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Vivarium-A place, especially an indoor enclosure, for keeping and raising living animals and plants under natural conditions for observation or research.

From Dictionary.com.

I put this here because it's going to be a planted tank. Just not with fish. I hope this doesn't have to be relocated to the off topic forums, as there's really nowhere else it will go.

That said I've started off with a 10 gallon AGA and this stuff:


I used the black silicone for the first layer of the background:


Then I added in a two tiered "false bottom" for the terrestrial area, I made this out of the eggcrate, and tied it together using the zip ties:


This is the last picture for today and combines the 10g tank and the false bottom for an idea of size:


And that's where I'm at so far. The silicone is still smelling a bit fresh and needs to cure further before I add the second layer, the great stuff, to create a textured look, and driftwood will be anchored into it as well.

On top of the great stuff another layer of silicone will be applied and while still wet, I'll press coconut fiber into it. The coco fiber is a general purpose amphibian/reptile bedding.

Screening will be added on top of the eggcrate with a layer of flourite and coco fiber and possibly leaf litter.

In the last picture you can tell the false bottom is raised a few inches and doesn't cover the entire floor space. I'll be adding in a waterfall and a little stream.

Plants will hopefully be coming up out of the water and right up onto the flooring(and maybe continue up the walls?) which will be kept moist with a combination of manual spraying and possibly an automatic fogger DIYed from nothing other than a personal humidifier.

My thoughts on plants include mosses, especially for the background, and maybe some tenellus, glosso, crypts, anubias. The general rundown of Bog plants. On the background I'll make a few spaces for baskets which I'll try to grow some real nifty type plants. As you can tell I'm not sure what those nifty plants will be yet, but we've all seen them at the zoos.

The inhabitants: one, or possibly two poison dart frogs. I know the difficulty(or let's say non-ease) of keeping these critters, but I've done my research and feel I know what I'm up against. Same way as I jumped head first into reef keeping. I've no interest in starting out with any other amphibians, and I'll practice up with my fruit fly cultures before I actually get the frogs. I don't like to kill stuff, so I'll try my hardest not to .

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

and I'll practice up with my fruit fly cultures before I actually get the frogs.

Like as in you are going to eat them before you find them to be good food for the frogs?

Seriously - very nice Matty, I guess your tank is going too well and doesn't keep you busy enough. How high will the water level be in the tank? To the fist level of the fake bottom? What kind of light are you going to use? Don't fruit flies have wings and could as such easily escape the viv?

Keep us posted,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Seriously - very nice Matty, I guess your tank is going too well and doesn't keep you busy enough

This comes from the guy with a fish room. Actually there's lots of hair algae right now, but I think I've done enough to correct the problem, for the most part. Once a planted tank is up and running the work is, for the most part, done.

And no I'm not eating the fruit flies I just have to make sure I know how to raise them and keep a culture going for an infinite amount of time. Thanks to modern genetics, there is a viable strain of wingless fruit flies. Perfect!

The water level will be slightly below the the first level, yes. I'll probably rig up a light. I want maybe 2-3 wpg. I may use the incandescent fixture(with screw in pc's) that came with the tank, in conjunction with a glass lid, which is necessary to keep the buggers in. I don't really want to try to afford a coralife fixture for this tank.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Ah,

Wingless Fruit Flies, ingenious - But do they know how to walk up the glass on the sides? I bet you, it is just a question of time until you find them here and there at your place.

So - Poison Dart Frogs, they are blue, right? Or are they yellow? I assume one cannot touch them, at all, right? Tell us more about these animals, please.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

If one finds fruitflies outside the vivarium, it is likeley due to handling the cultures and feeding, not one walking up out of the aquarium. If a glass lid is used, and fit properly FFs won't be able to get out.


Dart frogs can be about any color imagineable. So yes, they are blue, or yellow or a bunch of other colors. There's varying levels of care associated with different species of dart frogs. I'm planning on starting with a beginner's dart frog, Dendrobates azureus. They are bold as far as dart frogs go, and are pretty sturdy and common. They tolerate temperatures of 70-80 during the day and mid 60s during the night, and humidity of 90% or more. Males get to be 1.5 inches, females slightly larger. They live 10 or so years in captivity. 10 gallons are acceptable for a pair, larger tanks are recommended, but this was all I had.

They need to eat small live foods. FFs being the common food, springtails and other food are out there. FFs don't have to be supplemented with any other foods as long as as they are coated in a general vitamin powder stuff. Pairs are easily formed and are well known to reproduce in captivity. This brings me to your last question. The poisons the dart frogs produce is in fact derived from insects they eat in the wild. Through the generations of captive breeding, they have mostly lost thier poisons. Even wild dart frogs can be handled, as long as the poison doesn't enter the blood stream...you know the eyes, mouth, open wounds thing.

Lastly a pic:


This is another I'm thinking about, a morph of the D. tinctorius, which are very similar in care to the azureus:


Pictures from www.dendroboard.com

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Yes, do you have a picture of these frogs. Please tell us more.

Cheers
TW

beat ya to the punch Robyn. Lemme know if there are other questions....I've mostly nailed down the beginner type questions.

At least there's no water changes unless the water gets really funky, amphibians don't care as much as fish.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

I really didn't know frogs could be sooo pretty . I can still never see me keeping frogs, but I'll be watching your thread with interest.

