The American Bullfrog Paludarium

what's going on everyone Tanner here and this one will finally get my American bullfrog MJ into his new pallid areum at this point I'm Jase going on 13 years old so he's up there needless to say it's long overdue that we get him into a new setup like the one you're going to see me make if I could give you a piece of advice don't do the same not that I'm a man of regret but I wish I would have done this much much sooner anyways let's get into the build for this one we're going to use a 40 gallon breeder this is a decent sized aquarium and larger is always better but we can make a pretty good setup for MJ in this one initially I wanted to make a DIY background but I came across his prefabricated background for 18 dollars at a local fish store seeing that it was originally $50 I couldn't pass up the deal because I knew could be utilized for this build by the way this background was made by Penn Plax and I gotta say it looks fairly realistic to install these it's always good to dry fit first obviously they're made to fit into standard sized aquariums but it never hurts just to be sure this one fit properly so it's time to add some silicone per usual we're using some GE silicone one as I've said in the past this is a completely safe DIY alternative to aquarium grade silicone once I applied enough to the back of the aquarium I set the background in place generally it helps to apply a bit of weight on the background while the silicone cures but in this instance the background was really snug that said it did bow slightly in the middle so I used two hammers to weigh it down after allowing the silicone to cure the hammers were moved in the aquarium was set upright once more initially I wasn't sure how I wanted to setup the land area for this tank but I came across this awesome piece of Malaysian driftwood that could be used as such I placed the drift hood into the aquarium to get a sense of scale and to set up a preliminary scape it fills in the tank nicely and adds interest without taking up on necessary space from there I started building up a few piles of sandstone that I had from previous builds these will be used not only for aesthetics but also to prop up the driftwood with a better idea of how it's going to scape the setup it was time to add the substrate like you would expect for me this powder team is going to incorporate a decent amount of live plants as such we'd benefit greatly from a decent substrate since the space will be inhabited by a larger animal we'll need a heavier substrate in this case see chem fluorite unlike some of the other planted tank substrates you've seen me used before this one will stay put on the flip side if disrupted it's prone to starting sediment up into the water column regardless of the plants will primarily be in the back of the setup so I'm placing the fluorite there I also doubt that MJ will get a chance to disrupt it given the location but we'll see what he does once he's in the enclosure I want to use a variety of stunts throughout the setup to create nice texture in the substrate and generally it's best to start with the largest stones so I utilize some decent sized stones that were pre-rinsed as a transitional element within the substrate from there I added some smaller gray gravel some of you may be thinking that the variation in color is odd but it will actually create a naturalistic look when combined with the other substrates with all of the gravel elements placed in the setup the driftwood and sand stones could be added back into their respective locations in doing so I tried my best to replicate the mock-up scape from earlier adjusting one necessary once I got the scape looking proper I could add the remainder of the substrate which is some quartz pull filter sand unfortunately I lost most of that footage but you get the idea now we can finally add some life to this setup with the plants don't worry I'll put the names up on screen and down in the video description first I started out with one of the largest plants which is a Singhania Impala phylum then I planted in the course cominius ton Amani yuki just in front of the Singhania after getting both of these rooted in I capped off the substrate with some gravel then I planted a few additional segments of a coarse gramineae s' and repeated the process from there I capped the remainder of the substrate with larger stones so that could better plant the next plant which is heavy grauffis alterna currently these plants don't have a very substantial root structure so they were easy to plant in the substrate that was already capped off in time these plants will give fairly substantial down [Music] then I added a room X sanguinis this plant gets fairly large and is really striking at this size it is somewhat delicate so I'm not sure if it will be able to stand up to MJ but we'll give it a try anyways worst case we take it out and grow it in a different setup a fun fact about this plant is that it's actually edible moving to the other side of the tank I started out by planting a gherkin italianness this will give fairly large and helpful in the space then I added a few sections of a course gramineae sabores uki lastly I added an acquisitive try Siri all lay into the right corner this is a somewhat delicate