[Anon123]

Is this a typo? That's more than 3/4 inch.

Yeah, that's a typo. I meant 2 mm thick, so very thin glass hence why I'd asked if it was a bad idea.

but a really simple way to solve this is to use a piece of glass (tempered is best) for the front portion of the top and a window screen kit insert for the back portion that isn't covered by the glass.

As I'm not in the states and don't have access to services like Amazon, I'll see if I can replicate this methodology in my neck of the woods. I'm not sure if I'll be able to find the correct type of frame that'll fit things perfectly.

For the record, I personally think the best way to handle top venting is to use pieces of acrylic placed over the stock screen top.

I'm personally not the biggest fan of the overcast look that the middle bar across the top of the exo-terra lid causes, but if I can't find any alternatives I guess I'll do what you did but with a piece of glass instead?

 

[Anon123]

Once hardscaped and planted I have never found there to be a visible shadow line from the center support of the tops.

Do you position your lights in the middle of your vivarium?

 

[Anon123]

Decided to go with a traditional glass top using 1x1cm solid acrylic bars to create a frame to hold the no-see-um mesh. I understand that acrylic tends to bend under vivarium conditions, but hopefully it's thick enough for that not to be an issue? Unfortunately the rods are only 30 cm long so I'll need to silicone them together and saw some pieces.

Thanks, everyone.

 

[Anon123]

I just use egg crate to fill in the blank spaces, and silicone the mesh onto the egg crate.

How did you manage to cut the egg crates cleanly? That was my initial plan but the egg crate end up looking like an OSHA violation. For a false bottom it's fine since I highly doubt springtails and isopods are going to be impaling themselves, but I don't want to risk it with the frogs.

 

[Anon123]

Silicone doesn't reliably bond to acrylic

Thanks for the heads up. I feel like I've managed to avoid a catastrophic error. But yeah, if I can't silicone the no-see-um mesh to acrylic then that kind of defeats the point. What's the active ingredient in superglue gel? Is it still cyanoacrylate or is superglue gel different from normal superglue? Recon something like the E-6000 would work?

 

[Anon123]

Really surprised that there is a place on Earth that has ExoTerras, exotic plants and dart frogs but not window screen frames,

Well it's not that there aren't any window screen frames, it's just that they're not the kind of that I want; they're metal and (I'd rather not risk things rusting on me and only sold as as a complete set instead of in pieces. I'll give the egg crate idea a second try and bust out the sand paper to make things less point, I guess.

 

[Anon123]

Went through and cut the egg crate apart using some cheap wire cutters that I'd purchased for a different project. While it's cleaner than scissors, it's still fairly pointy. C'est la vie.
The entire thing is 3 inches wide while the open area is 2 inches wide. That's at least a surface area of 113cm^2. Should be ample ventilation. I'm also currently running a fan over my vivarium to help with airflow so it should hopefully be fine.

One final question, how do you go about attaching the screen mesh to the egg crate if there are frogs currently in the tank.

The edges of the mesh can be siliconed to the glass and top frame of the exo-terra.

Probably won't work.

Do you think the small eggcrate beams are enough of a contact point between the mesh and the silicone? Or should I silicone some poster board over the egg crate first and then silicone the mesh to that posterboard?

 

[Anon123]

The above isn't quite what I do, but may work. Mesh can be siliconed directly to the eggcrate and directly to the plastic frame of the vivarium.

Unfortunately I can't be as liberal with the siliconing my tank as I'm pretty sure its fumes will be bad for the frog? But I'm glad to know that I don't have to jump through any more hoops to stick the mesh to the egg crate; just apply silicone on the egg crate and plop the mesh on. Sticking the mesh to the bottom of the egg crate is a great idea, that way the frogs won't be able to come in contact with the pointy bits since the mesh will stop them from doing so. One issue I foresee with this is an uneven bead of silicone causing the crate not to sit as flush as one would like on top of the ExoTerra, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when it arrives.
Instead of using silicone to close any potential gaps I'll probably use hot glue as I don't believe that releases any fumes? Granted I've heard that they don't hold up well in particularly humid environments but even if they're not longer sticky, as long as they're still covering the gaps it shouldn't be an issue?