[Tijl]

Hello,

I wanted to share the first vivarium I scaped in a rack system that contains 4x 70x50x65. I already finished and planted 2 out of the 4 tanks in total and have not yet started to work on the other 2. That is probably something I will start next year..

In this topic I wanted to focus on the first vivarium that I planted in May this year. Some plants and most moss came in later, so everything still needs some time to grow. But we all know a vivarium is always a constant work in progress right?

The Idea for the first vivarium was to make a clean, colorfull 'showtank styled' vivarium suited for large Oophaga. This is the montly proces and result so far :

April :











May :



June :



July :

 

[fishingguy12345]

Looks great.

Could use more leaf litter ;-) lol

 

[surfindude686]

That looks awesome! I hope mine ends up half as nice as yours.

 

[Tijl]

You are absolutley correct! When this tank is grown in more and ready for frogs, I will certainly add more leaflitter.

Thanks for the compliments.

 

[Socratic Monologue]

Looks really great!

What, exactly, are the substrate layers? Looks like foam, then sand, then gravel, then crushed slate (?), then leaf litter?

 

[minorhero]

Great looking Viv! What is the background? Looks like chunky cork board like what you would stick pins into or put down as a furniture pad.

 

[Tijl]

The substrate: pondfoam, 2 different sized gravel, a small amount of treebark, leaflitter.

The background : 4mm dark cork panels.

Lights : 1x Skylight Pro 2 H, 1x Skylight Pro 2V

 

[Gar732]

Great looking viv. What do you plan to put in there? And what kind of marcgravia is that on the background?

 

[Tijl]

Great looking viv. What do you plan to put in there? And what kind of marcgravia is that on the background?

Says in the description.

The big one is a M.Sintenissi. There is also M.Umbellata and 2 other undescribed Marcgravia in the tank.

 

[darts.in.a.den]

The substrate: pondfoam, 2 different sized gravel, a small amount of treebark, leaflitter.

interesting choice of substrate.
the terrarium bottom has the slope design?

 

[Tijl]

interesting choice of substrate.
the terrarium bottom has the slope design?

I used the similar setup of 'substrate' as I did my other recent tanks :

https://www.dendroboard.com/forum/members-frogs-vivariums/354904-new-fixer-upper.html

https://www.dendroboard.com/forum/members-frogs-vivariums/353374-oophaga-tank-fixer-upper.html

The terrarium has no slope design, but I made a slope with the filtermats.

 

[darts.in.a.den]

I used the similar setup of 'substrate' as I did my other recent tanks :

https://www.dendroboard.com/forum/members-frogs-vivariums/354904-new-fixer-upper.html

https://www.dendroboard.com/forum/members-frogs-vivariums/353374-oophaga-tank-fixer-upper.html

The terrarium has no slope design, but I made a slope with the filtermats.

amazing tanks. how do you drain them? i see not all of them have a small pond in the front

 

[Tijl]

Only the small showtank has a drainage gutter that is currently filled up with water soley for esthetic purpose since that tank won't be inhabitet.
If I would want to place frogs in that tank, the water feature had to go imediatly and get replace by leaflitter. I don't like waterfeatures at all for frogs.

I'm able to drain exces water in this particular tank very easy with a simple aquarium siphon if needed.
But there is as good as no exces water since I am misting by hand.

 

[Tijl]

Tank goes viral on Youtube!! :

https://youtu.be/2BgJtc2L3_s


hahaha

 

[Tijl]

Misting system : check!



One nozzle in the left and right side of the viv and 2 nozzles in the middle as shown on the photo.

 

[Dr. Manhattan]

Your April to July timeline photos blew me out of the water. What kind of moss or moss mix did you use?

 

[Tijl]

The Skylights are amazing lamps! The marcgravia grow crazy fast underneath them.

Dusk moss mix, and moss from my backyard.

 

[Socratic Monologue]

The Skylights are amazing lamps! The marcgravia grow crazy fast underneath them.

@Tijl, not too long ago you were lukewarm about the Skylights. Would you be willing to explained what changed in your experience or in your thinking? I'm not only interested in knowing about another lighting option, but even more so in learning how people grow to like or dislike equipment over time.

 

[Tijl]

Yes very true and a good question.

When I build the Oophaga Pumilio vivarium last year,

https://www.dendroboard.com/forum/members-frogs-vivariums/353374-oophaga-tank-fixer-upper.html

I tested T5, T8, Arcadia 'jungledawn' and 2 Skylight Leds : pro 2 V and pro 2 H.
At the time I realy disliked the color of all the above lights. Probably because I got used to the yellowish glow of the T8 and there where more shaded area's I did not want due to the placing of the led's and since the plants were already grown on the the placing of the previous lights.

What changed my mind over time and the reason I do recommend Skylights is the difference in type of Skylight leds.

I recently received from skylight the MID-30's and the Tiny Pro V to plug and play for the Oophaga vivarium.

I found that the tiny Pro V light realy travels deep in the tank, all the way to the bottom. The Skylight Pro's did not and also just the 2 lamps did not cover the entire are of the tank. Now the Pumilio Vivarium is equiped with 6 in total! and I'm still able to move them around as I please. ( this is very handy for creating purpously highlighted plants or shaded area's if your into scaping for example )

When I see the colors the bromeliads and other plants gets and maintain + also the growth on the marcgravias, I would hestitate in using other lamps in the future!

Of course there is a price tag that comes with these lamps. That is imo the only downside, but they are in the same range or even cheaper as Arcadia if you compare..

Hope this is helpfull

 

[Tijl]

Big update :

Say hello to our 0.0.2 F2 Oophaga Sylvatica 'Paru' Wikiri-line. 🙂






Tbh, I would have loved to let the plants and moss grow for a month or 2-3 longer before introducing frogs to the vivarium. But it is what it is and I realy could not turn down this offer!

So I picked up the frogs this morning, added some more leaflitter to the tank. It still needs more but I will take care of that later this week since I ran out of magnolia..

My wife took some shots of the frogs and introduced them to their new home.