Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey I'm building a new cage for my Tokay geckos. I'm planning on building a small waterfall in it.

I've noticed that you guys in the arrow frog forum have some of the best looking cage setups I've ever seen.
I was wondering if anyone can post pictures of waterfalls that you've built?

I've searched the forum and saw quite a few. I'd like to see a more to get some different ideas.

Thanks in advance...

Here's how Ive done it so far (still not completely done; about 85%)

But first for an intro---

I had siliconed a large piece of glass to the back of the tank, angled towards the front so its open at the top, and had planed on using it for the land section of a paludarium a long time ago. That idea fell thru, so Im on to this one now. With this glass in place, I am now going to use it for a kind of second level in the vivarium. This glass made construction of the waterfall a lot easier and also makes the waterfall look a lot more natural and intricate (not just a boring straight up-and-down fall, but with many small drops).

I had 2 major sections of the waterfall that I connected together; well call them sections 1 and 2 and I included a diargram to help you picture what Ill be telling you.

Now onto construction---

***Note: With this kind of project, the majority of it requires your own creativity and vision, and therefore cannot be described (ie, the placement of rocks and how you want the water to flow, ect). So when I just say, for example, "I placed the second rock", I had probably toyed with its position and the use of that particlualr rock for several minutes, or even hours. Take your time holding various rocks in all sorts of positions to get a feel for the best look. It's worth all the trouble in the end.***

The very first part of the project was to route the pipe for the intake of the canister filter which would later be used to both filter the water, and power the waterfall. I used some 1/2" O.D. (outside diameter) CPVC pipe (standard PVC pipe is not avaliable in that size) and (7) 1/2" copper elbows to neatly pipe up-back-down-left-back-up-and down to the rim of the tank (see the detail in the diagram). A small section of the plastic lip of the aquarium was cut away so the pipe could be flush with the glass. I also cut an equal size piece of the lip away for the output pipe of the filter which, by the way, was was made with 2 elbows attached together to make a "U". All the elbow connections were made secure and waterproof with epoxy. Then I simply attached the fliter.

The first rock I attached was at the very top of section 1. I used epoxy putty, silicone and a couple clamps from reptile clamp-lamp lights to securly attach it to the glass.
Once that "base" rock was secure, all I had to do with the rest was use epoxy putty to fasten them to it. Although for the others which touched the glass, I used a few pumps of silicone for extra support. I kept attaching rocks untill they were resting on the top edge of that angled piece of glass and some were jutting out over it.

Unlike in Section 1, for Section 2, I worked from the bottom to the top. I placed a standard red brick at the bottom to rest the first piece of lace rock. I did this because the bottom 3 inches or so of the pond would be filled with view-obstructing gravel anyway, so it would be a waste of the beautiful/expensive lace rock.

Then, improvising with many clamps and levers, I was able to hold the next few rocks against the glass long enough to be siliconed/puttied securly. I worked up till I got to where Section 1 ended. If you are having trouble holding a piece of rock with clamps, you may just want to get comfortable and hold them in place for 15 minutes till the putty gets hard enough to hold it on its own. I did that a couple times.

With all the rocks firmly in place and the filter attached, I was able to move onto the next phase. I mixed some Rapid-Set concrete grout to a toothpaste-like consistency, poured a good amount into a standard ziplock sandwich bag and snipped off a tiny piece of one of the corners. This acted just like a cake frosting squirter (you know, the kind they use to make the fancy flowers and polkadots). I used my bag of grout to fill in all the cracks between the pieces of rock. That particular grout dries almost the exact color of lacerock, so you can barely tell its there.

Once all the grout was dried, I was itching to take it for a test run. I filled the entire bottom of the tank with about 4" of water (enough to submerge the intake pipe of the filter) and, from the output pipe of the filter, siphoned the water into the filter to prime it. This proved to be much more difficult than doing it in a standard filled-to-the-brim aquarium. Due to the low waterline, my face was turning red, and I thought I might collapse a lung I was sucking so hard. But the filter finally did fill with water, and I was ready to go. I plugged it in and...
Leaks everywhere! %*@#& So then it started. The part of the project that made me second guess starting it in the first place. I pondered over this problem for a day or two untill I just decided to try plugging all the leaks with a bunch of spray foam and silicone. I used "great stuff" spray foam for the open area below section 1 (as shown in the diagram) and waited for it to dry. I did another water test to see how the foam would hold the water by itself only to discover that I would have been just as well using wadded up toilet paper. Im still glad I used the foam just because it will prevent frogs from getting under the waterfall when the tank is done. Quickly dispatching my first idea of sealing every square inch of the foam with silicone, I decided to use a piece of plexi glass for under the foam, and silicone for the sides, simply because it was flat on the bottom anyway and would be way easier. By the way, Im going to all this trouble to get the leaks out because I want NO water leaking from the waterfall into the land section of the vivairum. I have had way to many problems with waterlogging in the past, and I refuse to let it happen again. So once the piece of plexi-glass was siliconed in place, I moved onto sealing the left side of section 1. For that, I just slathered a ton of silicone all over every exposed section of foam and rock. This will be covered with more rock later in the project, so appearance was not a concern. Okay, so confident that I had the leak problem conqured, I plugged in the filter a third time. There were still some slow leaks seaping out of the foam where I had missed with the silicone. I patched these holes. Tested it again...ARRRGGGGHHH! More damn leaks so I marked them, patched them and tried again. Once again, I still had a leak so I decieded to kick it up a notch. I mixed a bunch of epoxy, grabbed a cheap paintbrush and painted it all over where I had siliconed. I let that dry, then before trying the filter again, I did another layer of silicone over the epoxy. If it leaked that time, I was going to explode. Sweating in antisipation, I plugged in the filter.

Finally, I had stopped every leak, and the only place water was flowing was over the rock where I wanted it. My next problem was with water splashing out from where it hit the pool over to the land section. What I did was stacked more lace rock around the base of the falls in order to deflect any spashes. I used more grout to hold them in place and I can add more later if needed.

All I really need to do now is plant. I also want to install a device that will allow me to durasticly slow down the flow of the filter with out damaging the impeller.

To be updated later...

-David Taylor

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"The day we would limit ourselves or adapt to the music scene, would be the day Opeth dies." -Mikael Akerfeldt; lead singer and genious behind the metal band Opeth.