[Orchidvore]

Well I originally came on this site to find ideas for building a terrarium for my whites tree frog, but well I decided to get some darts too. I have a 29 gallon tank laying around from when I was quarantining stuff for my reef, and I'm going to turn it into a viv for a pair/trio of azureus frogs. I love the scenery in the movie Avatar, and since I'm going to have little blue skinned inhabitants in the tank I wanted to put a few Pandora influenced touches inside.

First off: glowing mushrooms
I think shelf mushrooms are cooler looking that normal ones, so I wanted to make some to stick on the side of the viv. I got air-dry modeling clay, acrylic water based paint, and marine grade epoxy resin (also for something else) to make the shrooms. I made the mushrooms out of clay, which I think turned out pretty well considering I havn't made anything out of clay since middle school ten years ago.

Then I tried to paint them. I put on a layer of light tan paint, then some brown lines to try and make them look like this.

But I didn't like it cause I couldn't get the lines thin enough, so painted over them again white tan. I then got the idea to make them blue, since I was going to paint the upper side with blue glow-in-the-dark paint. It didn't turn out so good.

Then my glow-in-the-dark paints came in the mail and I was too excited and figured I could try to paint the lines again after painting the glow paint on. The glow paint has a slight greenish tint. It took 7 coats to get the glow even and not spotty. After that I tried painting lines again but it didn't work, then I tried drawing lines on with a colored pencil but it didn't stick. So I got frustrated and painted over the glow paint with tan paint and started over. *make sure you like the paint job before wasting your expensive glow paints*

Next I tried to paint them like this pic I found.

And it turned out pretty good!

Kind of a burnt/brown orange with slightly purple edges. Then I did another 7 coats of the glow paint on the tops of the mushrooms. On the undersides of the mushshrooms I painted a yellow/green color and put some brown speckles on the stem. After that I did 7 coats of Green glow-in-the-dark paint. I took some pics in the dark but you can't make anything out...

And it's time for bed so more tomorrow.

 

[Orchidvore]

Re: 29 gal viv build for azureus (kinda pandora themed)

Cant edit thread titles huh? Forgot the "a" in Pandora

Oh, got good pics of the glowing shrooms, a little blurry though.

Anyways, this post is going to show how I made a floating waterfall and some other floating rocks for my viv. The waterfall part was sculpted out of a big block of Great Stuff foam I made. I don't recommend doing this though because the foam shrinks over a few days, I didn't know that at the time. After sculpting it I covered the rock in three layers of Permastone that I got at Hobby Lobby. The rock is going to be siliconed onto the side of the viv, so to get water up to it I'm going to run a 1/4" tube up through a bulkhead in the bottom of the viv, and plug it into a John Guest fitting in the rock. I had a JG-> 1/2" threaded adapter laying around so I just screwed the adapter into the foam.

For painting I bought a bunch of different colors of water based acrylic paint from Hobby Lobby. I painted over the whole rock twice with a dark gray base color. Then I mixed up a watery lighter gray color and dry brushed that onto the sharp edges of the rock. Then another lighter gray, almost white, went on the edges to bring them out even more. To finish it off I splotched on some greens to make some algae/plant growth. Here's pics of the process.

Permatoned

Base Gray

Edge Details

Finished

I did two smaller ones out of clay that will also be stuck up on the side of the viv. Here's a pic of one.

These rocks as well as the mushrooms are going to be encased in expoy, because otherwise they'd melt. I just gotta find enough time to get all the coats on. The epoxy I got can be recoated without sanding between 3-4 hours since it was mixed so I'll need a whole day at home to get it done. I'll probably do it this weekend.

 

[frogface]

Nice! Can't wait for updates

 

[Orchidvore]

To catch the water coming from the waterfall I made a basin and stream out of clay. I painted it dark brown to hopefully match the color of the substrate, but with a few rocks for accent. I used the leftover blue glow-in-the-dark paint on the stream bed.

I wanted a cork branch to silicone horizontally on the back of the viv and boy did I luck out! I stopped at a local pet store I hadn't been to in a year and found this awesome piece of cork that looked just right for another little idea I had.

