You will find many ways of doing this, but here's my most recent experiment that seems to be very simple and working well. The photograph has had the shadows lightened so you can see the false bottom under the organic substrate. This is just the left side of a 55 gallon tank. You will discover there are many ways of building a false bottom to hold the water for both drainage and pumping back over a water fall feature, but I've found this one interesting, and so far, it seems to be working well.

The "false bottom" is slabs of rock wool used in hydroponic gardening. Each slab is 3 inches thick and about 6 inches wide X 24 inches long and can be cut into any shape, fitted together to cover the bottom of the tank. The water feature has been merely cut out from the edges of the rock wool slabs, which are covered over with polyester batting between it and the substrate built up on top of it. This is to filter out dirt particles so they don't clog the rock wool, as well as protecting the frogs from direct contact with rock wool just in case. The fibers are irritating, although otherwise, it's chemically benign.

I fitted, cut and sculpted the rock wool away from the the pond, slanting it down into it, and cut it totally away from the waterfall design, then put an Enheim 600 submersible pump just behind the falls feature. In this case, I merely covered the pump with some coarse, smooth aquarium stones, then stacked the rocks for the falls on top of this. These particular rocks are limestone type shale from Nevada. I didn't secure them together at all, merely stacked them, and washed in some extra small gravel to fill the cracks. When the pump has problems, I do have to take the top of the stack apart, remove the rock and gravel down to the pump, then re-assemble it. I've already had to do this once to adjust the pump flow. The pump itself (in this situation) has only a short bit of 5/8" tubing leading up to the top of the rock falls. The top piece of cork bark directs the flow across the falls. Whatever water leaks to either side is filtered down into the rock wool, then recirculated. The substrate is always damp, but wet or soggy, in spite of the leaking falls feature. I add a little fresh water now and then to make up for evaporation and escaped humidity.

You will find as you search around, which I know you are doing in the cages and vivariums forums, both on Dendroboard and here under the specialties sections, that there are many other ways of building false bottoms and water falls. I have probably tried most of them, including the egg-crate for separation, gravel, Hydroton, and even solid glass barriers. I'm just presenting a relatively new thing I've tried that seems to be working well, and is relatively simple to set up.

The picture I'm including here has been edited to highlight the shadows so you can see the rock wool against the glass, and how it has been sculpted to descend into a pool nearly full of smaller gravel that the falls feature flows into.

To answer your question about whether dart frogs will drown in a water feature, I can only say, they won't. They can swim in a pinch if the water is deep. They don't "swim" as much as they walk on water like Jesus, only a lot faster. Some will even submerge and stay under a long time. (I've seen both leucomelas and thumbnails do this, as well as azureus.) The tale about drownings may come from situations where they have no easy egress to land and become exhausted, or from some very territorial species holding each other under water in a shallow waterway, where the aggressor has a purchase. (This wouldn't happen in deep water, as they'd both have to quit fighting and swim for their lives.) We may repeat these urban drowning tales, but I've never seen a truly documented incident of a healthy dart frog drowning just because one has a waterway in a vivarium or paludarium. A stressed and already ill frog may seek out water for a hide, and die there. That doesn't mean he has drowned.



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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

Dendrobates: auratus blue, auratus Ancon Hill, tinctorius azureus, leucomelas. Phyllobates: vittatus, terribilis, lugubris. Epipedobates: anthonyi tricolor pasaje. Ranitomeya fantastica, imitator, reticulata. Adelphobates castaneoticus, galactonotus. Oophagia pumilio Bastimentos. (updated systematic nomenclature)

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