General questions and terrarium help

18 years ago

Hello I am new and in the process of building a tank heres what I have so far a 20 gallon tank that is tall 2/3 of it are land and 1/3 of it is going to be watter. I have a divider that is plexiglass that I cut and siliconed in. The reason I did this rather than having the enitre bottom being water is I was afraid even with the screen divider for the substrate it would leak and clog my filter... anyways

I have 1 inch of pvc pipe for a false bottom and a plastic grid that sits on top and then fiberglass mesh screen liner. I plant on running 1/2 inch of rock on the 2/3 side and 1 inch of rock on the water side. I have a waterfall that was on from eco terra that stinks that I took apart and modified and I am going to be running a new canister filter that will go to the bottom layer to pick up the water and then pump it to the waterfall.

I go that great stuff foam expander and today I did the background, I got about 3 pieces of wood sticking out or it then im going to use my black silicon and use that cocco bedda beast stuff for the background. Oh by the way I plan on having this be a poision dart frog tank later one

my questions are I have an aquarium tank top with flourescent light. How much ventelattion is required in a terrarium? next question is I have 2 heating pads I plan on putting under the tank so it would heat an excess water and have it evaporte back up the main layer and also keep the tank at 80 degress... I imagine a tropical tank should be warm for tropical plants? now for the substrate I am going to use that cocco bedda beast stuff but I dont think it will grow anything theres no nutrients in it but it has good drainage properties and doesnt rot so I was going to mix it with eco-complete is this a good idea? and one last question where can I get exotic stuff for my tank like plants and fungi and flowers and mushrooms that have the roots that I can plant I checked everywhere and I cant find anyone even the nurserys that have mushrooms like shirobi or portobello

Thanks =)

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Comments (7)

deadhamster
18 years ago
Fertilizer of any kind in an amphibian tank is an absolute no. Amphibs absorb just about everything through their skin, so it will kill them quick. You will basically be relying on frog waste to fertilize your tank. Don't worry, it will be enough. Plenty of people have done it. As for ventilation, with it only being 20 gallons I would say having a screen top will be all the ventilation you need. You can get plants at blackjungle. I have never tried to buy fungi of any kind, so I can't tell you where to get them. I have found that they do a fine job of showing up all by themselves :)

-DH
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iliketerrariums
18 years ago
Hi, you can always go down to the "search" at the bottom of this page and look up answers to most if not all of your question =)
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I have a tank with the same dimensions (75 gal). I use 3 lightstrips, 2 double and 1 single bulb. That's 5 x 40W (48") using 2 Chroma 75, 2 Vita-lite (daylights) and 1 Gro-lux. I started with a single bulb, then 3 and was still not happy. So I added the second double strip. It's still not overkill but gets a nice even illumination. Plus I connected all 3 strips to separate timers to create a "sunrise"/"sunset" scenario in the morning and at night by turning the strips on or off sequentially in a 30 min interval. Of course that's just a little gimmick, but it's kinda neat to see it getting darker in there at night with the Gro-lux being turned off last cloaking everything in a reddish color for the final minutes. Anyway, in your case I'd go with 2 double strips (4 bulbs). It really makes a differences, especially for the nepenthes (although your other plants will enjoy the extra light too). You also have to consider that your plants will grow and some will eventually start blocking too much light from getting to the plants located closer to the surface unless you have more than 1 strip to get different angles to cover the whole area.
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iliketerrariums
18 years ago
Also try, http://www.tropiflora.com/creport/cr15-3/p0.html, they have pretty cool stuff too =)
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Cdfortin
18 years ago
Unless your tank is in a cold area, I don't think the heating pads will be necessary. Generally the lights generate enough heat, and I think that using a heat pad under glass that contains water *might* cause the glass to crack.
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alexis
18 years ago
Unless the water part is only one or one and a half inches tall with some water friendly wooden branch in it for safety reasons, any dart frog would probably drown in the water. Dart frogs can not swim. I own one and it can't swim at all. They need shallow streams that are only one and a half inches deep (two inches for the bigger species) at the most. Also, they might want a branch in the water in case they have trouble and need to get out of the water for safety reasons. I've seen pics of other people's tanks on this forum and on the internet and they have the following for water sources: a waterfall that turns into a shallow water stream, a small to medium sized reptile rock dish (I have one of these for my dart frog, Rain), or a small water wading area. I have seen pics of tanks where the water is four or more inches deep and never see any of the frogs in the water in any of the pics. Probably because they would not feel safe in such deep water. Somebody even had the cocohut in the deep water part where one-third of the hut was in the water. I doubt that the frog could use the cocohut at all. Remember, dart frogs come from the rainforest where there's mostly soil, trees, plants, and small puddles of water on the ground among the leaves. Since you did use silicone on the water part, I would suggest a tree frog. They can stand three to four inches of water, swim a little bit, like tanks that are on the tall side (most of the dart frog tanks I've seen in the pics were the ones that were on the long side), and would get along good with pitcher plants (I saw one sitting in a pitcher plant at one of the spring festivals that I went to and it was able to safely get out of the plant). I hope you give this advice some consideration.
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noobtoterraiums
Original Author
18 years ago
Thank you for all the help I think you are right alexis a white tree frog would probably work better plus he is sticky and can climb all around the tank and not drown in my deep pond.
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back2eight
18 years ago
Do not heat the tank!! Room temperature is enough. If you are going with a poison dart frog then you need a glass lid, no ventilation. Absolutely no fertilizers or chemicals of any kind. Wash off all plants completely bare root before putting in the tank. Definitely stick to flourescent lighting since it is the right kind for the plants and will not overheat the tank like an incandescent bulb will. Find a good forum like dendroboard to talk about the care of the frog. They will help you out a lot. Get a thermometer and hygrometer for the tank. Good luck!
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General questions and terrarium help

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deadhamster

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General questions and terrarium help

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deadhamster

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back2eight

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