Starting fresh

[billyburden]

Hi all,
i have a 60-gallon aquarium that is just doing nothing in my basement, and i was wondering if i can use it as a vivarium?

What me and my girlfriend would like to do is put those colorfull frogs in there, and maybe have a little area for turtles also...

Would this be at all possible?

[Green Ghost]

Well, the quick answer is both frogs and turtles are carnivores but the turtles have sharper teeth.

I wouldn't do it. Even baby Red Ear turtles (most common in petshops) hunt and eat fish. They litterally tear the fish apart to eat it. I imagine by colorful frogs you mean Poison Dart Frogs? They're quite small in size and your turtles will quickly outgrow them. They'll either catch and eat the frogs or there'll be near misses and your frogs will be missing limbs.

PDF's can't hurt turtles and will probably be stressed by them. The frogs will always stay away and hide.

Even if the above was the only reason it might still be possible to do frogs & turtles for someone who already had a lot of experience with both speciies. What makes it impossible is that thier habitat's are completely different. Turtles need a large aquatic area and need a basking light. Turtles are aquatic and need to swallow thier food under water. Because they spend a lot of time underwater they tend to get a kind of translucent white fungus on thier skin. To remedy this they bask in the heat and light from the lightsource in thier enclosure. So they need that light to be healthy.

The problem is the light dries the air in the enclosure (in your case aquarium) and reduces the humidity level. Frogs breath through thier skin so they need a lot of humidity. PDF's need lots of plants to hide and climb on and those plants need lots of humidity also. One last thing, PDF's are not aquatic they're terrestrial and can drown in water that would be needed to accomodate a turtle.

These types of species don't match at all.

[billyburden]

Thanks for the reply!

That's pretty much the answer we thought we'd get, but it doesn't hurt to ask hehe!

We really like the PDFs though. Do you think an aquarium would be okay, or do they need a more ventilated cage, like the ones with one side made of grills instead of glass?

And i assume i am going to need another type of lighting, cover, humidifier, all that jazz!

How much frogs would fit comfortably in a 60-gallon?
It's not really deep, but rather long and tall.

And can you put different types of PDFs together?

[Green Ghost]

I keep frogs and treefrogs. I don't have an PDF's, so maybe someone that has a lot of experience with those can chime in here....

As far as enclosure is concerned anything would be fine as long as it doesn't leak. The trend seems to be a vivarium which is a terrarium with inhabitants.
If this is the what you want then I guess you could do it with an aquarium turned up on one end. The reason why it's done like that is to maximize useful space. PDF's don't need a large water area so most people find it useful to use the sides and bottom vertially as planting areas. The only problem I see with this is that you may want to put a misting system in. With an aquarium on it's side the "top" would be in glass (and therefore be sealed). The workaround for that is constructing a cover for your tank that becomes the front door / doors to the vivarium. The lower portion of the door is sealed to create a waterproof area to hold the substrate and water area (Some also create a port for drainage conduit). The top portion of the door would be either vented or have access ports for misting conduits or both depending on what you preferred.

60 gallons - that's something like 48" x 20" x 16" (L x W x H) - correct? The other thing with that is the tank is long and narrow so maybe the plants on the bottom will have some trouble with getting enough light if you have plantable areas on the 3 sides. The end surface of the aquarium (Now the top of your tank) tends to be a small surface area compared to the volume of the tank.

Personally I'm not a fan of turning an aquarium on it's side. I'd much rather make a custom shaped tank out of acrylic sheets. I've drilled glass, but it's much easier and quicker to drill holes in acrylic.

[billyburden]

Thanks for another useful reply.
I don't really want to put it on the side or modify it because it's quite an old tank. It used to belong to the mom of a friend of my mother.
If i leave it on it's normal side, i think it would be hard to reach the bottom for cleaning and such, but other than that, wouldn't it be fine?
Do i really need the open side or is that just for handling purposes?

I was also thinking of lizards. My roomate has a bearded dragon and they seem to be good for beginners.

Thing is my girlfriend would like something that she can handle a lot, so turtles come to mind!

Lots of questions still. I think i should go and talk to someone at a pet store.

[Green Ghost]

Oh I see.... My bad.

You said: "How much frogs would fit comfortably in a 60-gallon?
It's not really deep, but rather long and tall." and I thought you meant you intended to turn it on end, silly me.

It's not an enormous tank but yes it should be fine if set up in it's intended position.

You don't seem to be set on one type of animal yet, so yeah you need to decide for yourself. Don't choose frogs if you want to handle your pet. Frogs breathe and drink through thier skin and even residual hand cream / perfume would be deadly to most frogs. Even the natural oils on our skin harm them.

When you decide what herp is best for you then you'd build the habitat in the there specifically for that animal. I'd suggest building the habitat first and then brining the animal home and not the other way round.

Post build pics!