Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, I have a few questions for the experts ... I am trying to set up a 20G hex for some painted mantellas.. I want a cork bark back wall with some water trickling down the back and a small maybe 2" deep pond. The water feature and false bottom is where I am currently at the end of my experience.. I have done several paludariums and bog tanks.. but never anything where I have had to separate the land from the water.. I have tried in the past but always end up with soggy land, or dirty water.. What is the best way to go about this? I would like a severe slope from the back down to the front with a little path for water to run down into a pool but I have absolutely no idea how to achieve this... if that will be supremely difficult, I'll do it another way.. I'm open to any advice or website referrals..

My other question is about moss.. What is the best type of moss for a frog viv and where do you get it... I have had good luck with java moss but i dont know if it will be wet enough to grow in this tank.. I want to keep the tank moderately simple with just a few ferns and pepperomias so that i dont lose the frogs, but i would like moss for the rest of the ground cover..

i like the pool in this picture (found it on the wildsky website)and the moss..

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my pets: clown treefrogs, reed frogs, big eyed treefrogs, tiger leg monkey frogs, gray treefrogs, milk frogs, cuban treefrogs, whites tree frog, green treefrogs, squirrel treefrogs, blue webbed gliding treefrog, red eye treefrogs, chameleon treefrogs?, mossy treefrogs, dusky salamanders, tiger salamander, box turtles, mud turtle, map turtle, yellowbelly slider, florida softshell, two saltwater tanks, five cats, two chinchillas, and a boyfriend.

With all of that, why do you need a boyfriend? (Just an observation from the farther end of life from which view, I prefer frogs.)

I think the most shallow false bottom you can build would be about 3 inches deep. One traditional way of doing this is to suspend egg crate, found in the florescent lighting department at Home Depot or the like, which is used to diffuse light from fluorescent lights. This is cut to fit your land areas and suspended about three to four inches above the bottom of the tank with upright sections of poly tubing. A section for your water pump also needs to be cut out and isolated with egg crate--usually a back corner where your tubing will go up and over the drip wall/falls feature. This can be kept accessible by simply covering it over with smooth, removable rocks on top to hide it, or it can be a part of the main pond. (Pumps do fail, and need maintenance, as you no doubt know.) Using silicon (GE11 works well) you sort of build an upside down open box of egg crate under the land portion, and an open "cage" for the pump. Then cover this with something like polyester foam pads (used for quilting,) which will filter out the dirt from the substrate, and drainage from misting water. I also like to add a layer of garden weed cloth on top of this and run it down the sides of the egg crate, as well. A 600 Rio pump will work in about 3 inches of water and still be strong enough to circulate it over your cork drip wall and down into the cut-out pond. You can use aquarium gravel between the glass and the sides of the egg crate/foam/weed cloth to hide the false bottom from view, and fill the pond with whatever gravel and rocks you want to the depth you want. Lining the edges of the main substrate with flat shale like rocks and Java moss, pillow mosses or creeping plants like Ficus pumila var quercifolia, will help keep the dirt from getting kicked into the pond and water feature.

You are going to get a lot of tannins and coloration in the water from the substrate drainage, but this is harmless and actually healthy. I usually do a few water changes as I set up the tank to make sure everything is working and the foam that always occurs at first disappears. This can be done with a siphoning process from one corner of the tank or directly from the pond, just using a length of aquarium airline tubing. A 60cc cannula type veterinary syringe just fits nicely into the tubing to start the process.

If you have already done bogs and paludariums, you probably know as much or more about this than I do, already.

After the biological process is working and the plants are all growing, I rarely do water changes, just replenish for evaporation.

I don't want to tell you more than you want or need to know, because you actually have a lot of live terrarium experience, but for darts and the tropical plants I use, substrates of coco fiber, organic compost, long brown sphagnum mixed and a layer of leaf litter (oak or magnolia) is my favorite.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

D. auratus blue
D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
D. imitator
D. leucomelas
D. pumilio Bastimentos
D. fantasticus
P. terribilis mint and organe
D. reticulatus
D. castaneoticus
D. azureus
P vittatus
P. lugubris

One thing that is important in keeping the substrate from getting too boggy is controlling the water flow as much as possible. I would use some pond liner to line the water fall, or at least around it to make sure there is no water seaping into the substrate.

Java moss grows really well on driftwood I've found. Also I've only got riccia to take hold if I put it on a layer of spagnum moss that stays very wet. When on coco fiber my riccia never seemed to get going. Lots of light is a must for both mosses. Good luck!

I know this is a random pic... but that's just a straight up bog right? or am I not looking at it right, is there a false bottom? because it seems to be just substrate... anyway, just curious, you couldn't have picked too much of a better pic.