Cheers
TW

So in terms of out of water plants. What about Java Ferns? I guess they will grow if there is enough water in the air.

Very cool project. I want to do something like that some day. We have a 15G at work that is a tall 10G that would be sweet for such things.

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Matty,

Anubias would also work well. Even though this is a small tank and one would usually opt for small leaved plants, since the plant leaves are going to be functional - serving as platforms for the frogs - I think anubias barteri would work well. Not something as large as LFs monster mother plant but a regular barteri or two. Anubias and javas are naturally occuring aorund waterfalls, completely out of water. As long as they're kept moist there should be no problem.

Very interesting project, kudos to you

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Back in the saddle!

Yeah, nice froggies

But don't try to kiss one and see if she turns into a princess. Even if not poisenous anymore as a frog, she may well be poisenous as a human

Anyway - will you try to add some "mist sprayer" to the setup to keep all moist all the time?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I think he mentioned using a regular humidifier - I assume just running a tube from the output into the tank?

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Back in the saddle!

Thanks guys, yes I'm considering using java fern and anubias, I'm not entirely set on anything yet, so I won't make any promises. The cool plants I was trying to think of were bromiliads-the ones that have a little "bucket" of water in their stem. Dart frogs like those, and I think there aree small ones too, that would be nice.

I'm not really considering a misting system. They are 1-2 hundred dollars, even if DIYed. It's due to the fact that high pressure low output pumps aren't cheap: I think the specs have to be something like 80psi and only a couple gallons per hour. Instead, I can keep the humidity up with the humidifier, all I have to do is modify the output and run a hose up into the aquarium. Those can be bought pretty cheap at wal-mart or whatever. Plus they look absolutely cool when they are running, so that's just something I want. On top of that I'll probably have to hand mist the plants once a day or maybe just every other day since the humidity will be constant with the fogger. Depends on what plants I guess.

Nothing happening yet. I may or may not start with the great stuff tonight. I'm a bit under the weather, even though it's been nice out I think it started when all that rain came a week back. I'll probably end up putting it off until the weekend.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

The frogs are pretty neat too. The native folks down in SA use them for hunting. They'll grab one from a tree, then rub the frogs secretions onto the tip of a dart or an arrow (hence poison dart/ poison arrow frogs) and shoot an animal with it. The poison doesnt get into the humans system so it does no harm, but it gets shot right into an animal's bloodstream so it kills them quick.

I didnt know the poison had anything to do with the bugs they ate, that's pretty interesting.

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Back in the saddle!

What a wonderful project! Thanks so much for sharing. I've wanted a paludarium or vivarium for ages now, but havn't had the space for a new tank, and couldn't decide what I wanted to keep. The beginner dart frogs sound like a great idea. I can't wait to see more updates! /:'

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Matt,
Did I get you thinking about this project when I was still in Buffalo, because I clearly remember talking about a starting up a dart viv. I'm half way through construction , but You beat me to starting a thread.

I actually went to Black Jungle last weekend... they have like 40 different types of frogs breeding there.

Did I get you thinking about this project when I was still in Buffalo, because I clearly remember talking about a starting up a dart viv. I'm half way through construction , but You beat me to starting a thread.

I totally forgot about that, and didn't know you were setting one up. How big of a tank are you using? What animals are you planning on keeping?

I thought the reason I got the idea was from my cats vet that has a viv setup in the waiting room with dart frogs. It's out on Sheridan and Millersport. From there I just looked up what was involved in keeping them and thought I could handle it. Now it might have been you that got me started. I've always liked them, but never looked into keeping them. I dunno...did we talk about dart frogs? They are kind of the reason I wanted to start a viv.

I actually went to Black Jungle last weekend... they have like 40 different types of frogs breeding there.

That would be nice to have something like that around here....I think I found a smaller scale operation out in Akron around here. Hopefully he can set me up with foods and a frog or two.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

I was saying something about a 90 gallon acrylic that I was going to score and use as a paludarium for darts, but someone got the tank before I did.

My dad gave me his old 30 gallon, and I'm using it as a vert. I want to keep thumbnails, maybe d. imitator intermedius or d. amazonicus.

I just picked up a 45 column (not sure about volume, its 24x18x24) for 25$ and I'm thinking about starting another viv when I finish this one. I'll start a construction thread next week sometime.

Ah yeah, now I remember.

Aren't the thubmnails supposed to be harder to keep? They are definitely cool though...and tiny....and expensive I think. I wouldn't mind some of those if I knew what I was doing. I know they'd fit in a 10G tank better than the azureus.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Well I forgot I can't do the great stuff background without the driftwood being there, and due to the wintery storm we had a couple days ago, power is still out everywhere and I haven't got any driftwood.

OTOH, I did get a bit more work done on the false bottom. I built part of the water structure, the base of it. The rest will be great stuff, rocks, and the hose coming up. I'm unsure if I want to use a slate or river stone and gravel to make the water fall. Right now I'm thinking river stones and gravel. I also laid down and secured some screening so I can put substrate in without it falling through the eggcrate.

If The Fish Place is open, I'll have to work tomorrow and I can pick up driftwood and get all the great stuff down. That will be an interesting phase. I've never worked with that before. Should be fun!

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients