# Pools in vivarium



## graham (Aug 13, 2015)

I recently bought my first dart frog setup, a 30 gallon with 2 auzureus. Now I am thinking of setting up a second tank. Ive heard that darts can drown if they have deeper water, is this true? My first 30 has maybe 1 cm of water at the deepest, but im thinking of doing a pool with tetras or other small fish in the new tank. Is this safe?


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## brendan0923 (Sep 15, 2014)

graham said:


> I recently bought my first dart frog setup, a 30 gallon with 2 auzureus. Now I am thinking of setting up a second tank. Ive heard that darts can drown if they have deeper water, is this true? My first 30 has maybe 1 cm of water at the deepest, but im thinking of doing a pool with tetras or other small fish in the new tank. Is this safe?


I have heard of frogs drowning in deep water before. I wouldn't reccomend making them too deep, just to err on the side of caution. I have had water features in my tanks, but none of them have been very deep. I believe some people have done it before, so I'm sure others with some experience with deep pools will have something to add. Good luck!

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## casemodgod (Jun 10, 2015)

If you want to make a water feature, obviously you want to make it so that land is easily accessible out of the water. Slope your ground on a grade with gravel.


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## Pacblu202 (May 8, 2012)

This is what my water feature looks like. Pea gravel on top of river rock to prevent tñe frogs from going under the bottom. It's housing 6 Santa Isabela so I'm planning in the tads just living in there as is


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## jwright08 (Jul 14, 2015)

Pacblu202 said:


> This is what my water feature looks like. Pea gravel on top of river rock to prevent tñe frogs from going under the bottom. It's housing 6 Santa Isabela so I'm planning in the tads just living in there as is
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Do you have a filter for that pool? Or do you change the water as you see it's dirty? How did you separate from the substrate?

I'm thinking of adding one, but everything I read says nonono.


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## Pacblu202 (May 8, 2012)

jwright08 said:


> Do you have a filter for that pool? Or do you change the water as you see it's dirty? How did you separate from the substrate?
> 
> 
> 
> I'm thinking of adding one, but everything I read says nonono.



No filter. Just a powerhead under the tank. I just change the water via siphon when it gets dirty. It's very rich in tannin due to the leaking water passing through the substrate and also because one bit of substrate is partially submerged at the bottom of it to get the water level high enough. What I did is built a huge false bottom. It's raised up 18" in some spots. This gave me some height in the back of the tank and it tapers to just 3" in the front. I used zip ties and light defuser wrapped in mesh screen to form a waterfall like stream, then I put rocks in it to give it a rocky look.



It's a very love-hate relationship with them. I can guarantee you will have a leak . I have a few. Either leaks or overflow spots. Water is just too unpredictable. I've patched it with silicone and rocks over a dozen times and it still lraking in small amounts in a few places. It's something you have to deal with. 














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## casemodgod (Jun 10, 2015)

Here's what I did with my 20L with Fire Belly in it.

12 x 6 x 6 acrylic box.

Put a 10gal filter from Tetra into the corner, poured in the stones, sloped it, and make it easy to enter and exit, and they love it, it has a waterfall feel to it because of the filter, and its all completely enclosed, so if I have to take it out for repairs, or replacement or to changeout the stones because of my mood, I can do all that and not have to completely tear apart the tank for it. 

You can get acrylic boxes in any dimension you pretty much want to achieve this goal. I tested it there, and I like it much better than a more naturally incorporated setup, and I'll be mimicking it in my 75g


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