River Tank Rebirth!! photo journal

willow

how cool is that :)
my sister has those she says they chirp.

beetlebz

ive only heard them chirp (the males only do it) once, and they were.... well.... doing it lol i think, or some type of mating thing. They dont make a whole lot of noise, and they are just delightful :D

beetlebz

after a MINOR setback... well.... change.... im back up and running. I made one major change, I added 25 more pounds of gravel to get 99.9% of the substrate out of the water rather than it being saturated. This way the semi-aquatic plant I put in there always has tons of water. The eco earth substrate does a great job of pulling up the water and staying moist, and with the redesign its easier to keep it from getting TOO moist.

I forgot to unplug the heater during the swap over, and my shiney happy visitherm aquarium heater blew up. and I mean blew up. SO im leaving them without a heater, but they are doing just fine at about 70 degrees F. I also added a tetra whisper 10 internal aquarium filter to keep the scruffy stuff from accumulating TOO bad in the water, the downside is the shallow water keeps the flow rate way down. couple that with the chunkies that plug it up from the eco earth and im cleaning the filter every night. A piece of screen buried in the gravel under the eco earth might be the ticket.

I bought 2 10 watt florescent bulbs to replace the incandescent ones in the hood, which makes everything look LOTS better, and as I said before I added a semi-aquatic terrarium plant. Oh, and when I bought that stuff I bought myself another firebelly :) now spartan gets along JUST WONDERFUL with sarge, gladiator, and dash.

future improvements include plastic shelves on the back wall for them to climb on, lathered in silicone and covered in sand for a natural look and grip. I might do a whole textured back for the tank! I might also eventually upgrade to an external canister filter to help control the chunkies.

feeding 12 small crickets every other day and the toads are just booming :D

pictures will come later tonight!

willow

sounds great bbz,can't wait for the pics,
so make sure of plenty :)

beetlebz

all my full tank shots came out like CRAP lol so im waiting to grab moms camera when I can.

but heres 2, to hold you over :D

lunchmeat

Great to see this back. Whats going on with it now??

beetlebz

well, to be honest I lost my camera at a fire scene :( soo until I buy a new digital camera pics are out for a little while. BUT.. so far im up to 4 happy firebellies in my 20 long tank, and while they took a while to warm up to me they are awesome.. and each different and personable.

HOPEFULLY Ill get some more pics of it soon enough, ive not added much but I did rescape the gravel again, and added a reptile heater to the water, and a tetra in-tank filter. the filter doesnt move much water because the water level just barely covers the intake, but it adds motion to the water and keeps some of the gunk out. they are doing awesome on about 12 crickets every other day

willow

hay bbz,glad to hear all is well. )