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Articles: Terrarium Setup No.3
Below is a step by step guide to how I set up a small terrarium to house Phantasmal Poison-arrow Frogs (Epipedobates tricolor) for a display at the I.H.S. West Midlands Breeders Meeting 2006. Hopefully it will give you some ideas on how to setup a terrarium of your own. If you would like us to quote you for a setup please send us an e-mail at sales@pollywog.co.uk
Starting off with a 12x12x18" Pollywog Glass Terrarium. The first step was to glue in a coco panel background using aquarium silicon to hold it in place. While the tank was lay on it's back I took the opportunity to add some Bracket Fungi to give an extra dimension to the tank, the top 3 are Stone Mushrooms, the lower 3 Sponge Mushrooms, these Mushrooms provide the inhabitants with extra climbing, perching, basking and calling sites adding valuable extra space to a small terrarium that often goes unused. The Mushrooms are attached to the coco panel background using Aquarium Silicon. The terrarium will now be left for 24hours to allow the silicon time to cure before carrying on with the next step.
After giving the silicon 24hours to set the drainage layer of Hydroleca is added along with the first plant. You may notice that the plant has been left in it's pot, normally when constructing a terrarium we would plant direct into the substrate but this is only a temporary construction for display so we are leaving the plant in it's pot this time.
The membrane is then put down on top of the Hydroleca to stop the substrate from washing down into the drainage layer.
The substrate mixture of Coco Humus, Sphagnum Moss & Bark Chips is added on top of the membrane and plated with some Pothos cuttings.
The carpet moss layer is then added, as with the other terrarium build articles I have chosen to use moss for the terrarium as it's more aesthetically pleasing and will stop the frogs getting covered in bits of substrate
Next a couple of Sapucaja Shell's are added to the foreground of the terrarium which will act as small water dishes, note that they are positioned in a trio much like the Sponge & Stone Mushrooms, when decorating a terrarium it normally looks more natural when items are placed in groups of odd numbers
To give a little more interest I've also added some 'Pear Nuts' as an accent, you may have seen these before in the photographs of my leucomelas terrarium, they are quite interesting as they open and close with the humidity.
Finally the misting nozzle is fitted, this time I've fitted one of my Twin Nozzles, a terrarium this size would only need a single nozzle but I wanted to show off the Twin Nozzle Assembly, they are ideal for tanks that would normally need 2 nozzles as you get the 2 nozzles which can each be pointed independently in any position you like but only require the one 16mm hole drilled in the glass.
This photo shows the fittings of the Misting Nozzle. Those of you that have systems from other manufacturers will notice that the bulkhead fitting on our systems is relatively large compared to others. This is because we find that the added height of our bulkheads allow them to be mounted through a wider range of materials so where as other systems can only be mounted through 4mm or 6mm glass ours can be mounted through the melamine board of a wooden vivarium. Also these bulkheads allow the nozzle to sit higher up inside the terrarium so are actually less intrusive than the bulkheads used by other manufacturers as you can see from the previous photo of the nozzle itself.
And that's it for now, I've decided not to go over the top with planting this time as hopefully the frogs will be easier for people to spot in the terrarium.
