Dripping Jungle Paludarium for Community of Tiny Frogs (African Dwarf Frog Setup)

many of you have requested that I work with the African dwarf frog for quite a while now I kept them well over 20 years ago at this point but the time has come to do it again I have a few of them here that are ready to go but we should probably take a step back and go over their enclosure as many other builds it all begins with the enclosure in this case a beautiful Sr aquaristic rimless aquarium it's constructed from low iron eight millimeter glass held together with black silicone and holds roughly 25 gallons or 96 liters I've had it for years now and I think it will serve as the perfect vessel for this project a build is only as good as its scape and that's especially important when making a paludarium I have a great selection of dragon Stone which is in an art clay-based rock they're ideal for making mountains and other features that jet out of the water and paludarium style setups generally they'll arrive covered in clay dust so I recommend washing them off before use I also suggest keeping any of the Dust leftovers from this process it will come in handy later spiderwood will serve as a great accent to the stones they're chaotic and gnarly appearance generally make for an interesting design additionally also small twigs and fine textures improve the sense of scale alongside other elements I dropped a piece of neoprene into the tank so I could experiment without cracking the glass I began with the largest stone which will allow me to get a sense of how the pieces should fit together in other words it will serve as the key element it will dictate where I place the other items like this driftwood however as I was doing this all it was difficult within the tank so I pulled out the scape dojo this more or less is just a wooden box full of sand that will allow me to work outside of the tank you'll see that I also put up some string that represents the internal dimensions of the enclosure anyway I resumed designing the layout within the confines of the dojo I built a similar formation as before to start I constructed another on the right side to juxtapose this one placing branches between these formations links them together and ties them in with the original branch adding a small formation near the front like this will improve the sense of depth tying even more branches into this all will make it even better I'll do more with all of this later but I think it looks strong so far I don't want to deal with floating branches or things shifting around though so I'll lock it together with expanding foam prior to that I'll clamp the Rocks together with wire as the foam expands into the crevices it could potentially knock the pieces over this wiring will hold it together in the meantime I applied foam between the contact points to secure everything as I've explained this is how the phone looked a few hours later it's expanded significantly and is honestly unappealing it did exactly what I wanted it to do though and as you can see it's rock solid plus fixing it is actually quite simple I'll just rip off the excess with my fingers and a pair of pliers foreign [Music] the only persisting issue is that you can still see some of the phone no worries remember the dust from earlier I can combine it with some super glue as I've shown before to conceal the foam and blend everything together I simply apply some glue sprinkle on the dust and redistribute it with a brush the result is something that appears very seamless that will hold everything together and keep the wood from floating once the tank is full of water since the pieces are combined it was really easy to get it all back into the tank I'll embellish the skate more shortly but I should mention that I replace the neoprene in the bottom with the sheet of corrugated plastic like before this will keep the stones from creating pressure points and cracking the glass to filter and turn over water in this tank I'll use a CJ Micron the cool thing about this filter is that this piece can be removed in order to install their components instead of this I'll hook it up to a vinyl tube to make that happen I have a few lengths of rigid vinyl tubing an elbow piece and an end cap with this modified filter I can create a drip Vine or something of that nature over top of the arch and Escape I can also completely hide the filter behind the left side of The Hardscape as for the tubing I simply wired along the branch for now I also have to make openings along the tube to create the dripping feature I felt that the easiest solution was to cut slits in the top sure they're gushing out now but once it's covered with plants it will create a gentle drip from the branch I conceal it with Sue's Foster tongue that I'll wrap around the tube with fishing line I would have preferred to use Moss here but there wasn't any available and I just pulled all of this from a different enclosure it will actually do well in this type of environment but it's a lot less forgiving in the event the water stops running it would dry out much faster than Moss regardless it still has the same effect and looks awesome don't you think since