Acrylic Vivarium - Moss, Rocks, and Awesome!

[TJ_Burton]

Hey folks!

I am new to the forum as well as vivariums. I am a former reef fanatic who then switched to planted aquariums, and now on to terrestrial planted aquariums (vivariums).

Enclosure:
I purchased a large acrylic enclosure from Ricky's Reptile Enclosures (originally designed and inteded to be a fantastic enclosure for ball pythons) that has very little ventilation and unfortunately sports an extruded acrylic door that is 1/4" thick. Needless to say it has done a little bit of warping on the edges; cast acrylic might have been a better choice. Either way it will still do the job.
The enclosure is 24" x 20" x 18" and gives plenty of room to add depth and dimension to the hardscape. The lack of height is something I actually wanted in the vivarium. In my experience, if the enclosure’s height is greater than its width, you will lose the illusion of depth and dimension in the enclosure. If the enclosure’s depth (front to back) is less than your height, you wall also often lose that illusion of a deep and expansive habitat. In short, Length should be the longest dimension, depth (front to back) should be the second longest, and height should be the shortest. That doesn’t mean I think short enclosures are the most attractive, I love a good 36” tall enclosure! I simply believe following that guide will prevent the dreaded “wall of plants” or “closet vivarium” look.

Lighting:
For now, a simple Marineland Single Bright LED fixture is providing enough light for my mosses and shade plants.

Misting:
I am misting manually with a dollar store bought pressurized plant mister. I bought two – one for my snake rack, and another for the enclosure. I didn’t really need to buy two separate misting bottles, but they are dollar store quality and I wanted a backup in case one broke. Due to the little ventilation the enclosure has, it holds humidity very well. I only mist once a day to maintain 80% humidity or better.

Substrate:
For drainage I am using Eheim Substrat Pro. I had a ton of it lying around and it is porous enough to support beneficial bacteria, and roughly the same size as expanded clay. The main substrate is comprised of a mixture of coconut fiber, Fir peat moss, sand, and Sphagnum moss.

Flora:
I currently have 4 different species of moss in the vivarium. For now there are a few strands of Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia) and a bunch of wild ginger (Asarum canadense). I am going to try and stay away from atypical vivarium plants in this enclosure; I am going for a different look. I will be doing a 2nd enclosure at some point for Mantellas which will certainly have bromeliads etc.

Fauna:
None yet, but the plan is to get a small colony of Phyllobates terribilis.




Any questions or comments are welcome.
I will post more photos as things progress - Photos were taken with iPhone4

[TJ_Burton]

Originally Posted by rickyRRE

Wow, what you have done looks AMAZING! This enclosure wasn't meant to be used in such a high humidity environment though, which is why the door is warping. An idea, depending on how much water has already been absorbed into the door is to take a wet towel and attach it to the front of the door using elastics or string. Then the front of the door will absorb moisture at the same rate as the inside of the door. The door will stop absorbing moisture in a few weeks. I wish you had told me that you were going to use the enclosure for this purpose so we could have used a different material for the door.

Either way, it looks really nice, great job!

Thanks Ricky!
I love the enclosure. There are a few tweeks I may make (adding a couple of holes at the top of the rear panel for a misting system etc.) but all in all I really like the enclosure

I will certainly give the towel trick a shot - if it works that will be awesome! If not I can live with it, it isn't too terrible, just the top corners of the door have bent forward less than half the width of the acrylic.

Had I known we could do something custom about the door I would have called you! I will likely do another enclosure for some mantellas which could use a custom set up! I will get in touch with you as soon as I am ready to pull the trigger.

Thanks again for the kind words and advice!

[Teckdragon]

That looks fantastic!

[Unavailable]

That vivarium is amazing! And I hope you get that colony of Phyllobates because they would love it in there and they would compliment the vivarium very nicely. Cant wait to see how it goes!

[boabab95]

As i said on the ther forum, those plants won't last long, they require dormancy...

[TJ_Burton]

Originally Posted by boabab95

As i said on the ther forum, those plants won't last long, they require dormancy...

As I said on the other forum:

Way ahead of you on that one
Once it flowers I am replacing it with another plant. You'll just have to wait and see what I choose! I used the ginger mostly because it is local and I wanted to use a plant while hard scaping that I wasn't worried about moving around a bunch of times. When I am satisfied with the look, I will purchase the plants I intend to use long term

No need to post your response on both forums
I appreciate your concern and guidance but I check both forums often enough that I am sure I will see your comments on one or the other!

[BigWillieStyles]

wow that looks really good. Some dart frogs would look great in there.

[Pavel]

I don't believe your lighting will suffice for those plants for the long term. Even shade lovers typically need more light than we realize. However, that said, I also freely admit that I am not up on the LED lights and as such don't know how much they may have been improved.

[TJ_Burton]

Originally Posted by Pavel

I don't believe your lighting will suffice for those plants for the long term. Even shade lovers typically need more light than we realize. However, that said, I also freely admit that I am not up on the LED lights and as such don't know how much they may have been improved.

I am a lighting nut and I know the ins and outs of lighting for aquariums better than any other aspect. The light I am using is actually meant for aquatic application - not for sustaining plants, rather illumination for visibility. water "steals" light very quickly the deeper you go - these lights are bright enough for viewing underwater, which gives them more punch than the average "LED" flashlight or rope.

I actually have higher output LEDs I could use, but this light is doing the job well - been in use for more than 3 weeks and I have zero indication that the plants are not satisfied with it. If they do start to show signs, I am going to toss on a brighter fixture. Although, I feel it is pretty easy to overlight mosses.

[OctoberLust]

looks fantastic. im havering a hard time getting that moss carpet effect in my vivs. whats your tricks? and what kind of moss is that? thanks!