# 20 gallon cork vivarium



## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

Hello all, I've recently finished the first round of planting my newly made 20 gallon viv. It's a standard 20 high with an egg crate false bottom, planted aquarium substrate around the edges of the false bottom to hide it, great stuff and cork background with peat covering the gs. The substrate is abg mix from Neherp. It's lighting is a current led satellite plus 24 inch fixture and I'm misting about once per day by hand. So far it's planted with some plants I had saved from other tanks or projects, or just collected. I've got a package coming from glass box tropicals with some nice epiphytic ferns and orchids but its currently delayed by weather. I figured I would post some pictures and info because this is the sort of post that helped me to see how to make vivariums not too long ago.

I've found it helpful to mark out the dimensions of the back wall of a tank with tape to be able to plan hardscape:









A little while later and I planned how I wanted it to look:









Background done:









I decided I liked the look of this rock in it, I'm almost positive it's quartz, which I haven't seen anything negative about for vivariums, but if anyone has knowledge about quartz in vivariums being harmful I'll definitely remove it:









Here's it is right after planting:









And here it is as of today, a few weeks later:


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

I'll post updates when the plants arrive. For now any feedback/criticism/questions are appreciated 


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

Plants arrived, ill post more pics when I get time but here's a couple


















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## chefboyardee (May 31, 2013)

looks great! can we get a list of plants?


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## dmb5245 (Feb 7, 2014)

Very nice. Thank you for sharing.


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

chefboyardee said:


> looks great! can we get a list of plants?


Thanks! There's a few NOIDs that I collected that I'm hoping do well in vivarium conditions, but here's most of them

ORCHIDS:
Pleurothallis rubella
Lepanthes tentaculata 
Masdevallia bucculenta
Epidendrum porpax 'alba'
Epidendrum conopseum Mexican form

VINES:
Marcgravia rectiflora
Cissus amizonica
Ficus pumilia quercifolia
Pilea depressa
Pilea glauca
Peperomia prostrata 

FERNS:
Microgramma heterophylla
Microgramma aff. Lycopodioides
Devallia parvula

OTHER:
Saleginella apoda 
Sinningia 'bright eyes'
Epipremnum 'pincushion'
Mini African violet
Saxifraga stolonifera
(Some Java moss probably made its way in there)
Unknown tillandsia 

COLLECTED:
Mousear chickweed
Trachelospermum asiaticum
Coral bells (Heuchera) 
NOID moss x2 (both collected in Florida)
NOID liverwort
A few other small collected plants I need to get an ID on





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## jsard85 (Dec 26, 2016)

Looking good!!

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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

A few pictures










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## Marcello (Dec 3, 2016)

Looks great already. Where did you order the plants?


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

Marcello said:


> Looks great already. Where did you order the plants?




In the first pictures before the order of plants came in, all those were bought locally, in the most recent pictures the new plants were from Glass Box Tropicals


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## joshsfrogs (May 6, 2004)

This looks excellent and naturalistic with a great variety of plants!


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## jsard85 (Dec 26, 2016)

Now I feel under planted. Time to buy more

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## inthedeep (Oct 15, 2009)

wow. beautiful tank looks great.
what is the blue flowering plant on the right side? and where did you get it?


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## Timbow (Aug 17, 2016)

Wow, great plant selection. Your toothpick selection is pretty impressive as well. 


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

JoshsFrogsPlants said:


> This looks excellent and naturalistic with a great variety of plants!




Thank you!


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

jsard85 said:


> Now I feel under planted. Time to buy more
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk




Haha I may have gotten a little carried away when I was buying plants


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

inthedeep said:


> wow. beautiful tank looks great.
> 
> what is the blue flowering plant on the right side? and where did you get it?




The plant is Cissus amizonica but the blue things are toothpicks, I ran out of non colored ones


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## Damon Ryan (Nov 13, 2015)

This is awesome! However that clear silicone is a buzz kill for me. If this is a permanent design, what you could do it cut that silicone down on the inside all the way till the substrate because you will not have water above the substrate. That way you get that clean modern look and a little bit more visibility. Just a suggestion! Great work! 


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

Damon Ryan said:


> This is awesome! However that clear silicone is a buzz kill for me. If this is a permanent design, what you could do it cut that silicone down on the inside all the way till the substrate because you will not have water above the substrate. That way you get that clean modern look and a little bit more visibility. Just a suggestion! Great work!
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk




Thanks! I don't really like the clear silicone either, and I like that idea, could you maybe give some more info on this? Do I just cut the excess and leave some in the middle of he seam?


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## Damon Ryan (Nov 13, 2015)

Sure thing! You just take a razor blade (much easier with a razor blade scraper) and push it towards the corners of the tank. You can also run it up and down the corner so that you can pull out the silicone. You don't need to worry about leaving a little in the middle because there is some in between the glass that you cannot get to unless you pulled the glass apart. And I doubt the tank will fall apart because it still has tons of supporting silicone in the top and bottom corners along with that amount that is tightly squeezed between the glass panes. Multiple razorblades will be needed because you need a clean one to get the last "ghost like" silicone off. Wish I had a picture to show you! 


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

Damon Ryan said:


> Sure thing! You just take a razor blade (much easier with a razor blade scraper) and push it towards the corners of the tank. You can also run it up and down the corner so that you can pull out the silicone. You don't need to worry about leaving a little in the middle because there is some in between the glass that you cannot get to unless you pulled the glass apart. And I doubt the tank will fall apart because it still has tons of supporting silicone in the top and bottom corners along with that amount that is tightly squeezed between the glass panes. Multiple razorblades will be needed because you need a clean one to get the last "ghost like" silicone off. Wish I had a picture to show you!
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk




Thanks! I think I'll probably do this, I'll need a few more razor blades first but I'll post pics if I do


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## AndrewSkoog1 (Jan 25, 2017)

Looking good! Cant wait to see it when it grows out.


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## cap7 (Dec 4, 2016)

Very nice! I like the variety of plants


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

Well it's been a little while so I figured I'd give a little update on this tank. The Davallia parvula didn't grow for the longest time but just in the last week or so it has put out two new leaves, those being the only ones it's grown since I bought it. Pretty much everything else is growing well with a few exceptions. I had to shade most of the orchids but now I'm getting new growth, except from the Lepanthes tentaculata. It dropped a few leaves, then I shaded it and it hasn't dropped any more but it isn't looking it's best. The Cissus amizonica is also giving me trouble. It was doing very well, growing a lot, climbing etc, until very recently. It's dropped leaves and some are turning yellow. Advice on both of those is appreciated. Here's some pictures from pretty recently:










I still haven't cleared out the silicone on the edges like I planned to do, I will get to that eventually, for now I'm just enjoying watching it grow. The plan for this tank is to house maybe 3 thumbnails, not decided on the type yet, but I'm leaning towards Variabillis. Any advice is appreciated!


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

That first pic looks a little over saturated so here's a better one










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## Giggan23 (Mar 23, 2017)

Great looking tank.


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## Lake (Jan 31, 2015)

Giggan23 said:


> Great looking tank.




Thank you!


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