Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Greetings,

I have a big custom made terrarium that I just finished re-building, after discovering a leak. That's all fixxed now, but here's the thing:

I mist the plants daily, currently there are only plants on the background (which was done with the Black Jungle method using the expanding foam stuff), and the bottom of the enclosure is empty (except for the water that collects down there from the mistings). And therein lies my problem. The daily mistings allow lots of water to gather on the bottom, which would make the soil very soggy.

Assuming I use a false-bottom technique, keeping the substrate elevated from the water level (and plan ahead for periodic siphoning off of the exess water), I would still like to have a better draining substrate.

The substrate I have is the coco stuff that has been expanded from the compressed bricks (Eco-Earth is the brand name I believe). What I would like to know is what I could add to the coco-stuff to make it a very well-draining substrate? Maybe sand? gravel? Styrofoam pieces? I had this set up as a false bottom once before, and even though there was over an inch of seperation from the water level to the bottom of the substrate, the coco bedding still became soggy.

Although I built this terrarium intending it to be a dart frog vivarium almost 2 years ago, I have yet to have any critters in it! This has been the third re-build of the damn thing, each time I learn what NOT to do the next time. Then I want to wait for the plants to fill in (again) and someday I will want to put some frogs in it.

Here's another question: In checking out the Black Jungle method of vivarium construction ( http://www.blackjungle.com/gallery/talltank/page1.html ), It leaves the whole bottom as a waterscape. But that contradicts what I THOUGHT I had learned about the care of dart frogs! Is it not true that they don't really like to swim, and have their feet wet all the time? Just curious what you all thought about that.

Thanks for your attention, and I look forward to your valuable advice.
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Steve

Hi Steve,

Try adding orchid bark, fir bark, tree fern root or medium sized gravel to your coconut husk fiber for better drainage. I generally also add sand, leaf compost and milled sphagnum moss in small quantities. Good luck,
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Devin Edmonds
devin@amphibiancare.com
www.amphibiancare.com

I use a false bottom using a sweater box turned upside down that is smaller than my tank both in width and depth,use 2 for larger tanks. By doing this I can hide the false bottom. The sweater box has holes melted through with a wood burner, holes smaller than the gravel so it won't pass through, but water can from the misting sytem. Use a smaller plastic box with holes melted through for water passage, to house a heater and water pump with the lid on to prevent gravel from getting in and with the wood burner cut a hole in the sweater box to hold the smaller box on top. Make sure the samller sets low enough to sumerse in water. This way you can cover the top with gravel but still access it if you need to clean. I have also set up a tank where 1/2 was gravel and the other bottom 1/2 was covered with cocos mat with the mat cut to the size of the smaller box lid so it could be hidden, but accessed, and planted on the mat directly.

Whoa. Ok. Maybe I am just dense, but I cannot picture what you are suggesting to do with the sweater boxes. Do you have any pictures or diagrams?
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Steve

I use a false bottom on my frog tank as well. I just took recessed lighting grid cut it to size and then wrapped plastic screen around the it.Then I took PVC end caps and siliconed them to the bottom of the tank and then silconed the RLG w/screen wrapped around it. This makes a space of about 3/4". All of this stuff you can get at a Home Depot or Lowes. But first before I installed the RLG I drilled a whole in the bottom through the glass and installed a valve that way it could drain and not fill up with water. I bought the bits fairly cheap and made a whole size of 3/4". I have also had tanks without the whole in the bottom and they worked alright but still filled up with water. Let me know if you want pics I can supply them to you so you can check it out if interested. Also the website for those drill bits is www.800watt.com they run $50 and you get a set of 5 different sizes. They work well. Hope this helps you out.
Josh

Steve-if you have a fax i can draw a diagram and fax it to you. email me at tdk27@charter.net T Kelley

Steve-I've drawn you a detail. email me a fax number at tdk27@charter.net and I'll fax you a detail plus I'll give you my phone number if you have questions. T. Kelley

Just how heavily are you misting? I don't have a false bottom in my viv (wish I did though), just the gravel dealy, and I even use real potting soil for my substrate, and I don't have such problems with the soil being wet all the time. Well, I do, but that's because I overfilled the water in the gravel part once, and it has taken a few months to have that separation between water and soil again. Anyways, maybe you could try misting less. If you need to mist that much to keep the humidity high enough, maybe you need a better cover to your tank.

