DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
I thought I would share a conversion of my reef tank into a dart frog vivarium here on R2R just to see what others think. It occurred to me after reading about a lot of reefers on a dart frog forum that perhaps I was not alone in my interest in dart frogs and their habitats coming from a marine aquarium background. The parallels between the two are remarkable and I know many people out there have both aquariums as well as amphibian enclosures. What follows is my build thread of my 130g dart frog vivarium.
First a little background on how this project came to be:
I have had reef tanks for quite a few years to include a 90g, 135g, 300g, and finally a 130g. When it became necessary for us to move a while back, I tok down the reef tank and packed up the stuff in boxes. Once we got to our new place, which we are renting, I quickly realized that we did not have sufficient space for me to set up the tank, along with the associated support equipment. My tanks have always been as automated as possible due to my frequent work travel and I simply could not do what I wanted to with the space available.
Once I came to grips with that, I decided to turn the tank into a vivarium and keep dart frogs in it. I have started the process of laying out the environment and I am looking forward to sharing it with you.
Here is the tank that I am using prior to it getting wet as my reef:
I have this stand that it will live on:
This frame sits in front to make it look pretty:
Given that this tank was built as a reef tank, it was built with a 24" external overflow that is centered on the back of the tank. I decided that I would utilize this overflow in a kind of backwards fashion. Water will be pumped up from the bottom of the tank into the overflow and will flow through the overflow teeth back into the tank. I mounted a piece of cork bark to the backwall where the overflow is at. Throughout this build I decided that I would not do any damage to the tank itself, just in case I feel the need to turn it back into a reef tank.
I did not want the waterfall to be the entire 24" width, so I screened off all but about 6" of it with needlepoint screen and ultimately it will be foamed over and disguised.
I added some more bark, branches, etc. to the back in preparation for the Great Stuff foam treatment.
The hoses are to facilitate drainage and water level via an Avast Marine level sensor. Traditionally, vivariums would have a bottom layer of hydroballs or some other substrate to allow water drainage from the soil. For this set up I raised egg crate up 2" and will have water in that layer to facilitate the water feature in the vivarium. A waterfall and stream effect is what I am after.
Let me know what you think and chime in if you collect dart frogs alongside your reef tanks.
First a little background on how this project came to be:
I have had reef tanks for quite a few years to include a 90g, 135g, 300g, and finally a 130g. When it became necessary for us to move a while back, I tok down the reef tank and packed up the stuff in boxes. Once we got to our new place, which we are renting, I quickly realized that we did not have sufficient space for me to set up the tank, along with the associated support equipment. My tanks have always been as automated as possible due to my frequent work travel and I simply could not do what I wanted to with the space available.
Once I came to grips with that, I decided to turn the tank into a vivarium and keep dart frogs in it. I have started the process of laying out the environment and I am looking forward to sharing it with you.
Here is the tank that I am using prior to it getting wet as my reef:
I have this stand that it will live on:
This frame sits in front to make it look pretty:
Given that this tank was built as a reef tank, it was built with a 24" external overflow that is centered on the back of the tank. I decided that I would utilize this overflow in a kind of backwards fashion. Water will be pumped up from the bottom of the tank into the overflow and will flow through the overflow teeth back into the tank. I mounted a piece of cork bark to the backwall where the overflow is at. Throughout this build I decided that I would not do any damage to the tank itself, just in case I feel the need to turn it back into a reef tank.
I did not want the waterfall to be the entire 24" width, so I screened off all but about 6" of it with needlepoint screen and ultimately it will be foamed over and disguised.
I added some more bark, branches, etc. to the back in preparation for the Great Stuff foam treatment.
The hoses are to facilitate drainage and water level via an Avast Marine level sensor. Traditionally, vivariums would have a bottom layer of hydroballs or some other substrate to allow water drainage from the soil. For this set up I raised egg crate up 2" and will have water in that layer to facilitate the water feature in the vivarium. A waterfall and stream effect is what I am after.
Let me know what you think and chime in if you collect dart frogs alongside your reef tanks.
