Reptile & Amphibian Forums

http://www.frognet.org/gallery/JasonW-vivarium/DSCN0491

in that link and in many other tanks I have seen water directly touching the subtrate what type of substrate allows this with out becoming soaked and gross or dissapating
-Matt

Looks like gravel under the water, but I can see some white right below the dirt so I believe that is a false bottom then dirt which is most like a mix or something like eco-earth or bedabeast
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Click here to See my frogs and Terrariums!
0.0.7 Green and Black Costa Rican D. Auratus
0.0.4 D. Azureus
0.0.2 Golden Mantellas

I wanted to build something like that, so how would I go about
doing it. Did he just set up the pvc pipes and eggcrate on top then put gravel underneath that?

It looks like he cut the eggcrate to the shape he wanted so he could have a pond area then put some gravel down. I can't tell if he did this but I would have taken some screening and lay it all around the perimeter of the eggcrate and glued it to bottom of the tank below the gravel so that none of the frogs could get stuck under the false-bottom.
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Click here to See my frogs and Terrariums!
0.0.7 Green and Black Costa Rican D. Auratus
0.0.4 D. Azureus
0.0.2 Golden Mantellas

If you look real close you can see the white eggcrate under the dirt. So the rocks are under that.
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Kyle
www.kylesphotos.com
Dart Links - still a work in progress
1.2.0 D. leucomelas
1.1.0 D. azureus
1.0.1 D. imitators

So Bed a beast or the knock off type can be directly exposed to water?-like a pond area?
-Matt

It can, but it is not.. there is a shelf under the dirt just above the water. What I have done is use rocks then keep the water level below the gravel, and then put dirt on top, but dirt is not always needed. Most of my tanks have no dirt, and the plants and moss grow great.
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Kyle
www.kylesphotos.com
Dart Links - still a work in progress
1.2.0 D. leucomelas
1.1.0 D. azureus
1.0.1 D. imitators

If you look on some of the dutch viv. sites, so many of their vivs have this kind of soil to the edge of water look. I really liked it too, so I contacted them. They use a substrate that I could not locate here in the states, but the dutch folks keep telling me that they have distributors here. It supposed to be straight Peat in a brick(its not the kind I have seen on Black Jungle site). And the sites say that it can be shaped more readily then other types of bricks we have access to. The site says that you could make "outcroppings, and islands". I don't remember the link now, cause I can't order it overseas, so I just chucked it. You could probably make a recipe of silicone soil by mixing peat with silicon and making a shape of the edge of the beach. After drying, you could lay this peice along the edge over your eggcrate false bottom and have the soil look but no soil really touching the water. Back up some ways away from the water, you could lay the real soil on top of the silicone soil and have a continuation of the soil and plants start there. You could pick plants that would spread a little to further encroach onto the beach. You could even cut some holes into the silicone soil and place marginals, bog plants there that would like to be half in water. I put a peice of cypress wood along my edge and tied egg crate to the back of it to make a naturalistic edge. Between pieces in the front, I placed plants, java moss and it brings the plant line right to the water edge. Hope that gives you some ideas.