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Serving the Dart Frog Community Since 2004...

Setting up a vivarium from scratch!
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Setting up a vivarium from scratch!
#1
Hello Frog Fans,

it was suggested I raise topic for each of my questions, so here we go:

My name is Marcel Antal, I live in Hungary and I've kept a few animals: birdspiders, scorpions, scolopendra, bearded dragons, corn snakes, milk frogs and some dart frogs once. I want to apologize right at the start, that my English might be somewhat weird, it's not my mother tongue, but I'll do my best.

So I'm thinking about getting some dart frogs again. The first thing I want to do right is of course the vivarium. I've seen some topics where there was a white plastic grid (first time I've seen this) fixed and sticked into the vivarium and all I can think of is it some prebuilt stuff to make a structure for the terrain? What is it called? What happens with the space beneath it? Is it filled out with something, or will the water leak through the terrain? Or how can we avoid that?
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#2
The white plastic grid is a "light diffuser" or commonly called "egg crate". It is found in hardware stores, in the "lighting" section of the store. It is easy to cut with small clippers / pliers and is hollow- allows water to pass through while serving as a base for the terrain / substrate.

The space beneath it is a reservoir where excess water collects. This excess water adds to the overall humidity, or could be drained, depending on the wishes of that particular hobbyist. This is called a "False Bottom".

Water passing through or "leaking" through the terrain and then the False Bottom is good. This keeps the soil / substrate from getting too waterlogged and sopping wet - killing the plants and generally not good for dart frog husbandry.
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#3
Philsuma Wrote:The white plastic grid is a "light diffuser" or commonly called "egg crate". It is found in hardware stores, in the "lighting" section of the store. It is easy to cut with small clippers / pliers and is hollow- allows water to pass through while serving as a base for the terrain / substrate.

The space beneath it is a reservoir where excess water collects. This excess water adds to the overall humidity, or could be drained, depending on the wishes of that particular hobbyist. This is called a "False Bottom".

Water passing through or "leaking" through the terrain and then the False Bottom is good. This keeps the soil / substrate from getting too waterlogged and sopping wet - killing the plants and generally not good for dart frog husbandry.

This helped me a lot, thanks Philip!

This egg crate is fixed with silicone to the vivarium, or is it only cut into shape and size for later removal (if needed)? And I see on some pictures also a net, which has been put on the top of the egg crate for further filtering and letting only the water through, I guess?
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#4
The egg crate is cut to size and can rest on stilts - little legs, or you can even use plastic ties to make a "box" out of it. There is no wrong way to do it.

There is no need to silicone or make it permanent though....it can just sit on it's legs / frame.

It should be covered with fine screen - yes. The screen on top of the egg crate will prevent small particles of the substrate from falling thru the egg crate and landing in the reservoir.
https://www.facebook.com/dartden/

https://twitter.com/DartDen


"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana".
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#5
Right... of course now I found a useful guide... here is a link to it, maybe this will help other beginners as well:

http://www.amphibiancare.com/frogs/arti ... ottom.html

The site overall seems to be superb! Smile
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#6
And finally I found this thread which might be very useful as addition to the above link:

enclosures-setup-and-construction-f23/vivarium-photo-journal-t2852.html
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