# How would I construct this? (Crude drawing inside)



## HerpDerp (Jan 2, 2014)

I have a really crummy Photoshop mock-up of a tank I would like to build (sorry, best I can do with no mouse haha!), and was wondering if anybody could help me with it. I'm looking to make a solid land mass (brown) that a few small fish can't get under. At the back of that landmass is a Repto-Filter (green), which I'm hoping to construct a small water fall out of to flow into a front-viewed pond (blue).
The pond at its deepest point can be 5.5 inches (Dealing with an Exo-Terra)
This is in an arboreal tank... If anybody could teach me the best way, I would greatly appreciate it.
Everything I've read says build an eggcrate table with mesh around it, then just lay my substrate on that... Is it truly that simple?


----------



## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

HerpDerp said:


> I have a really crummy Photoshop mock-up of a tank I would like to build (sorry, best I can do with no mouse haha!), and was wondering if anybody could help me with it. I'm looking to make a solid land mass (brown) that a few small fish can't get under. At the back of that landmass is a Repto-Filter (green), which I'm hoping to construct a small water fall out of to flow into a front-viewed pond (blue).
> The pond at its deepest point can be 5.5 inches (Dealing with an Exo-Terra)
> This is in an arboreal tank... If anybody could teach me the best way, I would greatly appreciate it.
> Everything I've read says build an eggcrate table with mesh around it, then just lay my substrate on that... Is it truly that simple?
> View attachment 89737


You can build a typical false bottom setup, but what you want is an area of shoreline that acts as a dam to hold back the substrate yet also allow water to pass from the false bottom into the pond. This is how I do all my ponds actually. 

You can use rock (like stacked slate) and/or wood to create the shore line. In your case you wanna create a half bowl shape I guess with a short stream running to the back with the filter, then join that to the false bottom so that substrate, frogs, tadpoles, and/or fish doesn't fall into or pass through to the false bottom. Really that is the only tricky part since it is difficult to cut eggcrate to the exact shape of the shoreline no one piece of wood or rock usually fits perfectly enough that it doesn't have to be sealed with foam and/or silicone. Black expanding foam is one of the best ways. Really one of the easiest ways is building your shoreline/stream out of the foam at least half the hieght you want the water and then lay rock and/or wood over that to create a shoreline/stream setup that has the water dept you want but also holds back the substrate. 

So you construct your shoreline stream walls with foam, rock, wood then just fill in under/behind it with more foam and it will mostly expand on it's own to fill in the gaps to seal it from the false bottom. Then if by some miracle that is watertight you can jam a coat hanger or something through the foam along the bottom creating small holes so that water can pass through from the false bottom into the pond or vise versa. The small holes will be to small and/or covered by aquarium gravel so fish, tads, frogs can't get under the false bottom


*Look in the 2 flickr galleries in my signature for lots of build pics showing how I do pond/shorelines and false bottoms. Pay special attention the the Hex build and the desert viv.*

This thread may help too...
http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/members-frogs-vivariums/36787-evolution-75-gallon.html

Basically it is a short stream that runs from the back of the aquarium to the front pond just like you want only instead of a filter I suspended the top of an exo-terra waterfall and pump, then hid that with driftwood in front of it and across the stream.


----------



## HerpDerp (Jan 2, 2014)

Dendro Dave said:


> You can build a typical false bottom setup, but what you want is an area of shoreline that acts as a dam to hold back the substrate yet also allow water to pass from the false bottom into the pond. This is how I do all my ponds actually.
> 
> You can use rock (like stacked slate) and/or wood to create the shore line. In your case you wanna create a half bowl shape I guess with a short stream running to the back with the filter, then join that to the false bottom so that substrate, frogs, tadpoles, and/or fish doesn't fall into or pass through to the false bottom. Really that is the only tricky part since it is difficult to cut eggcrate to the exact shape of the shoreline no one piece of wood or rock usually fits perfectly enough that it doesn't have to be sealed with foam and/or silicone. Black expanding foam is one of the best ways. Really one of the easiest ways is building your shoreline/stream out of the foam at least half the hieght you want the water and then lay rock and/or wood over that to create a shoreline/stream setup that has the water dept you want but also holds back the substrate.
> 
> ...


I don't know if this is weird, but I've been scouring that 75 gallon tank since last night, trying to figure out how it was done haha! Found it on Google, its stunning!

I'm determined to read this until I can make some sense of it, because it seems like exactly what I want. The foam though, to my knowledge that has to be siliconed after it dries... Is that untrue?


----------



## HerpDerp (Jan 2, 2014)

Another question! Behind the retainer wall, would I just be putting substrate back there, or is that where I would place a false bottom? I get confused easily with this apparently lol


----------



## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

HerpDerp said:


> Another question! Behind the retainer wall, would I just be putting substrate back there, or is that where I would place a false bottom? I get confused easily with this apparently lol


I'm not sure I understand what you're asking so let me just say this and show these pics and hope it covers it ...



























Ok, in the above pics you have the piece of wood that makes up most of the shoreline. You can see where I've cut the false bottom to kinda fit around this piece. At that point you basically foam it into place, but notice that the piece of wood sticks up higher then the level of the white eggcrate false bottom. That creates the substrate dam. All that silicone and mesh between the wood and the false bottom keeps substrate from falling into the false bottom. 