I got it home and measured the inside diameter of the branch, 2.6 inches..... 60mm = 2.36", went on Tigerdirect.com and bought a quiet 60mm computer fan. When it arrived I took a dremel to it and sawed off the corners.

WEAR SAFETY GOGGLEs AND CLAMP DOWN THE FAN WHILE YOU'RE WORKING ON IT. A little more trimming and cutting out the cork a bit and ta da! fan has dissapeared.

I'll have to block off the smaller limb with great stuff and put screens on the ends of the larger limb, and also find a power supple that works.... I tried a 12v 100ma wall wart but it didn't run, a 9v 250ma worked but it was much slower than when I plugged the fan into my computer to test it.

At the same pet store there was also this small cork log. It's hollow and looked just the right size for a frog to hide in. The inside diameter is 1.5". And its got some nice moss and lichen on it to boot!

Well that's all for tonight
~~John

 

[eyeviper]

Looks sweet, I really like the idea of using the cork for the fan vent tubes.

 

[Judy S]

John...you be trippin'.....can tell you be havin' you bad self a blast..

 

[bratyboy2]

Mushrooms...amazing! Cork tube fan holder....you just made my day! Thats the idea that just got me out of a rut! Im loving this thread! subscribed

 

[Orchidvore]

Re: 29 gal viv build for azureus (kinda pandora themed)

Well, got the viv set up yesterday. Sorry I hadn't updated as I did things. First off here's the stand.

Its started as a 2x4 frame for a 2'x4' fish tank. I was able to cut it and join the two pieces together and end up with a stand 24"x31" and 25" tall. I put wheels on the bottom which adds another 2". The top surface is a two part acrylic epoxy I played with. I "drilled" a hole with a sawzall for the drain. The rest of the stand is coated with two layers of Kilz Original Primer.

When I drilled the hole for the drain there were a few small chips out of the glass that leaked, so I make a silicone gasket. I layed down silicone around the hole, put a sheet of wax paper over it, pressed it down with a circular saw blade, and plopped a paint can on top. After it cured I cut away the excess and turned out perfectly!

I added a smaller cork log onto the large piece you saw before with great stuff and gorilla glue. To seal off the ends of the tube that holds the circulation fan I cut circles of fiberglass window screen and siliconed them in. Here's a picture of the log, waterfall, and mushrooms siliconed inside the tank.

Then I made a false bottom out of eggcrate, zip ties, and window screen.

The corners are just folded under and zip-tied down.

To hide the false bottom I added gravel around the sides and another layer of screen.

For a substrate I made a mix based on ABG. Because I had this stuff laying around, my mix is:
2 part tree fern fiber
1 part coco husk
1 part cypress mulch
1 part sphagnum peat
1 part horticultural charcoal

I added plants I had bought before. I got the orchids from Andy's Orchids, 7 total. The rest came from Black Jungle and local froggers. Current plant list is:
Pleurothallis tripterantha
Bulbophyllum purpurascens
Bulbophyllum maquilingense
Masdevallia erinacea (horrida)
Dendrobium crutwellii
Restrepia trichoglossa
Ludisia discolor var. alba

Sinningia eumorpha "Saltao"
Sinningia regina
Oakleaf Fern - Quercifilix zeylanica
Fittonia verschaffeltii 'Minima'
Satin Pothos - Scindapsus pictus argyraeus
Suntan Begonia
Pilea?

FTS

Dendrobium crutwellii, love the color on the pseudobulbs

Begonia, hope it doesn't get too big. Anyone know scientific name?

Pilea's in back left corner. Anyone know what it really is?

Stain pothos, I love this thing.

And here are my 5 azurues tads. Have had them for a month, and they are just starting to get legs. No color yet though.

Next big things are making a top, setting up MistKing (in the mail), adding leaf litter, and watching things grow!

 

[InHoc1855]

Nice, i like how that came out. Are you planning to do anything to hide the cords?

 

[hypostatic]

So far so good. You mentioned leaf litter, and that is pretty essential as I'm sure you've read. I'd add some more plants that the froglets could dart into to hide; the more stuff there is to hide in the more bold the frogs are.

