanted to get ahold of some of these ever since but to the best of my knowledge L.llanensis has only ever been imported to the UK once and I don't think they were successfully bred.
In a couple of years I'm going to try and import them from the frog ranch and start breeding them.


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## Encyclia (Aug 23, 2013)

Thanks for the answers, @Louis. I am still interested in the condensation heat strips. Sounds like they are very well designed to do that single job, which is great. I have found that air movement in my tanks even accompanied by very little exchange of air through vents, still seems to benefit the plants. Some orchids do seem to like wet then dry for their roots. It all makes sense that the little heat strip gadgets have multiple beneficial impacts. I am with you in wondering why they haven't caught on more.

That's a great story about the frogs  You can't argue with a dream frog! I hope you pull off your dream someday.

Mark


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

If you want my opnion I think around 80% of experienced keepers in Belgium/Holland/Germang use the 'euro'styled enclosure with the lifted Bottom. So they are defenitly popular.

My large racksystem is also exactly setup with tanks like that. They are quite perfect in design for breeding most species while keeping a dry floor area.
The benefit from the drainage gutter die to the design of the 'lifted tanks' is that the drainage is cable of containing water during dry season. Some keep water in the gutter all the time, but I don't think that's beneficial for most frogs.

Personaly I like the setups I make with the pond foam better since this is quite similar, only they have more floor area.


The heat strips on the other hand are not used often.. almost everyone puts fans for ventilation inside the light cabinet to keep the windows from fogging.


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

Louis said:


> Believe it or not as a child I had a recurring dream that involved two kinds of frogs - much later in life I identified the frogs in the dream as Chacophrys pierotti and Lepidobatrachus llanensis .[...]


Years ago ... before I had encountered P. terribilis or thought to keep them, I think I may have been in my late teens or very early twenties ... I had a dream the details of which are vague, but I distinctly remember being in a place filled with small, vivid yellow frogs. 

I wonder now if that hasn't influenced my frogs of choice.


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## FroggerFrog (Jan 11, 2021)

Fahad said:


> Years ago ... before I had encountered P. terribilis or thought to keep them, I think I may have been in my late teens or very early twenties ... I had a dream the details of which are vague, but I distinctly remember being in a place filled with small, vivid yellow frogs.
> 
> I wonder now if that hasn't influenced my frogs of choice.


That’s... odd. It’s like your future. If you put the puzzle pieces together, then... a dream is a mirror to your future.

Maybe not as I had a dream about a giant Bigfoot sucking me up with a vacuum cleaner, but let’s not get too far.


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## Fahad (Aug 25, 2019)

FroggerFrog said:


> That’s... odd. It’s like your future. If you put the puzzle pieces together, then... a dream is a mirror to your future.
> 
> *Maybe not as I had a dream about a giant Bigfoot sucking me up with a vacuum cleaner, but let’s not get too far.*


Yeah, probably not.


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## Erskine888 (May 1, 2021)

Pubfiction said:


> If you want an EU styled vivarium in the USA you can get one from custom builders which is why there is no market to ship from from Europe, and obviously they are not that popular in Europe because no one has made a major company out of it just like the USA. Exo terras actually are from Europe if my memory is right. I do not consider Eurostyle vivariums to be a better design, its had its fad time in North America and it passed. If it was so great it would have stuck but it didnt. The design has multiple issues. 1 the front euro vent is very ugly and obtrusive. And yet at the same time despite its size, it doesnt solve the problem of fogging. Different people have different levels of luck with it. Then the only other part that is particularly different is that lots of Eurostyle vivariums have that angled glass tray in the bottom. The idea is the drain the water. But most people have figured out that is completely not needed and just creates an annoying obstacle to build around it gives you far less buffer capacity in the drainage layer. I actually consider the angled tray to be a significantly poor choice in vivarium design. And even if I built with a euro vent I would specifically request that part be removed. Not only do I want a drainage layer I want it to have a large capacity of water and to create a pond in it in all of my vivariums. There are a handful of products on both sides of the pond that dont exist on the other. Also in the many years I have been dart frogging I have seen a number of vendors pop up to make custom sliding glass vivariums of different styles. Sooner or later they all seem to give up. I think the problem is the profit just isnt there to keep them going. And the only guy whom i wont mention that seems to keep going is a con artist, again pointing to the evidence there is no profit margin.
> At any rate its all a mute point because Asia, largely driven by China is starting to really wake up to our and other vivarium hobbies and I suspect in the not too distance future like most industries they will gut the market and effectively kill exo terra, zoomed and most of the Euro builders.


I dont find the vent to be that obtrusive, and if you're building your own, you simply don't make it with an angled bottom. Also, it seems that if you are running any kind of fan in the room (or in/on the tank), it does solve the fogging issue. I like them, and they are one of the reasons that i am back in the hobby. To each his/her own though. Whoever finally designs the perfect vivarium and actually puts it on the market will make a good chunk of change (for a few months until a Chinese company offers it for cheaper 😂) What do I know though - I'm just a "newbie" on the forum....😁


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## Rocktaki (Apr 4, 2018)

Thanks for all your replies, I am still partial to the euro style and I guess I will just have to diy my own, as can't find anybody in Washington actually selling the euro, ^-^


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

Rocktaki said:


> Thanks for all your replies, I am still partial to the euro style and I guess I will just have to diy my own, as can't find anybody in Washington actually selling the euro, ^-^


Natural state (poland) ships worldwide


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## Rocktaki (Apr 4, 2018)

Tijl said:


> Natural state (poland) ships worldwide


Have you ordered from them or know someone who has ?


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## Tijl (Feb 28, 2019)

Rocktaki said:


> Have you ordered from them or know someone who has ?


I had a tank+cabinet delivered last year


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## Rocktaki (Apr 4, 2018)

I’ve just decided on making euro style vivs myself as nobody local (Washington) makes them, there was a company called emerald city vivariums but he never got back to me to bad his euro styles were very clean and quit reasonable, only issue with making your own is local glass shop strings me out to dry, for a 22x17x24 size tank, cost me 300 dollars for all the glass😭


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