# Waterfall/pond leak quick fix?



## Regalia (Feb 12, 2010)

Hey guys,

I could really use some help here...
My 12x12x12 exo terra's been set up for about three weeks now. When building it I used greatstuff covered in silicone for the pond area. I wanted my pond/waterfall feature to have its own little pool in sectioned off pond instead of underneath the whole false bottom. 

Well today I noticed that a lot of the water has escaped and is now sitting under the false bottom. I'm using the repti flow pump so the water level doesn't need to high at all. But I really want to fix this.

Currently the tank is empty aside from all the plants. How could I patch up my pond area without taking the whole thing apart. 

I'll be getting frogs next month so I plan to cover the pond area with a large piece of wood (to increase the ground space) so the pond wont be visible. The water will just flow through some gavel to the hopefully fixed and watertight pond which will be underground. So pretty much, the solution does not need to be aesthetically pleasing. 

Since the tanks already planted I assume silicone would damage the plants?
I was thinking grout but wouldn't I have to seal that too?

Incase some of you need a visual to suggest something, pictures of the pond can be seen in this thread: http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/me...irst-build-constructive-criticism-please.html

Thank you very much,
Regalia


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Silicone should be ok for the plants. I've used it to attach plants to wood with no obvious ill effects.


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## Regalia (Feb 12, 2010)

Oh ya? I thought the toxicity was super harmful to almost anything. But I wouldn't be using just a little dab. I'd have to silicone the whole wall of the pond down the glass.

I guess I'd have to keep the doors and top off the tank for the 24 hours while it cures eh?


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## WeeNe858 (Sep 13, 2010)

silicone would be the easiest and most foolproof fix with what you're describing (to me at least). you can shift the plants in the affected area and apply the silicone to the leak in the empty pool , let it cure, and you're good to go. all the other options take a while to cure or are permanent fixes (epoxy)


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Some plants might be bothered by silicone, I don't know much about it really. I think it's probably going to be your best option anyway. Here is a delicate little orchid that is attached to the wood with a glob of silicone, and it's still going strong. I did this 'in-viv' so it didn't have a lot of ventilation either (no frogs in the tank).

















Here it is tonight, 3 months later (even has a little frog nose poking out from behind  )


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## myersboy6 (Aug 23, 2010)

you have to let the whole thing dry out. try to find where the leak is coming from and fix it. if you cant find the leak i would just silicone over the whole pond area again to make sure you get the leak. But MAKE SURE ITS DRY! If silicone doesnt dry all the way it will never dry.


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## Regalia (Feb 12, 2010)

Alright thanks, I'll make sure its nice and dry.


I just realized I have another problem.... My tank is empty, just plants. I went in to start fixing up the water feature and i knocked some plants around all of a sudden at least 10 fruit flies started flying all over the place.

I have no fruit fly cultures in my house yet... Not sure how they got there but I assume this is bad. Especially since I plan to start culturing next week and will be ordering fruit flies from Understory. 

What do I do now? Ugh.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Ok maybe I missed something but why do you want to "fix" this...If I'm understanding right this is exactly how I do all my ponds on purpose. I use rock and/or drift wood foamed into place to make the shore look a little more natural rather then straight black or tan foam but other then that basically the same thing. I want the water from the false bottom to fill the pond area. Here is an old photo of an old viv where I did this and lighted false bottom to show someone else what I was talking about  ...









Basically I just keep my false bottom almost full...Unless you are misting your tank so heavily that tons of water is dripping down through the substrate into the false bottom you don't have to worry about flooding. I think a lot of people are over misting their tanks, saturating their substrate and likely killing far more plants then they need to (though some thrive with just that kinda treatment). You just need to mist enough to basically wet the surface of everything after that stop, you're just over saturating your soil. 

If you want to fill in the pond though just pour a lil more gravel in there, a layer of mesh screen cut to fit the area and fill with substrate, add plants. You could probably even bury your pump in the gravel, maybe put it in some kinda small box or surround it with soft filter foam to help prevent clogs, cover the whole thing with a rock you can remove to access the pump. No reason to fix the leak doing it this way, in fact you may want to make it worse if you go this direction so the pump doesn't drain the area faster then it can fill back up with water...just let you false bottom fill to almost the eggcrate and call it good...just don't over mist. Which is easy to not do ...use a fine spray to wet all the surfaces/leaves and stop. I've gotten away without misting for weeks in tanks like this, humidity stays high frogs are good, but its nice especially if trying to breed them to give them a very light misting every day or couple days. This is all assuming your vivs are mostly sealed. With a mostly screen top in theory you can get away with misting more, but you run the risk of the tank getting to dry if every you forget. Some of my tanks have a screen strip for ventilation or UV light but I don't use screen tops for the most part. My vivs are actually wetter then I'd like often, I'm going to be adding a fan on a timer to most of them to help out the plants soon.