Having the wood a little higher then the false bottom keeps substrate from sliding into the pond. So basically you wanna keep substrate out of the pond, and out of the false bottom, and join your shoreline to the false bottom platform so that you can lay your substrate down without a bunch of it falling behind the shoreline piece and between it and the false bottom. 

It may help to think of it like this... 
The top half of your "shoreline" is meant to hold the substrate back and out of the pond, the bottom half or your "shoreline" is what seperates the pond water from the false bottom water, but this doesn't have to be a water tight seal, we want them to share. We just don't want frogs, tads, or fish getting through there and under the false bottom. All substrate goes on top of the mesh and eggcrate. The mesh is just there to help keep pieces from falling through the eggcrate into the false bottom water. Below the eggcrate should basically be nothing but air and water.

The difference between a viv like this and an normal one is someone without a pond sharing water with the false bottom may let their false bottom go nearly dry. In effect that area is only there to catch excess water and let it wick/evaporate back into the soil to keep humidity up.

What we are doing different is keeping our false bottom nearly full all the time because our pond water depth is going what ever depth the false bottom water is. You generally wanna leave a small air gap under the false bottom between the water and substrate though. Basically if the eggcrate is touching the surface of the false bottom water that is on the verge of being to high and you need to stop misting, or drain the tank a little some how.

It works fine in tanks that aren't drilled. I don't have a single viv that is drilled for overflow. All I do is just mist enough that whatever pond/false water evaporates is replaced by my misting. In fact usually if anything I have to just pour water into the tank because I get lazy on misting regularly sometimes. 

Basically if your tank is 80%+ sealed up and there is some water in that false bottom it is always going to maintain high humidity unless you have fans running and/or a lot of airflow in that room or live in the desert. 

So the order of levels goes...
1. Plants and substrate on top
2. Mesh or other porous liner to prevent substrate from falling into false bottom water but still allows air and evaporated moisture to pass through into the soil.
3. eggcrate false bottom
4. Small air gap between eggcrate and false bottom water (basically don't keep the tank flooded long term, it will be fine in the short term though)
5. False bottom water.


You just want your shoreline a little higher then the false bottom to help hold back the substrate from sliding into the pond, and help create that visual transition from pond surface to dry land. You can pile up aquarium gravel against the shore in the pond to hide the guts where you filed in around the shoreline pieces with foam and stuff. The substrate, moss/plants etc..etc.. of course hides where you joined the shoreline to false bottom and the false bottom itself. 

Then if you did it right hopefully you get a nice seamless transition from water to land like this...









The only trick is hiding where your shoreline meets the glass because some foam and/or silicone will likely be visible there. If you use black foam it may not be all that noticeable, and/or you can put black contact paper over the front of the viv's false bottom area to hide the "guts".

Other then the shape and the fact that your "shoreline" is going to meet the front glass and probably the back glass in more places there is nothing different about the actual technique. Same methods used for the corner ponds, the 75 with waterfall, the hex with large front pond, etc... etc... different shapes, but same technique to build them all.

Here is another quick example...

1.









2.









Did that help? ...Or did I completely not get what you were asking?


----------



## HerpDerp (Jan 2, 2014)

You nailed exactly what I needed to know! Thank you so much for this, I've been searching for weeks and now I have the answers I need.

Also, as somebody who has seen your work for a long time and not realized it, I really wish you luck with your product inventions. I remember seeing the lightning last year and I was just amazed! Again, thank you!


----------



## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

HerpDerp said:


> You nailed exactly what I needed to know! Thank you so much for this, I've been searching for weeks and now I have the answers I need.
> 
> Also, as somebody who has seen your work for a long time and not realized it, I really wish you luck with your product inventions. I remember seeing the lightning last year and I was just amazed! Again, thank you!


Thanks, hopefully I'll have something to show you all soon. Lack of funds and some creative hiccups with the hardscape have stalled the storm viv. It was actually almost ready for planting at one point, but I didn't think the hardscape was as good as it could be, but as soon as I figure out what I wanna do with the hardscape and have a little cash to do it... I'll get it knocked out pretty quick.


----------



## HerpDerp (Jan 2, 2014)

Dendro Dave said:


> Thanks, hopefully I'll have something to show you all soon. Lack of funds and some creative hiccups with the hardscape have stalled the storm viv. It was actually almost ready for planting at one point, but I didn't think the hardscape was as good as it could be, but as soon as I figure out what I wanna do with the hardscape and have a little cash to do it... I'll get it knocked out pretty quick.


Well, I have your Indie page bookmarked now, so maybe in the coming months I'll donate a bit of a thank you


----------



## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

HerpDerp said:


> Well, I have your Indie page bookmarked now, so maybe in the coming months I'll donate a bit of a thank you


Oh that thing didn't do well and It's over now. I probably need to streamline the campaign and maybe wait till I get more of a start on that project. Also my ferret dying at that time kinda side tracked me. I may resubmit it though at some point. Can't really hurt to have it up and running I guess. The dryad viv is definitely happening though when I can afford it.


----------



## HerpDerp (Jan 2, 2014)

Dendro Dave said:


> Oh that thing didn't do well and It's over now. I probably need to streamline the campaign and maybe wait till I get more of a start on that project. Also my ferret dying at that time kinda side tracked me. I may resubmit it though at some point. Can't really hurt to have it up and running I guess. The dryad viv is definitely happening though when I can afford it.


Thats going to be incredible, can't wait to see


----------

