What I have learned so far.....

[janelc]

What I Have Learned So Far….

Backgrounds
-are usually made of a combination of egg crate (actually fluorescent diffuser light panels), Great Stuff foam, silicone, and either coco fiber or moss or both.
-they can be attached to either the glass wall of the tank or to the egg crate
-can be sculpted any way you want
-can be planted with plants in small pots


Foam
-is called "Great Stuff" foam here in the U.S. (red can)
-is an expanding foam designed to insulate pipes, cracks, etc…
-is completely inert when cured
-can be carved with a simple serrated knife
-can be covered with grout or thin-set concrete (caution: needs to soak in vinegar for weeks to get pH just right)

Silicone
-preferred brand is "GE"
-debate still wages over I vs. II
-my observations after having used both:
Silicone I is much more odoriferous and takes longer to cure, generally has a thicker consistency, no "Bio Shield" to prevent mold

Silicone II does not seem to have the powerful odor that I has, takes less time to cure, has a somewhat thinner consistency, has "Bio Shield" to prevent mold (this is apparently a no-no is aquariums), is just as sticky and messy as Silicone 1 !!!!

Planting
-the debate still wages whether to plant directly into substrate or leave in pots
-Waterkeeper has an excellent suggestion of enclosing the root ball in a mesh bag to keep the plant from growing too big (actually, Waterkeeper has A LOT of excellent suggestions-check out his blog!!!)
-many people also put plants on the background using small pots

Substrate
-dependent upon animal
-for good drainage should be layered as such (bottom to top order):
LECA or gravel
some sort of screening
sphagnum moss
coco fiber
potting soil (many different types-preferred is organic without any "sludge" components or chemical additives, no perlite or vermiculite)
-LECA stands for Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregate (?) these really cool clay balls that are heavily used in hydroponics, makes vivarium weigh less than with traditional gravel

Posting
-one should really read the entire post before responding
-one should carefully word postings-it is extremely difficult to get nuances from words alone (that is why "smilies" are so great!)
-this is a great forum with tons and tons of knowledge
-people here are really great about sharing that knowledge
-it takes 30 posts to graduate from a junior member to a member

Acronyms
-GTF=green tree frog
-RETF=red eye tree frog
-PDF=poison dart frog
-CWD=Chinese water dragon
-AWD=Australian water dragon (?)
-gs=Great Stuff foam
-FBT=fire-bellied toad

Miscellany
-do a lot of research before buying your animal (it appears as thought a lot of people have had bad experiences with pet store employees)
-Waterkeeper has a really great blog and has been keeping us in suspense far too long
-beefcakemighty has a cool set up and even cooler tattoos
-tagobar has the coolest gecko set up ever-but his website is in Russian
-froggsong is a great source of readily available information
-alex1976 makes great rocks out of foam and his wife sells very interesting “tupperware”

Can you all tell I’m a teacher!!!! (There will be a quiz on this later….)

Please add or fill in what I have missed please!!!

[alex1976]

Don't forget FB (false bottom) acronym.

[froggsong]

I'm a great source of "readily available information"? I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not! LOL Not all of the info I find and provide is all THAT readily available (at least not without ALOT of searching!)!

Thanks though

[froggsong]

Originally Posted by alex1976

Don't forget FB (false bottom) acronym.

and BG (or bg) for background (or am I the only one that does that?).

[Josephsmama]

Thank you very much for that thorough outline. Maybe it's just the way my mind works, but that's what I need to understand how something works...steps.
I still am confused about one area. How do you incorporate a water feature in the vivarium? I am attemping my first vivarium and I've decided to divide the aquarium with a plexiglass wall, only half way up the height of the aquarium. I am going to seal it well with silicone so that it is waterproof, but I am going to run a tube over to the other terraium side and have it run down a stream bed I'm going to make that won't leak into the substrate. It'll fall back into the water side where I'll also have a small filter to keep the water clean.
I'm not sure if that's the way it's done, but like I said, it's my first. Each time I'm sure I will improve. But, if anyone has better ideas, please tell me. I've looked at a lot of the web blogs, but I still am confused on how the water part works. Sometimes the pics are hard to make out and they are usually not captioned (at least not in much detail).
Thanks!

[janelc]

Meghan-you are always the one willing to help out the new person when they post a question. You are single-handedly the one person most likely to answer a post quickly and thoroughly. That takes dedication and generosity. That is why I put the smilie with the king's crown on it (should have been a queen's crown!) because you take your valuable time and effort to help out other people. Thank you.

Josephsmama-I know what you mean abou the water feature. I don't have one so I didn't know any info to put down. Maybe one of the more senior members could write a water feature tutorial? I would like to read it because I have a 60 gallon long I am going to work on next (okay, okay so I'm obsessed!) I don't even know half the names of things to look for....

[froggsong]

Ok, lol... I took that a totally different way! It's hard for me to accept compliments. Thank you so much! (I thought you meant that I was a great source of info you could easily find yourself... ) I'm left handed, my brain works backwards, heh.

As for the water feature, maybe we should start a thread where everyone could put the step by steps that they used for their water feature. I know the generalities of it, but the only "water feature" I am currently using is a Whisper 10i, lol... it may make a water fall and sound great, but it doesn't look pretty!

[Athen]

hey yall for the water feature there are several ways you can do it the way you mentioned would be the easiest method but would be more for aesthetics than functionality. another way is to do it like i have mine which is almost as easy but has more functionality to it how i did mine is i divided my tank in half with a piece of drift wood placed width ways across my tank then filled large gaps and holes between the log and the tank with poly foam ( i just cut up one of the premade foam backgrounds you can buy at a pet store) i then layered the bottom of the tank with gravel about an inch thick on the water side and about 2 inches thick on the dryside and i placed a filter/pump in the gravel on the dry side and on top of my gravel layer i put a poly fabric layer over the gravel on the dry side they also sell a screen you can use for this too so that the water can flow up but the substrate cannot go down then above the poly layer i used newzealand sphagnum moss then a layer of cocoa fiber what that allows is an even water table across your tank so that you can hide your pump and stuff and the gravel and moss also helps filter the water. with this you also get a natural evaporation effect through the land which will water your plant for you. then the third method is to use egg crate which is a bit more sophisticated but allows for more freedom in your designs as well as more access to your pumps and stuff and this is done by cutting the eggcrate to what ever design you want your floor plan and use some short lengths of PVC pipe to elevate your false bottom then along the vertical bottom you will use more eggcrate to create a wall to cover up all the exposed open spaces in your floor plan wrap all the eggcrate in screen so that what ever you have in your tank cannot get through the holes in the egg crate then from there it is basically up to your imagination i hope this helped if there is any more info you would like address it directly and ill do my best to answer the question i was trying to keep this as informative yet brief as possible =)

[janelc]

Athen-is there a specific pump/filter that you use? I have seen Tetra whispers and Hagen fluval plus kinds. What did you use? Do you use a filter for both water filtration and making a water feature?

[Athen]

ya i posted the pump/filter in your other post =)