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215 Gal Folius Viv

21K views 68 replies 37 participants last post by  Tijl 
#1 ·
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. :p

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.

 
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#7 · (Edited)
Yup, it came pre drilled for drainage and for mist nozzles. I also asked Folius to add a couple holes in the upper rear corners.

The carpet is sorta off white, dark cream colored. It isn't so bad like a pure white carpet would be. I don't really spill anything other than fruit flies and they get vacuumed right up when I do. Haha. I put a piece of plastic down in front of the stand while doing this just in case. Its that stuff you put down when you paint.
 
#14 ·
Got the silicone/coco fiber done. It's not perfect but I'm not too worried, plants will cover everything in due time. Also played around with some light diffuser. I may use it with some really bright lights. I like the effect it gives. Will give more details later when I purchase the lights. Things move slow due to the fact I'm not a bank. Haha.

Gave it a spray down and took a few photos.





 
#22 · (Edited)
#25 ·
Amazing hardscape well done !

I've got a couple questions if you don't mind:
-It seems the driftwood is only holding on to the background thanks to the foam. I would imagine some of the pieces are pretty heavy ? I'm surprised it will hold in the long term, but with your experience you must got it pretty well figured out.
-I'm sceptic in the sustainability of cork under constant humidity. Even more with a cork mosaic background when it's in contact with damp sphagnum. I sometimes read on forums and in literature that cork eventually rots after a couple of years. Are there different "qualitys" of cork ? Are there specific recommendations to it's use ?

Thanks for sharing, can't wait to see it planted !

Regards,
 
#31 ·
Yeah, some of the pieces are heavy for a terrarium but not necessarily in general. The foam is quite strong and will hold this no problem. Most of my terrariums have this kind of wood.

Cork is pretty damn durable and very good at fighting off the effects of water logging. Heck, they used to use it in flotation devices and they use it to seal wine bottles. I have only ever seen any problems when cork was constantly waterlogged like from being under running water. I use cork on my mist benches at work with no issue.


Buy your sphagnum from Home Depot or Lowe's and you will never have to worry about that happening ;-) That stuff is absolute garbage, but perfect for this purpose.

Mark
All my moss is the, "Better-gro" stuff from Home Depot and almost always come back it seems. I thought that microwaving it would have done it in but after about 3 mos, it springs back. :/
 
#33 ·
Got a tiny little but done tonight. I used up the rest of my bark to make about a 5 gal bucket worth of soil. Just wanted to see what the viv looked like with soil in it. Will try to get more bark (I really prefer Orchiata) this week. I'm gonna need at least another 3 buckets of soil mix (ABG).

I also put the doors on just so that I could look at it as it would be with plants and frogs in it.

Slowly but surely!

 
#34 ·
Did a little messing around with the lights. Initially I wanted to do a few spot lights. It is nice for creating a dynamic look to the terrarium but after I put them up, they just didn't look right on this viv. I think the problem is that they weren't the proper color (said 5000K but they looked more like 3000K) and I may have needed 5 bulbs instead of 3 but they are rather expensive.




I decided that since I'm not made of money that I would just use the fixtures I had on hand since I did plan to use them for this project in the beginning anyway. The lights are Beamswork LED Daylight fixtures (30" each). I also went to Home Depot and grabbed a sheet of diffuser and cut it to shape of the top of the terrarium.





I also hanged the light fixtures so that they could cast on the viv a little wider.



Here's the way the viv looks with the lights above and the diffuser. I really like it. Light is still bright but with the diffuser it seems to disperse nicer. Certainly very pleasing on the eye.



Next on the list is to try and get the soil squared away and seeing about fogger. Plants too, of course. :)
 
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