Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Greetings All!
I must first state that I am desiring to take a quest into the vivarium field and am still in the research stage. I currently own mostly snakes and saltwater aquaria but have always had an eye for the beautiful vivariums that are created.
My first question is, has anyone ever incorporated a biological filter (like on a fish tank) into a vivarium to filter the waste created by its inhabitants? I have read about the false bottoms, I am curious to know can I have the vivarium drain out the bottom into a biological filter (like a mini wet/dry or maybe a filter with a biowheel) and then be pumped back out to a water fall feature?
My second question is there any possibility of having a small pond with fish or is this asking too much if I want to have frogs? Thanks for your time!
Sincerely,
Roly

there are a few ways that you can incorperate filteration with a falsebottom viv.

FIRSTLY. you could use a pump or a hole in your base to get water into a sump where you could set up any sort of filteration from there and have it pumped from the sump back into your vivarium.

I am in the process of building a 180gal. viv and this is the way i'm doing it...

I am pumping the water threw a canister filter which contains floss (for getting rid of stray moss or peat...) then i have a layer of ammocarb then another layer of floss so the ammocarb does not come out. This way when the frogs urinate in the water area (which they frequently do) it will go threw the filter and the ammocarb will rid the water of the ammonia. The canister filter i made is hand made and i had it set up so that it stays in the vivarium to make things easy.

Lastly, i would stay away from the fish, they will just help pollute the water and may even nibble on your frogs when they are sitting in the water
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I wanted to stay away from using a ammonium removing resin. I'd like to stay with a biological filter. I figure I can use something like in fish tanks, a wet/dry system. I'm thinking of using a bottom draining false bottom into a wet/dry. The reason I asked about the fish was to build and sustain the bacteria. Without a good ammonia source the bacteria can't populate for the removal of ammonia. How much waste on average is expelled into the water/substrate?
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i have no idea...

why do you wanna use biological filteration so much? just curious
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I understand your want for a "pure" biological filter, I'm not a big fan of chemicals or other "additives" to any biological system.
I believe that depending upon the bioload of fish and frogs you use that you could easily achieve what you are thinking of doing.
Obviously the smaller the bioload the easier this is to create, and half the fun of creating vivaria is giving as much room as possible to the tankmates such that you can view a seminatural setup that might show off some natural behaviorisms of the inhabitants, my joy with my vivs is finding the inhabitants!
I think the easiest way to do what you are setting out to do would be to use a deep false bottom in a predrilled aquaurium with the drilling on the bottom using bulkheads, then simply set the height of your bulkhead such that you achieve your desired water level, and allow it to "surface skim" using a sump underneath with bioballs, or other media, and pumping the water back in however you want, perhaps creating a waterfall, or trickle wall, in this way by bringing the water back through the substrate in the vivarium you can offer the plants some great nutrients, and further biologically filter your water.
A great fish for a vivarium such as this would be something in the nothobranchius species, a killifish, they like shallow water, are fairly small, and if you are planning on keeping something like darts, the fish will take the same food source as the frogs .

Hope this helps, will be happy to repost to try and help you further, in the meantime yahoo has some groups that are all about this you can search for naturalistic vivariums in the yahoo groups, and you should come up with at least two that are wonderful.

Thanks for your help. I am leaning towards drilling the bottom for a drain into a wet/dry w/ bio balls. I actually had a neat second opinion today while at the pet store. One of the reasons I wanted to add fish was to develop a good population of ammonia absorbing bacteria (nitrosoma or nitrobacter, whichever-can't remember) by having a decent ammonia source. In doing so, I had concerns for the fish eating frogs or tadpoles. Anyhow he suggested building a wet/dry large enough to house 5 or 6 goldfish inside the filter itself but not in the pond inside the vivarium.
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Miami Hurricanes #1
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I have had several types of both fresh and salt water aquariums and have used both media type filtraion and biological. The media type filter is nice, but I have always had problems with the pH. To counter it you have to add chemicals and constantly monitor water quality. Bio filters are alot smoother and require a hell of a lot less maintenance. When they cycle correctly they are very easy to control and monitor. besides I plan on have the vivarium up and running for a long time, why run a filter that I have to buy chips for every month and then have to clean and change the filter? The bio filter will run itself. Oh, and did I mention I'm lazy?
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Miami Hurricanes #1
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