Also, I wouldn't use coir (coconut fibre) for a substrate, because it is much too prone to being soggy. Instead, use orchid bark or coconut husk chips, which are also used for orchids. They will give you a well-draining, well-aerated medium that plants love. And take into account that when the bottom is planted, most of that misting water will land on the plants below and be used by them, so it won't just all collect at the bottom. I mist once a day, enough to soak my epiphytes, and I have no problems with soggy soil. It also helps if you pick plants that don't need to dry out between waterings. =)

I have seen one person's solution to changing the water in the false bottom. He made an openning in the eggcrate large enough to get at stuff, and just covered it with a piece of slate rock the rest of the time. Looks natural, but provides easy access when you need it. None of his PDFs ever got into the false bottom or anything, either.

And no, PDFs don't really want a paludarium (water bottom, like on the Black Jungle site). They aren't good swimmers, and would probably drown in such deep water, unless you had lots and lots of floating and emergent water plants. Black Jungle is just trying to give you an idea of what you could do, as an example. Most terrariums aren't constructed that way.

I use an automatic misting system that comes on twice a day for one minute with 5 nozzels. This almost equals the evaporation rate in my tank so that I don't have to add water to the tank itself. I have a 5 gallon container unerneath that water is pumped up to top of tank and nozzels. I fill this tank with reverse osmosis wate about once per week. Inside the tank, in the false bottom, I have an internal pump and a drip bar at the top back of the tank (black 3/8" hose) with holes that comes on twice a day to drip water on top and down the cocos panels keeping them moist for the plants growing on them. I also have a tube inserted through the false bottom so I can siphon old/dirty water out. I cover the tube with a black 35mm film cannister to keep the frogs out.

Ok. I usually mist once a day, using a 1 gallon "pump-up" garden mister. Generally what I do is just mist the entire background thouroughly. The only plants in the thing right now are those on the background. Well I had created some planting pots out of the foam towards the bottom of the background too. Damn I think I am just going to have to take some pictures to show you.

Anyway, there is a lot of that creeping fig plant, some ferns, a couple bromeliads. I think part of my problem is that I am trying to get java moss to grow on some pieces of ghostwood that I have sticking out of the foam background. It just dries out too fast.

Oh and the is no "cover" ,per se. on the terrarium. It is a big ass custom made monstosity (about 48" wide 30" high, and 18" deep) and is pretty much sealed except for a small gap at the front, and a computer fan near the top-back to provide air circulation.

Yeah I am going to have to post some pictures.

So after I mist, the excess water drips off the background into the bottom of the tank. It has been set up for 8 days now, and about 3/4" of water has gathered in the bottom. I plan to put in a false bottom, allowing for siphoning, and then put soil on the bottom. But now that you mention it, I guess orchid bark would be a better substrate for the bottom. I wonder how much THAT is going to cost me! I was also thinking I could just put rocks or gravel in the spots where most of the dripping takes place, so the water has a more unobstructed path to the reservoir below.

I will post pistures as soon as I can. Thanks.
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Steve

I am not suggesting this in an official capacity, as I am quite the beginner to darts, however....

If there is ANY gap in your cage/tank, the frogs will find it. I had a tiny little gap in the back of mine from the cord sticking over the back of the tank that I had tried stuffing with foam, and I still had one little guy sitting on top of the hood. Luckily I caught him, and then promptly melted a spot in the hood for the plug to exit to seal that gap.

The other suggestion is to make sure that the fan is totally inaccessible to the frogs.