How do I make a waterfall? How does the pool work

[sigonzal]

Hi everyone,

I am new and love frogs...I even have a tree frog tattooed on my leg.
Well I've been hinting and think I may be getting a dart for christmas and am trying to figure out how to begin setting up a home for one. This way even if i don't get it i'll have an excuse to buy one since the home is all set up. I have read almost every post on this website! and feel pretty confident, my question is about the waterfall and pool thing.

How do you create a waterfall? From the construction journals I see tubes and openings but I am not sure how you get teh water from under the false bottom into the waterfall, how it is filtered etc... Do you use the exoterra waterfalls?

Also I can't seem to figure out how the pool at the bottom works...does the area under the false bottom where the water collects somehow connect to the pool area so that the whole thing gets cycled and filtered to the waterfall? Do you block off the drainage area form the pool where the frogs would go? How is it all filtered? and how deep should it be, can they drown. :?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help you seem to be a really nice, excited bunch of frog lovers.

[Travisf50]

Many posts have been written on false bottoms and waterfall setups. I would refer to them first. The way mine is setup is I have a pump in the back right corner cornered off with vertical pieces of eggcrate. Then I siliconed screen to both sides of the eggcrate to prevent large debris from getting into the pump. I placed another small piece of eggcrate; cut to match, and set it on top of the the two vertical pieces creating a box where two sides are glass and two sides are eggcrate. Next I siliconed another screen to the top piece. I had to make sure to cut out enough space in my top piece to allow my cord to fit. I held it in plce with zaptiehs.
Before applying my Great Stuff, I cut out a piece of card stock the sam size as my "box lid" and glued wax paper to it. This will prevent the great stuff from sticking to the top of the "box lid". When the Great stuff was dry , I was able to slide the piece of card board out so that now I can slide my actual "box lid" out in case i need to replace or repair the pump. I then ran a hose from my pump accross the back of my viv then used great stuff to create my background, thus hiding the tube. To disguise my powercord i covered it in silicone then pressed coco fiber onto it. That turned out really well and am actually quite proud of that idea. It looks like a vine. I ran my hose through a piece of driftwood and had it empty into a pool. The pools edge is a piece of driftwood that had a vertical slope to it. I then siliconed rocks around the edges of the driftwood. Natural since there are no straight lines in nature, there were still gaps. That lets the water still circulate throught to my pump. I am not running a filtered pump for the simple fact that I would have to replace it and don't feel like digging up my substrate to replace it.
Another way is to use an external cannister filter, but as I am a full time college student (year and a half left, thank God) It's too rich for my blood. Yes frogs can drown.