Ever since seeing Troy's, Josh's and several other members' large vivaria, I had wanted to do something pretty large in my frogroom. I do have a 100 gal Exo in the living room but that wasn't enough, I'm greedy.
I contacted Folius (Folius) up in Gainesville, FL about constructing a large vivarium. Dev at Folius was very accommodating and took my wish list to heart and delivered exactly what I asked for. The viv's dimensions are 58 x 24 x 36 making it roughly 215 gals. It was quite a task getting it here, off the truck and on to my stand. Thankfully we were all rather well prepared and no battle scars ended up on my beauty.
For the background, I borrowed a trick from Marty at MistKing where he uses the egg crate to provide a better grip for the (pond) foam. It has worked wonders at combating the peel away problems we sometimes see with just using bare glass or even a layer of silicone. The drainage layer is a product called, Matala that Folius also carries. Its far superior to anything else I've used and I've built probably close to 75 vivs in the last 8yrs, probably 100 in the last 20 years.
The driftwood is cypress wood that I get from a Florida company (I'll post their info later when I find it). The wood is from material that washed up some 80 years ago so no fresh trees are cut down to get it. The stuff isn't cheap but it looks nice and I've been happy with it (I've used it elsewhere as well).
I've taken a liking to the cork bark/foam backgrounds. Cork has such a great resistance to moisture, looks super natural and most importantly (for me at least) epiphytes absolutely love to grab onto it. What is also nice about cork/foam is that you have a lot less to silicone once you're done and that is always a bonus.
For now I just have the background on and the foam "trimmed" and sanded (where needed). I ran out of silicone so only have one small section with the coco fiber done. More to come as it progresses.
I contacted Folius (Folius) up in Gainesville, FL about constructing a large vivarium. Dev at Folius was very accommodating and took my wish list to heart and delivered exactly what I asked for. The viv's dimensions are 58 x 24 x 36 making it roughly 215 gals. It was quite a task getting it here, off the truck and on to my stand. Thankfully we were all rather well prepared and no battle scars ended up on my beauty.
For the background, I borrowed a trick from Marty at MistKing where he uses the egg crate to provide a better grip for the (pond) foam. It has worked wonders at combating the peel away problems we sometimes see with just using bare glass or even a layer of silicone. The drainage layer is a product called, Matala that Folius also carries. Its far superior to anything else I've used and I've built probably close to 75 vivs in the last 8yrs, probably 100 in the last 20 years.
The driftwood is cypress wood that I get from a Florida company (I'll post their info later when I find it). The wood is from material that washed up some 80 years ago so no fresh trees are cut down to get it. The stuff isn't cheap but it looks nice and I've been happy with it (I've used it elsewhere as well).
I've taken a liking to the cork bark/foam backgrounds. Cork has such a great resistance to moisture, looks super natural and most importantly (for me at least) epiphytes absolutely love to grab onto it. What is also nice about cork/foam is that you have a lot less to silicone once you're done and that is always a bonus.
For now I just have the background on and the foam "trimmed" and sanded (where needed). I ran out of silicone so only have one small section with the coco fiber done. More to come as it progresses.