Dart Den

Hello, everyone. I'm new to this hobby and would like some advice before starting to build a new vivarium.

I just purchased a used, large corner fish tank (I believe it's about 30 or 35 gallons) that I would like to set up for my frogs. It's 26" high and the two sides are 20" long with the front three panels measuring nearly 13" each. So, it looks like half of a hexagon. Currently, I have 2 varaderos in a ten gallon vertical tank , 2 tiny varaderos that I just got at the Hamburg show in a quarantine tank, three azureus in two separate 10 gallon tanks and a leuc in another 10 gallon tank.

My first question is whether or not I should use the foam background. I bought some pond foam, (which works just like the Great Stuff, I guess) but I saw a few comments on the forum that the foam backgrounds are not recommended. Why is that?

Secondly, I purchased a pump to install a water feature, but I also read that they can create more trouble than they're worth and are really not necessary.

Finally, I was wondering if it would be safe to put the imitators and the azureus in the tank together, since the tincs would be mainly on the ground and the imitators would likely stay up high. Would this tank be large enough to accomodate those two species? I'm not planning to breed or sell any frogs.

I'm not in any hurry to build the tank, and I want to make sure that it's done right, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Sherri

Not nearly large enough enclosure.

That particular species selection has been done a few times by advanced hobbyists and the enclosure sizes I think they were , were at least '100 gallon' size.

I would not recommend attempting a mixed species enclosure to anyone without 2 years of previous dart frog experience and also experience with 2-3 different species.

sorry....forgot your other 2 questions.

The Water Feature ? I think from the tone of your question that you read the water feature sticky here ? Yes ?

Great stuff is useful and still used by many. It's so inorganic and can degrade over time, that I personally don't like /use it.

Thanks for the response, Phil. I don't really like the idea of the foam background either. I prefer to keep things as natural as possible. What are your thoughts about a clay background?

Clay is very new and somewhat 'advanced' in composition and application. I would try to get with someone that has done one already and try to call them / talk to them about it all. Seeing a viv in person helps too. If Scott M ever has another meeting in Fredrick MD, be sure to attend. You'll see 80 plus vivs and just how they are constructed. Scott used to have 1-2 meets a year but they have stopped recently due to an 'incident'.

There may be 2-3 good threads here on Clay backgrounds....I'll try to bump one or two up for ya.