this is a paludarium style setup I also want to include riparian or above the water plant growth to start I've selected a few staple plants such as syngonium potiphylum and hemographist or Panda I included a rabbit's foot Fern as well for more texture the formation on the right side doesn't have as much for the plants to rest on so I tied their roots to the stone they will gain stability and time but this will suffice for now I mixed in various aquatic plants that will happily grow Above the Rim including Pogo Stemmons the Lotus octopus and hydrocodile Tripper tea to Japan the initial result of this all looks good and should suffice for now I'll include a lot of foliage in the water feature as well but I'll fill it with aqua soil and Place sand prior to that I poured the aqua soil mostly in the back and sides which is where the majority of the plants will go [Music] then I went back and capped it all off with a thick layer of clay sand to conceal the aqua soil and to make it easier to plant I'll add some of the plants now and the rest when it's filled with water starting with an assortment of cryptocurrini I want a lush Forest of these between the rock formations and in the foreground adding a lot of them makes them appear even cooler I want to Jungle around the rocks in stem plants like rotala Indica will help me pull this off I'm adding full-length stems for now but I intend to trim and replant them when it's full of water for denser plant growth a little bit of valisneria never hurts either [Music] two weeks later and things look a little different most of it held up well but the sugars in the wood made this pulp it always happens with the new spiderwood but luckily it isn't harmful I'll adjust it later in the meantime I'll trim the plants as I explained earlier I cut up the rotola a little and or planted the trimmed sections I added some new plants in the back of Escape as well then I went through and sucked up as much Gunk and debris as possible once empty I moved the tank over to the rack and filled it back up however I wasn't crazy about how it looked I decided to add more plants to better fill it in [Music] after doing all of this bits of Aqua soil remained since they contain a lot of iron these neodymium magnets should make them easy to remove foreign and by this point I was able to get some java moss so I mixed it into the drip feature with all of that addressed I could finally add the frogs [Music] they were quick to enter the tank but immediately after they seemed very interested in what I was doing this little one kept inching forward as I observed my guess was that they were hungry so I tried my luck with some freeze-dried tube effects worms he gobbled them up immediately I went through and actually got all six of them to eat within minutes of going into the tank which was awesome feeding these little frogs is probably the aspect about them that's the most challenging especially in a tank of this size I personally think it will be best to manually feed them like I do with the surname toads that way I can ensure that we're all fed and it will allow me to be more involved and in tune with their care it will also cut back on excess food but they're sure to be a little so it only makes sense to add a cleanup crew as well I've selected Malaysian trumpet snails zebra narite snails and Amano shrimp [Music] these goofy little frogs are awesome and I'm very excited to add them into the animal room I think the bones of the tank are good will function perfectly for the frogs and showcase them beautifully however it will all look much better with time the plants really need to establish mature and properly fill in the space I should say that even though these frogs are adorable they're not for everyone if you're looking for a high energy enclosure that's engaging to watch these aren't it they like hiding amongst the foliage much of the time and aren't extremely active I'll likely add fish in here to contrast with that at some point but I'm fine with the frogs for now they're also pretty delicate due to their small size so you got to be careful when you're working in the tank even so they will acknowledge your presence once you're close to the tank and are curious about what you're up to and even though Extra Care is needed to feed them it's funny to watch and they're fairly easy to care for just make sure to put a lid on the tank or lower the water level so they can't escape if given the opportunity they'll gladly jump out with some extra care in a nicely planted tank these frogs will open up and surely Steal Your Heart their silly unique and rewarding in their own special way I mean seriously how can you resist a face like that anyway I think that's the perfect place to end this one as always I hope you all enjoyed the video the frogs and the build until next time Serpa Squad take care and peace foreign [Music]

Channel: SerpaDesign

Views: 603,550

Keywords: african dwarf frog, aquatic frog, dwarf african clawed frog, frog, frog aquarium, frog paludarium, paludarium, aqua terrarium, planted tank, jungle

Id: HK0vWQGwNOE

Length: 13min 2sec (782 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 23 2022