First Terrarium Journal

[superfrog13]

Here are my first and second stab at my first terrarium. I built it for my RETF's but got lots of help from the forum and thought I would would share. Any comments or criticisms would be greatly appreciated.

[Julio]

pics are not coming up

[superfrog13]

They will be forth coming...

In the meantime, let me tell you about my project.

I bought these three RETFs in a tiny terrarium. I soon realized that they needed more room.

[superfrog13]

I got some ghost wood and Cyprus from Vivarium Concepts, lots of supplies and advice from Black Jungle and JUST the right stones from Bourget Bros. in Santa Monica.

I wanted to build a water feature with a fogger and make it all very self contained.

I didn't realize how ambitious my vision was.

I built a little pool at the top mouth of my waterfall for the fogger...


The effect was great! But it ultimately caused some problems.

But when all was said and done, my water feature was a big hit.

[superfrog13]

That Ghostwood Waterfall had started to grow things. Very exciting.

But, I realized that my plants were having problems. Too much water? My substrate was always really moist and I was syphoning out my dry area everyday.

My fogger was wearing out pretty quickly too - water quality?

So, I decided to drill out my tank and add a mister.

Also, to re-route the pump to go directly to the waterfall and do away with any wall trickles.

As it turned out, when I dismantled my tank, I found that my divider walls had a leak. Just fixing that would have solved most of my issues, BUT...I had already borrowed a drill and the diamond hole-saw was already on its way.

The drilling turned out to be easier than I thought. And soon I had a nice drain...




I had also done away with the water section in the back where the background could drip, but in doing so, I lost a place for my water heater (I wasn't even sure it was necessary, but with all that water, better safe than sorry). So I found a new place for it tucked between my divider wall and the slanted piece of cyprus that is my "natural" border.

[superfrog13]

The Red Eyes are not Dendrobates.

They require a little less humidity and plenty of vertical space to play.

All my reference material has been from more dendrobate oriented sites, so my humidity was always a little too high. In fact, my meter wasn't even registering. How do I keep my plants happy and alive and not make my frog sweat it out?

Humidity and wetness control were my goals.

So, dry side with drainage and wet side with waterfall...

[superfrog13]

Finally, I got the Mist King installed and all my plants went back in.



It's a little sparse, but when I expect I'll fill it it out more when I get a better handle on the moisture control.

[superfrog13]

The substrate is still way too moist.

After reading through the forum, I changed my substrate from straight Coco bedding to a mix of orchid bark, charcoal and coco, with a little fern thrown in. I figure that will drain better.

So, I'm going to be patient and see what happens with these plants. I think I've already lost a few.

[superfrog13]

By The Way, Alowishus, Deverdander and Abercrombie will go back in soon.

[flyangler18]

Describe your moisture problem in regards to your substrate. Perhaps you are misting too frequently?