135-ish semi-journal

ok so a friend of mine (KEVIN S) and i are working an a large display for our favorite LPS. it is a 48x18x36 custom enslosure that we are in the process of building. weve got the hardscape along far enough to post up some pics and get some feedback.

please post some criticism and any ideas you have to make it better. we are trying to get the local area interested in vivs and frogs, so we are trying to make this the best it can be. the LPS we are putting it at is one of the busiest in the area. we want to have the customers check it out and become interested in how tobuild one, and we want them to be interested in the small beauties that live within it.

well heres the important stuff :lol:

a pic that i posted a few weeks back.

this is the main portion of the background at testing phase for the water features.


now that the water features have been tested and approved we are on to filling the rest of the background in and starting to work out details of the lower portion of the tank. in this last series of pics we have a general layout of the bottom, but dont have the pieces finalized. we basically threw this together to get a few ideas. we like what we came up with and it seems really practical for the look we are wanting.

keep in mind we have this in a "test box" and some of the bottom portion is a little hard to make out (or cant be seen at all).

main water fall close-up


lower central


lower left


lower right


pretty much full frontal


and finally an angled shot to try and show the depth and what the water lower portions will look like.


the bottom will be lined with stones and flourite. there will be no soil. for "land" there will be plenty of stone piles that protrude out of the top of the water, and well prolly have more arboreal animals in the enclosre also. were thinking of darts or day geckos, or possibly a combonation. personally i htink the tank is plenty big to do a mixed habitat, but i dont know if we want to put one on display in a pet store. i dont think we want to portray that as "oKay" to the common hobbiest.

thanks for looking. please post some feedback. im ready for (and wanting) good, bad, and ugly. hopefully theres not too much ugly though :lol:

any construction Qs are welcomed also!!

[JoshKaptur]

Can't wait to see updates - that has potential to be an awesome tank. Love how you crammed it full of wood. Personally I'd want to keep a large group of thumbs, and don't tell anyone I said this, but also a pair of tincts on the ground.

That's really cool! I love your idea for the bottom of the tank - I hadn't ever thought of doing it that way before, with it mostly open like that. Neat!

I love that you're putting Fluorite in there - I'm a big rock collector, and I always have something like that in my tanks. Crystals, spheres, big natural hunks of fluorite and various quartzes. Fun stuff

Originally Posted by JoshKaptur

Can't wait to see updates - that has potential to be an awesome tank. Love how you crammed it full of wood. Personally I'd want to keep a large group of thumbs, and don't tell anyone I said this, but also a pair of tincts on the ground.

thanks for the comliments. we really liked the wood that came and couldnt decide which pieces to use. they were all so nice we decided to cram it all in. it came out with tons of depth and tons of character. we are probably not going to plant this thing to thick now. we like the look so much we arent going to want to cover it all up

as far as frogs we may end up with some nice thumbs in there. we'd both really like to do some type of terrestial frog also. i think there are too many odds stacked against that though. there isnt going to be much ground space, as we are going for the open watery look to the bottom of the tank. i dont want to force a low dwelling frog into the upper reaches to disturb the thumbs. aslo, since the tank is going to be on display at the LPS and it may be the first time people from this area see a "real vivarium" and dart frogs. we dont want them to get the idea that mixing is the norm.

we'll probably try and find some good frog that utilizes all the area. maybe leucs, or some of the more terrestial thumbs like retics. it would be really nice to have a big group though, so that there would always be some visible. we also want it to be a pretty hardy animal as neither one of us will be there to check them every day.

Originally Posted by s1ren

That's really cool! I love your idea for the bottom of the tank - I hadn't ever thought of doing it that way before, with it mostly open like that. Neat!

I love that you're putting Fluorite in there - I'm a big rock collector, and I always have something like that in my tanks. Crystals, spheres, big natural hunks of fluorite and various quartzes. Fun stuff

thank you too s1ren. ive done a few tanks with the open bottom, and my buddy has also. we really like the look on smaller tanks and decided we could try it out with this big one. we plan to plant it out with small forms of anubias (i just saw that sierraaquarium has some nice ones in the classifieds right now) to give some stiff leaves down low. with those and plenty of stones protruding out it should be pretty nice and full looking and still leave an open feel. we'll see

i think one of the main thing all of our vivs lack is some type of stone. ive been trying to incorporate at least one in every one of the vivs ive done lately. it really makes a big difference IMO. with this one we have a chance to use a lot of larger ones (something you just cant do in 12x12x20s) so we are going to take full advantage and see what it turns out like.




thanks to every one who is looking, but especially thanks for the feedback. please every one, feel free to comment no matter how insignificant it may seem

[gary1218]

WOW!!!!

Where did you get all those great pieces of wood?

Cindy @ http://www.vivariumconcepts.com she is a sponser here and has the best ghost wood on the internet. IMO ghost wood is about the best viv wood, so it could be argued (by me anyway ) that she has the best wood on the net.

[KEVIN S]

some updates on our 135 custom tank

since the last pics, we've got our land and drain coverage portions in and covered with flourite. we have also put the front payne of glass on and planted some broms.

here's some pics of our progress:











we'll post more pics when its finished!

thanks for looking, Kevin

[Frogtofall]

The little group of N. Chiquita Linda look awesome there. At first, I didn't really like the way the layout looked. I think it was b/c of the lighting. Now that I see it, I think it looks awesome and I can't wait to see you guys get it all planted and whatnot. Makes me want to setup a big one!

Nice work gentlemen.

[KEVIN S]

Originally Posted by Frogtofall

The little group of N. Chiquita Linda look awesome there. At first, I didn't really like the way the layout looked. I think it was b/c of the lighting. Now that I see it, I think it looks awesome and I can't wait to see you guys get it all planted and whatnot. Makes me want to setup a big one!

Nice work gentlemen.

thanks Antone, we were real happy with that group of c.linda to. the rest of the broms will look much better when they get some color back. we will definatly post a much more detailed journal when the tanks finished, there's some pretty neat features that went into the construction of this tank. we're realy looking foward to seeing how it turns out.

Thanks again, Kevin

[stchupa]

Erratically pleasing. Looks like it may have a lot of nice little nooks and cranies. That I like most about a viv, the things you can't see but know they are there, and in my oppinion is what makes a good one. An enjoyable habitat for your future retics, but I think something more aboreal and equally shy would have a greater appreciation for it.