strange_screams

I took in Three different species of frogs as adoptions, which creates an interesting situation to house them. Because they were free mostly, I'm using 2 twently long turtle tanks stood up on end. It actually worked out considering I wanted to grow orchids in my terrarium which need circulation fans. And the Austrailian White's Tree frog is far to large to house with the other two frogs I have so must be house seperately. My solution is to make two vivariums that look like one!

Here is the plan:
This is not to scale btw,
the middle is the front view and the others are the respective sides


I couldnt find "great stuff" for pond use so I boaght another brand at home depot for a simular purpose. I plan to use the spray foam on the back and a small part of the sides of the terrariums with sphagnum peat moss/ and or eco earth pressed into it.


and here is what iv'e done so far:


i dont have a pump right now but i plan to incorporate some airline tubing into the spray foam for a water fall later.

I have several inches of rockk wall yet to build. I will keep ya'll aprised of my progress and of course I'm welcoming any input or design flaws that you may see.

side note: I'm awware that the water level cant be that high becase of the natural water table, it will be about halfway up. And I'm looking for suggestions for inhabitants of the ponds, they will be almost a gallon in size.

Robert Hudson

I am interested to know more about the "foam planting wall", what it consits of and how it will be used. You can have Manzanita or other wood going up the back as well and attach plants to the wood... namely air plants and mosses. Are you familiar with Tillandsia?

You could use a combination of corkbark and wood on the back. No soil or peat moss would be needed, if fact if you are going to use air plants, peat moss would do more harm than good.

strange_screams

I want to be able to remove any wood in the future so I'm not implanting it in the wall. I want to grow ivy up the wall and plant orchids in the pockets. The foam is black and moldable and carvable, and can be painted with pond safe paint. I got it in the pond section of home depot for about 12 bucks.. My plan was to make it look like a river bed wall or a dirt cliff with some fo the river rocks i used in the dam inplanted in it. I'm using peat moss and eco earth because that is what they use for orchids. Ill put airline tubes in the foam and under the substrate in case I want to install a water fall later.

As of last night I finished the rock wall dam . I need to cut the glass for the fronts and Ill post more pics.

Robert Hudson

Wow! I gotta see this! I hope you will post photos of the wall construction. That will be interesting.

GlitcH

Looks like a great project. I can't wait to see this come together.
For the "dirt cliff" you want to make, you may want to try coating the foam with a thin layer of silicone, then press the dirt or stone into it before it drys. I've seen that done on other setups and it looks great.

FilteredFun

I need to cut the glass for the fronts and Ill post more pics.

How tall will your glass front walls be?

And, how do you then seal them to keep the water from leaking?

Great design!!!

Looking forward to your ongoing progress pictures.

Thanks,
Matt

aka FilteredFun

foofooree

i did something similar to this with a 10 gallon

strange_screams

yes, thats exactly what I had in mind

sorry I havn't updated, the project was abandoned for lack of time, money, and the intestinal fortitude to pull it off, I've begun a couple of smaller projects first that are here

http://strangescreamsarts.blogspot.com/

i've had great success carving the GS, and think it will be very versitile

i hope to come back to the two 20 longs but I think the plans will get tweaked

chris127

this looks like in interesting build. ill be back to see it when its done