A Journey for a crabby vivarium!

[Jovel]

Been thinking about setting up a vivarium for those cute little geosesarma sp. aka vampire crabs for ages. Brought a 1ft cube exo-terra off a friendly bro early this yr and been holding on to it till now just didnt have the time to plan and execute it.

Finally since I added a little Red devil in my wabi kusa, that sudden surge just fueled me to start. No much of setting up now, just doing the planning stages and i hope the gurus here can help me a little.

For those interested, My wabi kusa tank.
http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum...312#post704312

Some draft sketches on my Note:
design 1

design 2


some filtration idea, thinking on how underground water is naturally filtrated, pumping up into the waterfall. Since I will be using an internal pump.


Baby Steps:





thats all i did in 3 hrs I'll try to post when I get more updates!

[eddy planer]

Hi Jovel,

Looking very good! Is this your 1st vivarium set up?

If you have any problem with your setting up, just let me and the rest of the gurus here know. We are all ready to help you to ensure your set up successfully.

Then I better start camping here!

[AhVy]

Camping too! Any vivarium will rouse my attention. Hehe



Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2

[Jovel]

Awesome! Yes its my first vivarium, and i need as much advice as i can get! Thanks in advance to the gurus first
It surely isnt as easy as it seems.

Anyway, anyone got good diy sculpting tools to recommend? Shaping up these styrofoam with a penknife feels kinda weird.
Any techniques to create a naturally rocky shape?

[Zenith82]

Wow! DIY scape background!~ I think Eddy will be able to give you lots of pointers.
The sculpting tool you can try using those fillet knife or metal bristle brush to shape and create texture.
But best is buy Styrofoam wire cutter.
Think you can get at shops selling art materials at Bras Basah or Spotlight.

[eddy planer]

Hi Jovel,

Here the attach of how to curve the Styrofoam to realistic background.
Hope this will help you.

[David Moses Heng]

Hi

From my experience building paludariums/vivariums, it is vital that you create clean water source for the water fall portion. On the greatest night mare is to constantly clean the filter of chokes. False bottoms, from my experience does not do the job well.

What is effective, in my opinion is to DIY an overflow at the corner where you want to put the pump.

To conceal the pump, you can use real rocks by stacking them around the overflow.

By using this, the headache of having constant water flow has been eliminated at almost 90%.

If you need my help, I am more then willing to drop by and show you how to do it.

I have build close to 10 paludariums in the last 18 months with sizes ranging from 2 feet cube to 433.

I have also tried egg crate method, soil filtration, sump filtration without overflow and sump with overflow.

As of now, I am in the process of overhaul all those units that I build without the overflow system.

Also, do not use leca or hydroton as shared by other sites as i find that they tends to choke up the system.

Meanwhile, I see if I can arrange a demo session over at RP library.

Hope this helps

[Shaihulud]

Agree with the site of the water pump, nightmare to retrieve and clean! make sure that it is somewhere accessible!