Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I bought a 10 lb bag of quick crete for a really good price at Lowes. I want to make a water fall out of it that I want to use in a posion dart frog enclosure. Will that be okay? Is there anything I need to do or will it cause a problem with the frogs. I know people make backgrounds of cement for thier fish tanks so I was thinking if fish are okay with it then the frogs would be too. What do you guys think?? Thanks in advance for any help

Regarding safety, I think it will be fine, although I would have the background cure underwater (yes, concrete cures underwater and is actually stronger this way) and change the water frequently.

For a thin and highly texture background it's usually best to have the background cure a bit before soaking it in water. You can drape wet cloth over the background until the surface is hard and then submerge it in water. Just be sure to not mess up the surface. I used to spray mine with a mix of vegetable oil and water

Not knowing exactly what Quick-Crete product you have or even what the company has available nowadays, I would sift the product through a fine screen mesh and add an acrylic fortifying agent. If you can find a small amount of pure portland cement I would add a scoop or two of that as well. Not worth buying an entire bag but if you can find a small amount it will improve the quality of the mix. Many of the pre-mixed products use cheap ingredients, including large chunks of sand/gravel (hence the sifting) and small proportions of portland.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

What is acrylic fortifing agent? I was thinking about getting some stones and using that in the quick crete. Would that be okay? I figured it would give it a more natural appearance then just the quick crete by itself. I guess I could soak it in a bucket once it gets hard on the surface. Besides making it stronger what else does soaking in water do? If I soak it in water will it make the waterfall safe to use without sealing it?? I don't want to seal it inless you think it is absolutly necessary to do so. Thanks in advance and thank you for the great advice so far!

There are various additives for concrete that make it more flexible and better at taking fine shape. The most readily available are called acrylic bonding agents.

You should try the stones in a small area. If you don't like them just cover with more rockwork.

Curing underwater also removes a lot of the lime from the concrete, making it less toxic to fish and amphibians.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

Okay. Should I even use the quick-crete then? I don't want any thing to harm the frogs. There is a special epoxy I can get insead that I know is safe and I am going to use to make a tree in the enclosure but I was hoping to save some cash on the waterfall if I could. Let me know what you think.Thanks

You can absolutely use the Quick Crete, especially if you plan to let it cure completely and soak it in water. If you already have the bag go ahead and experiment with it.

In reference to another post, you can mix coco-fiber with the acrylic bonding agents into a slurry and use that to make a background. I understand it is much easier to do than the silicone method.

You might go to google and type in Flevopol and Terrarium or Terria. Flevopol is a common acrylic bonding agent over in Europe and this method is used a lot over there.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

I did buy the bag all ready. But before I did anything I wanted to make sure it was okay to use. I didn't want to do anything wind up liking it and then not being able to use it. That would have been disappointing. I will make sure I soak it good. I might have to soak it in two stages though depending on the size and if I can find a container big enough to soak it in. I will definetly google your suggestion. Does the acrylic bonding agent and coco fiber have to be soaked as well? Will I have to seal the waterfall after soaking it and will I have to seal the background after making it? Thank you!

I have not done the bonding agent with coco fiber. You'll have to read up on that one. Most of the good info is on European sites but there is one English written site as well.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

Do you have the link for the English written sight? I tried to google your suggestions. I found sights with some pictures but I couldn't understand anything else. THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP!!!

Here is one of the few english sites. I have not read this link in months so I'm not sure how much detail he/she goes into.

Concrete bonding agent technique:

You should also play around with google's language tools and do some rough translations of sites written in Dutch, German, etc.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

Thank you Chris. I just e-mail the guy that made that page hopefully the e-mail he gave stills works. I don't know where to start with the language tools on google.

I believe he has posted on this forum as well. You might try to get a thread started here so we all can learn.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

Link

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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

Thanks Chris. I was just on Dendroboard. I didn't have time to go through everything. But could I use tile adhesive to do my waterfall, and my background mixed with coco-fiber? Or tile grout? Would either of these have to be soaked as well?? I would of course get foam for the base of both. Give me a heads up adn let me know what you think?? (dart frog tank)I can't thank you enough for all the help you have given

Tile grout is cement based so I would soak it since it will be a waterfall, which I assume will fall to a pool the frogs can soak in.

I can't see a reason why you would have to soak a coco-fiber background.