So ya, why fix this? I do it on purpose LOL  Doing it this way allows for slower evaporation, meaning you don't have to refill the pond very often...just top it off every few weeks. I've even found that hardy tropical fish can survive in these small ponds with no filtration (you actually get a lot of biological filtration especially with increased surface area by using the false bottom reservoir water to fill the pond area)..though adding some aquatic plants doesn't hurt. Also its best not to add fish or tads to these ponds till the tanks has been running for a few months or at least weeks. Just like an aquarium it needs to cycle (whole viv does actually) and the more established it is, the better for all (this also goes for the whole viv).

BTW...
Silicone will kill some plants. I've damaged tillandisia with it before and I tried to silicone a tree fern tile to the glass in one viv that had a mini fern growing on it...I thought the tile would protect it, nope it all died and part of the moss...or so I thought somehow it is making a comeback. I guess some of the root system survived but every leaf and some of the surrounding moss died even with the porous tile blocking direct contact with the silicone.


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## Regalia (Feb 12, 2010)

Okay thanks a lot. I'll try to get my hands on some LECA and I'll fill up the whole pond area/under my false bottom. The reason I did it like this was because I thought having a smaller water source would be easier to maintain than having water under the whole tank. Last time I did that the water got extremely filthy so I tried it this way and I guess it failed lol.


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Regalia said:


> Okay thanks a lot. I'll try to get my hands on some LECA and I'll fill up the whole pond area/under my false bottom. The reason I did it like this was because I thought having a smaller water source would be easier to maintain than having water under the whole tank. Last time I did that the water got extremely filthy so I tried it this way and I guess it failed lol.


I always found it easier to have the false bottom mostly full...it makes the pond easier to maintain because it evaporates slower, and because its very hard to completely drain it dry with that much water under the false bottom the good bacteria and micro-fauna build up in the water and its hard to nearly wipe them out with a water change so when you do remove or add water things are less likely to be out of balance for long. 

What do you mean it got filthy? If you mean tannins thats kinda unavoidable with a pond like that, but looks more natural to me anyways. If it got scummy, that can happen but if you add some aquatic plants and just keep topping it off it eventually goes away once the pond has been established for awhile. All mine that have been running for very long are really clear and clean except for the tea staining from the tannins. Just try to keep your hands out of the water, that will cause an oily film, if that happens you can shop vac the top water layer off and top it off with clean water again once you are done fiddling with stuff in the pond. So basically once they are established the only maintenance should be topping if off periodically and maybe every 6 months or more replacing the gravel in the bottom of the pond if it gets to dirty with debris. 

Anyways its your call, filling it in will be even less maintenance and give the frogs more room but you basically have a good pond that if given time to establish will have good enough water quality for tads or a small hardy fish to live in it. I've morphed out frogs in tanks like that with 0 work from me.


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## Regalia (Feb 12, 2010)

Took your advice dave! Covered the pond with a piece of eggcrate then mesh and put a big piece of wood with some moss growing over it right where the pond was. Filled the water up until just under the false bottom. The water from the waterfall flows through the rocks back down under the eggcrate.

Only problem is, I can no longer get access to my pump so I hope nothing goes wrong. I've heard that people have gone quite a long with without being able to get to their pump and have had no problems. Hope the same goes for me... 


I'm really just happy that I have that little bit of extra ground space for the frogs. On another note, went to my local pet store and got a nice 15x15x15 viv with sliding glass doors and front ventilation with a stand for $40 bucks. And they have another one too, contemplating going to buy it. Just thought I'd share!


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

If you don't mind redoing it, you can make a box of some sort to set the pump in and then the wood over that, and just remove the piece of wood for access.


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## Regalia (Feb 12, 2010)

I was thinking of doing that but unfortunately, this was my first real viv so I wasn't very good with planning. The way I built the waterfall is that I have the rocks attatched to the background with the hose running behind it and the pump underneath. My original intention was to fill the water up until just under the rocks. I made it a little too snug and now the pump is wedged under the waterfall and the water also runs down the side of the glass a bit so it would be hard to contain. 

But it looks really good and next time I'll know better.

