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Dart Den

Serving the Dart Frog Community Since 2004...

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Auratus Viv
#1
Any feedback on the newly (almost) finished Auratus viv would be much appreciated. It needs to grow in more, and I'm going to get some broms and a Dischidias or two to cover the back wall.

[Image: normal_PDRM0010.JPG]

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[Image: normal_PDRM0012.JPG]

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#2
It looks good. Background will definitely benefit from some plants when you get them. Have you considered planting some creeping fig in back to grow up the wall as well? I'm courious about your water feature there, will you please post some details on it.
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#3
Matt,
the water feature is made from great stuff, with glack GE II silicone and coco fiber pressed onto it. I basically put a 2" pipe upright and ran 1/2" I.D. clear tubing from the powerhead (below the false bottom) to it. I carved the great stuff so it would form somewhat of a basin/indentation to guide the water down to the pond. I have a piece of pvc piping which I cut in half to form a half circle to allow the water to drain back into the main part under the false bottom. I covered this first with screen, then aquarium gravel to prevent escapees/trapping.

When I first built it, I had the tubing come all the way up the pvc and come out where i wanted the water to flow from. This, however, resulted in water spraying across the tank; guess the pressure was too great. Subsequently, I cut back the tubing so it only came up around half the height of the pvc. I cut out an opening for the water to flow from, and sealed the inside around the tubing with great stuff and silicone. Basically I made a pool inside the pvc piping. Turned it on, and sure enough, it would fill the pool inside the pvc and overflow.

Seems to work pretty well so far.
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#4
So the structure around the waterfall would have to be torn down in order to get to the pump, or is it easily removable? I'm just now building my waterfall, and kinda want to know if people generally make their pump accessable or not.
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#5
I saw your posts on dendroboard and so far things are looking really good in your viv. What i would do, which hopefully you haven't gotten too far to change, would be to put the pump somewhere other than right under whatever waterfall structure you're going to have. If it's off to a side and you use flexible tubing to route the water, you should be able to make an access panel for the area with the pump. Since you won't really ever have to service the tubing, but rather only the pump, this would seem to be the best option. I, however, didn't do it this way, and just hope that my sealing off the water area well enough will keep the substrate out from blocking the pump. I think I should be alright, but we'll see. First tank will be a trial and error.
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