Hey ken, Actually i found that the glass glue has secured the hinges to the plexy glass REALY well. While it did not secure it to the glass. I'm going to attatch the hinges to the glass with silicone. Which shouldnt present a problem because silicone adheres best to glass and metal. I know warpage can be a problem with the plexi glass but i'm not to worried about that at the moment. I always let my vivs run for quite a while before putting any frogs in. That will give me time to see if there is a warpage problem and if so i can correct it. The reason I didnt use the glass is becuase the glass guy near me charged me an arm and a leg last time i dealt with him. secondly I use the plexyglass for lots of things and i could buy a large piece and cut off what i wanted.
The tank is a 20 gallon long tank that i'm going to use as a tall tank. Over the last few years i have been puting together vivariums and studying those that i see at zoos and especially what i've seen from other dart keepers. I found for me that the smaller vivs are much nicer looking when they are tall rather than long. Something about the verticle orientation and the multiple layers of plants seems to be more interesting and have a nicer flow.
The dart frog enclosures at the baltimore aquarium are a good example. they are much taller than they are wide. However one thing they have is a large front to back space witch creates a nice vanishing point that really draws the viewer in. It's a shame the normal dart frogger can't easily create that kind of enclosure. especially not in a fish tank, fish tanks are made to keep fish closer to the front glass because the water distorts their appearance as they swim farther away.
wow anyway i just started to ramble. I'm an art student so the asthetics of the vivarium is something i am particularly interested in.
you are right about one thing the acrylic hinges would look much nicer than these metal ones. I actually wanted acrylic but i could not find them when i was shopping so i chose function over form.