Do you have any ideas for what I could do with my 15x15x15 european viv. 
I really want to focus on nice landscaping and maybe a moss carpet :O


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

Regalia said:


> I was thinking of doing that but unfortunately, this was my first real viv so I wasn't very good with planning. The way I built the waterfall is that I have the rocks attatched to the background with the hose running behind it and the pump underneath. My original intention was to fill the water up until just under the rocks. I made it a little too snug and now the pump is wedged under the waterfall and the water also runs down the side of the glass a bit so it would be hard to contain.
> 
> But it looks really good and next time I'll know better.
> 
> ...


Thats cool, ya first vivs are fun but the downer is after you are done you are like..."oh, I coulda done this, or that...or why didn't I do that there, instead of that...grrr" ...But thats how you learn, 20 or so vivs later I'm still thinking of new things or kicking myself for not doing something one way instead of the way I did it, or not remembering to do something I did last time...always learning.

Ideas for the other viv...hmmm.... Ok lets see On a cube like that I think the central stump layout is usually nice. So find some kind of piece of drift wood that looks like a stump or column and put it in the middle with plants around it/on/in it ...or you could use rocks like SEIRYU STONE or some of the other rocks alot of the aquascapers are using. Kinda pricey but may be affordable for a viv that size. I think I'm kinda moving in the direction of scaping vivs like whats being done in the aquascaping world now. Here is a source for stone types...
aqua forest aquarium

But ya basically I'd probably do some kind of center piece and plant around that, or add some smaller pieces of wood or rock around it also. 
Here are a couple tanks I did with layouts along those lines...

First version of 30cube...









Tweaked verson of 30cube...









New hex still growing in...









So you could do that with rocks or wood...or both. I think I'm going to move more towards large rock in the future, I just like the look better big drift wood pieces usually. You could also do a pond similar to the one you did in this tank only have it go across the front of the viv using a piece of drift wood and/or rock foamed into place to make the bulk of the visible shoreline. I would use black foam for this since its less visible then the lighter colored GS.

U could have an air line hose running from the pond up the back and out of the tank and hook a toms aqua lifter pump to this to make a drip wall down the back of tank. If you do a drip wall I would do a dam running about 1 inch away and all the way down the back glass and fill that with gravel and have your substrate layer back up to that instead of the glass. This allows the water to run down the drip wall and back into the false bottom without over saturating the entire substrate, and if you do it really well and don't over fill the false bottom or over mist it will cut down on the level of tannins in the water. To make the drip wall you just attach another piece of airline to the output of the toms pump, put a "T" on that and run 2 pieces of hose off the "T" along the back wall of tank, punch some nice sized holes in those 2 pieces and the "rain bar" you've basically made will drip water down the back wall. 

To make the wall you can use the standard silicone/gs method, or you can try my cracked cork method which is just basically pieces of cork siliconed into place with spaces between them "cracks" and then jam moist sphagnum moss into the spaces which allows plants to root and moss to grow up the wall. You can either run the intake line from the pond under the shore and false bottom up the back of tank, or you can run it along the edge of the pond, side glass and drip wall. I prefer (when I remember) to have it run under the false bottom, the only trick here is the pressure from the expanding foam could in theory cut off the intake line so it can't suck up water to the toms pump mounted outside the tank, so you need to make sure that doesn't happend. U can punch a hole through the foam and run the line after you do the shoreline or lay down the line put a few pieces of rock or wood around it as it runs under the shoreline so the pressure doesn't squish the line shut. You'll probably wanna run the line and/or do the shore line first before you actually do the false bottom...easier area to work in with out the false bottom in the way.

Thats a fairly complicated build though for your 2nd viv, you may wanna do just the drip wall, or just the pond instead of both...whatever you are comfortable trying. If you do the drip wall though I would definitely do the dam along the back wall that lets the water run down into the false bottom without saturating the rest of the soil. Fill that small strip with gravel pretty much to the top of the substrate, if you don't like the gravel look at the base of the drip wall u can hide it with plants or wood/rock and/or add a thin layer of long fiber sphagnum moss (not the dirt, the actual moss) over the top of the gravel so it isn't visible. Its not hard to hide. 

Hope that was inspiring 

Btw here is a pic of the dam/drip wall combo I was talking about...









See that line of plastic along the back? I filled the area between the back glass and that plastic with gravel later. (the white gravel in pic is just to prevent small particles in the rest of the false bottom falling into water) You can also kinda see the cracked cork/moss wall method I was talking about.

Here are my flickr albums for more pics...there are some build pics in there that might be helpful...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/[email protected]

Let me know if there are any questions


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## frogface (Feb 20, 2010)

Dendro Dave, your tanks are gorgeous


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## Dendro Dave (Aug 2, 2005)

frogface said:


> Dendro Dave, your tanks are gorgeous


Thank you!


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