Also, I'm not sure if you've done this already or not, but now would be the perfect time to add MICROFAUNA. That way you can have a nice established population when your froglets emerge and they can go to town =]

 

[shibbyplustax]

Nice, i like how that came out. Are you planning to do anything to hide the cords?

what i like to do is cover the cords in silicone and cover with peat, this way they look like vines and can easily be removed as they are not attached to anything.

BTW the tank came out pretty cool. maybe you can find a cool looking fish tank background to put on the back that will make it look like its high in the treetops or something hah

 

[Orchidvore]

Nice, i like how that came out. Are you planning to do anything to hide the cords?

Yup I already got some brown silicone and peat to put on the cords inside the tank. The cords off the back will be hidden by a background of some sort.

Also, I'm not sure if you've done this already or not, but now would be the perfect time to add MICROFAUNA. That way you can have a nice established population when your froglets emerge and they can go to town =]

Already added tropical springtails and dwarf white isopods, any other good things I could throw in there?

BTW the tank came out pretty cool. maybe you can find a cool looking fish tank background to put on the back that will make it look like its high in the treetops or something hah

I think I am going to do that. I was originally going to paint the back black, but I wanna get one of those plastic stick-on backgrounds with rainforest foliage and see how that looks on it.

 

[yours]

I think this is the second tank with an AVATAR based theme, and I whole heartedly LOVE the idea(that person also used D. t. azureus!) -- GREAT creativity and imagination. Kudos to you

 

[BethInAK]

i love the mushroom ledges - so very cool!! and the floating waterfall is even cooler.

I'm going to need your help figuring out plumbing.

 

[Erikb3113]

The azureus blue matches the theme perfectly...not sure it would work as well with any other frog. Love the fan in the cork tube.

 

[Erikb3113]

Is the waterfall flowing? As Beth said..Where is the tube feeding it? Can't see it in the pic.

 

[yours]

I wouldn't mind seeing a video of the floating waterfall in action with and without the lights out -- I'm just sayin'

 

[Orchidvore]

I think this is the second tank with an AVATAR based theme, and I whole heartedly LOVE the idea(that person also used D. t. azureus!) -- GREAT creativity and imagination. Kudos to you

Thanks! I just can't wait for these orchids to flower. Picked out ones with real wacky flowers to make it feel more alien. Like the Masdevallia erinacea.

i love the mushroom ledges - so very cool!! and the floating waterfall is even cooler.

I'm going to need your help figuring out plumbing.

Ya I'm very happy with how the mushrooms turned out. The waterfall is not running yet, I need to pick up some parts to connect the feed line to the pump. I have a maxi-jet 900 that I'll be using to power the waterfall. I have a bucket in the stand which will catch water draining out and have the pump for the waterfall. The tube coming up is just regular air-line tube for fish tanks, it fits in 1/4" john guest tube fittings. The tube goes up through the bulkhead in the bottom of the tank and through the false bottom screen.

Here's where the tube comes out, behind the begonia.

Here it is plugged into the waterfall. I'll be covering the exposed part of the tube with silicone and peat so it looks like a vine.

The azureus blue matches the theme perfectly...not sure it would work as well with any other frog. Love the fan in the cork tube.

Thank you, I kept in mind what frogs were going in here so tried to stay with darker colored foliage. I still want to add a few red leaved plants on the ground. Azureus would really pop against a red background.

Is the waterfall flowing? As Beth said..Where is the tube feeding it? Can't see it in the pic.

Answered above.

 

[hypostatic]

Already added tropical springtails and dwarf white isopods, any other good things I could throw in there?

I think that's good enough. I know that there are some people that like seeding with every kind of springtail and isopod species available in the hobby, but in the small confines of our vivs I don't think that they all end up surviving.

Many also like feeding the microfauna by sprinkling some yeast into the substrate or putting some veggie table scraps under the leaf litter. Oh and the isopods will also munch on the leaf litter if there's nothing else around to munch on.

 

[Orchidvore]

Ya I will add a little yeast and veggie scraps in there. The bugs have got 2 or three weeks yet until the tads morph, and by that time I want them covering every inch of the viv!