Ozziekoi,I agree with you in regards to adding a tee/wye fitting to displace some of the water away from the waterfall. As to the power use question. Some time ago there was a member of this forum who experimented with putting a control ball valve on the discharge side of his pond pump. He had also had an amp-meter clipped onto the wiring to the pump and found, as he closed the ball valve, that the amperage of the pump went down. On further closing of the valve, the amperage draw of the pump shot back up. He did however, find a spot on closing the valve, where the efficiency of the pump went up and the power draw went down below that of the rated amperage of the pump without obstruction of the flow. He posted a graph showing the amperage and pump output, with the valve in various positions, which seemed to bear out his findings. "Horton"

How are you avoiding depredation by rats, mice etc. in your contemplated greenhouse? Avoiding escapes that will bring you and our herping community undesirable attention by neighbors? I built "tube cages" up from livestock watering tanks (350gl rubbermaid), laundry tubs etc. using PVC coated wire mesh and stainless hardware to keep my rare frogs in and rats and mice out of the valuable bromeliad collection which is their furniture, there are pictures of them in an article I wrote for the four languages Euro Herp magazine issue on monkeyfrogs and I ain't gonna be more specific because I suspect that might be frowned on as promoting a product on this forum. Those cages have withstood conditions mimic-ing rainforest for years. If I find somebody is sick I can disinfect the cage instead of digging out all the soil in the entire greenhouse (what if something makes it past your pathology/quarantine undetected?) If cages really aren't appropriate for your animals use double doors with gap like zoo aviaries to be sure you aren't losing anybody. I still have rats land on cagetops, pull arms through cages and rip them off - do deal with vermin seriously and consistently, like tooth-brushing. Also FL residents have been battling Fire Ants installing in such conditions and wiping out their animals in short order, so again figure out how you're going to maintain things to exclude them, in my case it makes it easier to exclude the Argentine Ants which can also destroy my collection because I use cages seperating them from the ground, I hang misters so the ants can't travel the length of the tubing and get into cages, and I really clean everything to destroy their scent trails. I also use fat goldfish to eat ALL mosquito larvae in my waterlily pond to ensure I am a good neighbor not spreading West Nile, because mosquito fish are too small for me to keep track of when I clean the pond. How are you going to prevent overheating/cooling of your greenhouse killing everybody if power fails? Think of maintainance and what can go wrong first, and you'll have more fun LATER!

Your questions have pretty much all been answered, but I just have to add my 2 cents. =) 1) Submersible heaters are great, but only if you can keep it away from the frogs. Many frogs sit on them and are burned and die when the heater suddenly turns on. So look for a canister filter that allows you to stick the heater in the filter, or hide the filter deep into your false bottom and away from your waterfeature, and make sure that your frogs can't get into the pool and get stuck under (in) the false bottom. You will also find that your lights do a good job of heating the tank. Yes, even fluo's and compact fluo's give off some heat, and it's always been enough to heat my tanks. 2) Canister filter. If you go to the Frogworld site, you'll see that most of the dutch use ehiems. 3) Fibreglass screen works great. I never had any problems with mine. It drains well and doesn't get clogged, and weed-barrier sheets sometimes come with herbicides in them, something you definitely don't want. 4) You can either not use soil as your substrate, thereby avoiding the soupy mess completely (I used shredded cedar bark mulch and loved it! But apparently cedar is bad for frogs, so use cypress mulch instead. Other options include coconut husk chips and fir bark chips, both commonly used to grow orchids. All of these will provide a very nice, open, well-aerated substrate for your plants, will not stink over time, and look very natural.), or, since you will need to stop your froggies from getting stuck under the eggcrate and drowning, use driftwood and/or 'river rocks' to block this area off. For my first terrarium, I built a styrofoam form, covered it in black silicone and aquarium gravel (for a natural look), and used this as my stream bed. The whole thing actually sat on top of the false bottom. Here's a pic: And an older pic, but more of a close-up: There was a small pool at the bottom of the waterfall. Only about an inch deep, so not enough to drown a PDF. I never actually had frogs in there, but I was planning on it, so the whole thing was basically PDF-friendly. =) Coir can be a good substrate, but it tends to degrade into a soggy mess in as short as a year, so I didn't use it. But whichever of these natural substrates you choose, you will get tea-coloured water. Don't worry, it's not harmful to the frogs at all (as long as you're only using distilled or RO water), and you might EVENTUALLY (like in 10 years) be able to get the water clear once all the tannins are washed out of the substrate and you've done enough water changes. As for moss, DO NOT collect some from the wild and toss it into a blender with some buttermilk and pour that all over your terrarium! The buttermilk will go sour and stink like crazy, and you may get all kinds of nasty bacteria and fungi growing in your tank because of it. This trick only works OUTSIDE when you want some more moss in your garden. The best moss I've found for terrariums, especially for PDF vivs, which are very humid and moist all the time, is java moss. Having had aquariums, I'm sure you're familiar with it. You can start it out in your water feature and let it climb out and cover everything, but you don't have to. It's not a true aquatic moss, and actually grows better (and looks nicer) on land. It must be kept constantly moist-wet though, so make sure you pre-soak whatever substrate you choose in your clean RO/distilled water so that it's already moist. Java moss is also the fastest-growing of the tropical mosses that I've found. If you buy a nice large clump or two right away, you should have a wait of about a year or two before everything is covered in moss. Other great plants include ferns (mini versions only! They still grow quite large in a terrarium! 'Fluffy Ruffles' is good), bromeliads (also only small ones), tillandsias (air plants), cryptanthus, tropical carnivorous plants like Nepenthes, Ficus pumila (if you don't mind trimming it back all the time), Selaginella, mini orchids, small alocasias and other aroids, african violets (though I never had any luck with them. They grow, but stopped flowering, and do need a drier spot), neanthe bella palm (will eventually outgrow the tank, so buy the smallest one you can find to start with), and others that you can learn about by doing a search on this forum.

Judy- You're correct....I thought you were going for a higher waterfall which would mean water falling from a higher distance before it hits the pool surface and making a louder noise. What you describe will not make the waterfall much louder at all. I agree, it would make it more visually appealing with the 2 tier waterfall effect. What you are describing is a waterfall basin where water falls from above the basin into the basin and from the basin, it spills into the pool. This can be done, but not knowing how much depth you have to work with makes it difficult to make any recommendations over the internet. It will add depth to your existing waterfall and may require another footing as suggested. If an extra footing is required, I would tie into your existing footing with rebar. I would also recommend waterproofing the basin to prevent seepage and cracking during freezing. I would also allow for the basin to drain down dry when the pump is off. The extra plumbing should not be a problem and your existing pump should be able to handle this task since you are not increasing the vertical elevation very much. Hope this helps!