To further confuse things, I think you need to make sure tile grouts are free of mold inhibitors which can be toxic to fish.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

You seem to want to be 100% confident that whatever method you use is non-toxic to your frogs. As such, I'd recommend looking into the polystyrene and cement backgrounds that fish keepers use. A great resource for this is the DIY message board over on the Cichlid Forum.

I'm not sure it's agreeable with forum rules to post a link to that site so I won't try. It is very easy to find on google.

I have long felt that a background made of tile grout and cement with some coco-fiber highlights would be awesome and it sounds like just what you're looking for.
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Currently keeping a small collection of various Gonyosoma. Both G. janseni and G. oxycephala.

Thanks. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't have to soak the background considering that I am going to use the tile grout or acrylic bonding stuff and both have the concrete in it. Thats why I wanted to make sure that it would be okay without soaking. I have been to the board you are talking about. I will check it out again later

If you simply make the waterfall & put it in the tank, there's a really good chance it'll be harmful to your frogs. Cement is made from crushed limestone, and has a TON of lime in it. It is a very alkaline product. If you cure it underwater, like he suggested, it will not only make it stronger, but leech out much of the lime in it.

I would suggest buying a pH testing kit for aquariums- either the drop kind, or the kind where you just dip the pH paper in water. You can buy these from pool supply companies as well, and this may be cheaper.

After the cement sets a little bit, put it in water, and change the water daily. It might be usable in as little as a week, or it could take as much as a month before it is usable. I've also heard that adding salt to the water will make it cure faster. Buy some rock salt (even epsom salt) and add it to the water to do this. Oh- and if the water is moving, it cures that much faster, too. A lot of people who use cement in aquaria put an air bubbler in the bottom of the bucket with the saltwater & cement in it, so that it makes a bit of a current in the water.

Now, none of this is as important with amphibians as it is with fish who breathe the water, but, mind you, dart frogs can occasionally be found sitting in pools of water in their tanks (depending on the species), and if this water is alkaline, they will be absorbing it through their skin, and it can burn them.

I don't know if there's any truth to this or not, but I've heard that cement that isn't properly cured will leech so much lime into water that it can actually cause chemical burns on human skin, let alone amphibians that absorb as much water as they do through their skin!

And even if it doesn't harm your amphibians, the change in pH in the water & surrounding substrate may be enough to kill off any plants, mosses, beneficial bacteria & organisms in the soil, etc. . . in the tank.

So if I soak it in water it won't be harmful to the frogs?? I don't want to take any chances of hurting the frogs. I won't be using the waterfall for a while I am just putting the planning and buying some basic supplies for the tank right now. I was also wondering if I could use the acrylic bonding agent that Chris is talking about to use that mixed coco fiber to put on the back wall of the tank. I have used the silicone, coco fiber method and it is messy and a pain in the neck to cover every little area. But if I could make a mix and then just spread it over the foam that would be much easier and less of a pain. Thank you guys for all your help it is greatly appreciated!

The key to curing the concrete and making it safe is having it totally submerged in water until you reach an acceptable pH which is usually around 7.0 - 8.0 for most amphibians. You are only going to know this by letting it soak for several days, drain the water, refill and then a day later check using your pH test strips. If the pH is still too high [higher than 8.0] you'll need to keep repeating this process until you have the pH in an acceptable range. Muriatic acid can be added to the water to help accelerate this process but I don't know exactly what proportion you'd need. Apparently you can also fill with water for several days and drain, then refill with straight undiluted white vinegar for several days, and simply repeat this process for three weeks to a month or until you pH drops to a suitable level. You can of course try using Zoopoxy but as you mentioned it's more expensive and in my opinion probably a bit harder to use and yield a realistic result.

>>So if I soak it in water it won't be harmful to the frogs?? I don't want to take any chances of hurting the frogs. I won't be using the waterfall for a while I am just putting the planning and buying some basic supplies for the tank right now. I was also wondering if I could use the acrylic bonding agent that Chris is talking about to use that mixed coco fiber to put on the back wall of the tank. I have used the silicone, coco fiber method and it is messy and a pain in the neck to cover every little area. But if I could make a mix and then just spread it over the foam that would be much easier and less of a pain. Thank you guys for all your help it is greatly appreciated!
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Matt Campbell

"I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in." John Muir

I don't know if this will help you, but the June 2006 issue of Reptiles Magazine has a step by step guide on building a frog pond with a waterfall out of concrete. The author used white vinegar to leach the concrete. You may be able to scale down these plans to fit your own needs.