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Thread: First time vivarium

  1. #1
    Join Date
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    First time vivarium

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    Hi all, just sharing some pics of my very first vivarium. After doing a lot of research and reading up on this forum, I decided to go simple and just got a small 30 x20 and just dived in, expecting to make a lot of mistakes. Here is the result. Due to the bad reflection, i decided to take only the side and top view of it


    DSC_1104_zpsd208f89c.jpgDSC_1102_zps88048094.jpgDSC_1098_zps8d2760ca.jpg
    It's really basic, I got some cork bark and self expanding foam (some weird brand called Eurofoam) and just pasted it all onto the side and back of the tank. I then took coconut fiber and covered the foam with it. As you can see, the white foam still shows up under the coconut fiber, which I didn't expect. I always thought the foam could easily stick onto anything. To make up for that, I covered it all with java moss and hopefully hide the white patches


    The substrate bottom is one layer of lava rock for drainage, covered with some netting and then just covered with normal potting soil. There is a small water area at the corner lined with rocks. I cover 90% the whole thing to keep it highly humid, seems to be working well with the moss, still soaking wet when i get home from work.


    Finally, the inhabitants... 1 male and 1 female Geosesarma. I have no idea what variant it is but i got them from C328. Sadly they are camera shy and always hide in the hole they dug int the soil. If you check out the corner, you'll see the male's 2 yellow eyes peeking out
    DSC_1095_zps3c82df6a.jpgDSC_1093_zpse664fc73.jpg
    That's all I have. Am already thinking of what else I can do to improve/make a new viv or paludarium. Thanks all for the valuable info

  2. #2
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    Re: First time vivarium

    Camping here


    Check out my Blog on planted tank, good for newbies ( i am lazy to retype all the info i know, so please click and read below link... i hope you don't fall asleep while reading)
    Link to my Blog

    I am not PERFECT but I am LIMITED EDITION !!! BIG Tank comes with BIG Responsibility...as they makan a lot of $$....lol

  3. #3
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    Re: First time vivarium

    Nice. Would be interested in your progress.

  4. #4
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    Re: First time vivarium

    Looks good! The Styrofoam is pretty well covered, cant see it. can we get some frontal shots?
    I would be worried about them pushing up a corner to escape, remember to weigh down your lid!

  5. #5
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    Re: First time vivarium

    Yes thanks for the advice I weighed it down with some wood. But more and more moss and coco fiber have been falling off. Maybe I'll have to tear down and redo after all. I'll have a spare 2 ft lying around...

  6. #6
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    Re: First time vivarium

    Hi tuajia

    It's looking good!
    Mind asks you is this or paludarium. I can't figure is out. What I see there is moss been placed at background and the floor base.
    cheers
    eddy planer

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  7. #7
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    Re: First time vivarium

    Hi all, sorry for the lack of updates, I got really busy at work and didn't get to improve my setup.

    @Eddy sorry to reply so late, but yes, i put java moss all over the background as well as on the wet soil floor

    In the end, a bad combination of lack of sunlight and moisture dried up the java moss clinging to the cork bark/coco walls. On the other hand, the java moss on the wet soil did very well and is now almost a carpet. Another issue is that my environment was very condusive for the crabs to dig a lot of burrows. Half the time i never see more than 1 walking around, and even if i spot it, it would run away and hide

    As a result i decided to work on a new tank and did it very quick and cheap. I piled my old substrate from a planted tank so that a land portion was formed, then jammed a huge piece driftwood in the middle, filled it with tank water and thre in some anubias. Learning from the last tank, i scattered java moss only on the floor, as well as sphagnum to trap moisture. I even heard that dried sphagnum can be revived if conditions are good, so lets see if that works! For some reason, my crabs are no longer shy, they seem to like the soggy sphagnum very much. Here's some pics, sorry i'm quite bad with photography, don't know how to avoid reflection

    Attachment 45916DSC_1322_zps7eb617ff.jpgDSC_1319_zpsed314dc5.jpgDSC_1318_zps4945352e.jpgDSC_1315_zps9fab1b36.jpg

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