Planted Crestie viv build

[dionator]

wow looks amazing your crstie will love that!!
very well done there mate

[Saedcantas]

Originally Posted by Tropic Exotics

nice viv, would be nicer if you had a water fall in the, a little one with a pool at the bottom, and if it was made in an exo terra even better for the end look and maintanance of the viv

So what you're saying is;

"You should have bought an exoterra and made a waterfall"

Good input

[Pendragon]

Originally Posted by chondro13

Looks fantastic cant wait to see the finished viv!

Thanks, will get there soon

Originally Posted by Kerry1968

Well my theory hasn't worked! The moss in the wet end of the tank is still dying! I thought the wood acting like a sponge would give the moss just the right amount of moisture. WRONG!

Welcome to my world of pain and misery

Originally Posted by Morgan Freeman

Fantastic viv, can't beat fully planted.

Moss is quite hard to grow, I've managed to keep my java alive for a few weeks but no signs of growth yet.

Yup, same here, I kept java in another viv for a few weeks, but still no joy.

Originally Posted by Tropic Exotics

nice viv, would be nicer if you had a water fall in the, a little one with a pool at the bottom, and if it was made in an exo terra even better for the end look and maintanance of the viv

Yup, an Exo terra would be the way to go, but I had this one given to me and I thought it would be a good challenge to try and make something with it.

As for the water fall and pool...wait till the next build

How's your build doing, did you find any Broms?

Originally Posted by dionator

wow looks amazing your crstie will love that!!
very well done there mate

Thanks.

I think she likes it, although all she does these days is push at the screen lid to try and get out, so I'm not so sure

Jay

[Pendragon]

Ok,

Heat/lights/ventilation, lets start with the heat. the only source of heat for the viv are four 20watt halogen lights. In the beginning I fitted two of these lights, but the first winter in my flat told me that this wasn't going to be enough, I was going to put heating cable in, but I was told it wouldn't be needed as "room temps" would be fine, however the person giving this advice (my girlfriend, the person helping me with this build) hadn't spent a winter in my flat to see just how cold it gets.

So here it is when it had two lights;



With hindsight I would have fitted the heat cable, as I always say, "It's better to have something and not need it, than to need it and not have it". I fitted heat cable to another viv I built, and the cable on it's own was able to get the temps up into the 80f range with no extra heating, plus as the heat is coming through the wet eco earth, this brings up the humidity nicely .

But as it would have been a major pain to retro fit the heat cable, I put in two extra lights instead. This, along with the exta vivs we now have in the lounge, means that I can get a good 78f in the viv, even in the winter;




Next, lighting, apart from the four halogens, there is a 10% repti sun tube with reflector for uvb. I will be upgrading this soon by fitting a 15" 2% tube in-between the two fans. I'll post pics when it's done.

Now obviously we don't want cresties getting up into the lighting, so I fitted a screen, I used net curtains as this viv was going to house frogs, and the normal netting you can get from the reptile shops lets the small flys you feed frogs with through
And as net curtains only blocks about half the uv, and ALL flies, then this is what we went for.

I glued the netting to a plastic frame I made, and this sits nicely on the glass shelf that runs around the top of the tank. As Clamps (the crestie) likes to sleep at the top of the viv, I tied some fake leaves to the underside of the netting to a, block all uvb, and b, block some of the light;





Although she will mostly sleep in the corner with the leaves, she will also sleep in the opposite corner.

now the ventilation, I fitted two computer fans, one sucks, one blows (fnaah). The vents do a number of jobs, one, they circulate the air, pulling out stale air and replacing it with fresh. Two, they help circulate the heat. Three, they prevent the glass from misting up.



To get the air in and out, I drilled holes in the lid. The fans were then screwed to the underside of the lid.

I'll post up some more resent pics of the plants and floor litter next time.

Jay

[spikemu]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW aint u a clever bunny :P lol

i cant wait till my next build lol :P

its gunna hopefully be for a frilled dragon :P

lol

[Pendragon]

Originally Posted by spikemu

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW aint u a clever bunny :P lol

i cant wait till my next build lol :P

its gunna hopefully be for a frilled dragon :P

lol

I know what you mean, I'm getting my first snake in Oct. So I have to start on that build bloody sharpish...Watch this space.



Jay

[CWD]

Very Nice !

[suey]

Wow, looks really good well done!

[Jo Wand]

This thread is amazing! I'm going to attempt something like this.

[Kerry1968]

Hi, is it essential to have fans for ventilation? I'm going to make a vertical viv out of an old 2 foot tank for my crestie, I'm going to have 1 third of the opening side fitted with mesh for ventilation, would this be OK?