plants I wanted to keep it near the back portion of the setup mainly tied the filters output from there I superglue java moss and flame moss on to the driftwood once dry superglue is totally safe in a setup like this and I know that wood looks cool right now but wouldn't it look better covered in moss I know I thought so too now the tank could finally be filled up with water in doing so I used the driftwood to disperse the water and minimize cloudiness even still the water did get fairly cloudy during this process and it probably would have been in my best interest to rinse the fluorite before doing this build lastly I planted several segments of golden pothos this plant is really going to film the space and add a ton of green post this is also known for how well it filters the water which is an added bonus all the plants will help filter though so we'll get those benefits across the board now we'll move on to filtration for this one I wanted to use something external and fairly strong which in this case is a turtle clean 5-11 canister filter by zoomit this filter is pretty easy to set up and very similar to other canister filters but I'll show you more about this once the tank is set up and running at this point the tank has been going strong for about a month and a half two other plants to get somewhat established all that I have to do now is make a lid to do so I'm simply going to make a screen like you put in a window I've shown you how I made these for a few of my other setups before but we'll go ahead and do it again they work really well and are a cheap easy solution first things first we have to measure the interior width of the aquariums frame and subtract one and a half inches to account for the aquariums corner connectors which will be added shortly using this measurement two pieces of screen frame were cut down to size with the hacksaw I then cut the remainder of pieces and connected everything together with corner connectors then I wrote out some carbon fiber glass windows screen and trimmed it to a manageable size after doing so I used a spline roller to roll spline into the frame spline groove and attach the screen I know that was a tongue twister it's all about the spline lastly I removed excess screen with the utility blade and there you have it a completed screen as I said before this is exactly the same as a screen that you'd put in the window of your house on a sidenote these types of lids can also work with clamps so if you're trying to use it for something like a snake you definitely could anyways this isn't the only thing that will be going on the top of the tank I also cut out a piece of polycarbonate for the back portion of the lid this will allow the plumbing to seamlessly go into the tank and it will prevent MJ spray from climbing up on the screen lid since I'm using a thin piece of polycarbonate I hot-glued some strips of wood onto the top to keep it from bowing [Music] after that I determined where the filters funding would go and I drilled two holes with the step bit lastly I put the lids on to the setup and hooked up the filter now we'll do a brief overview of the setup first things first here's how it looks all grown in my goal was to create something that loosely mimics the bank of a pond I think this setup incorporates a lot of those elements and utilizes the space well as I said before good filtration and water circulation were really important for this setup the filters intake is on the left side of the tank which goes into the filter and then returns the water to the right side of the tank creating a loop if you remember I said that I made the screen out of carbon fiber glass this is very important because crickets and roaches will occasionally find their way on the lid inevitably MJ will jump and eat them but I found that sometimes he can scuff his nose on a rigid lid this on the other hand is soft so he can jump at it all he wants and be totally fine for lighting I'm just using an LED strip light so it's nothing special it does a good job of crying plants though of course it also simulates a natural day and night cycle which I feel is very important additionally the light helps keep the lid snugly on the tank as you can see it's easy to remove from the outside but it's designed to keep everything in the tank there's nothing to keep in though so why don't we go and put our friend in his home after just one day he messed up the tank a little bit and to be honest I expected nothing less at this point I decided to remove the room X on gwyn es because he destroyed all of the leaves during this process of course the water got a little cloudy in retrospect I wish I would have cleaned the fluorite before use but I'll just have to do it over time now since it's already in the tank that's one of the few things that I would change about this setup though otherwise I really like how it turned out and I believe that MJ does as well naturally we're gonna do some fine-tuning as time goes on add a few plants remove a few plants but all-in-all I think it's definitely there anyways on the video of this piece of advice I do not recommend bullfrogs for most people the majority of animals that I keep I feel are well suited for most hobbyists but I will add a huge disclaimer to the bullfrog this is a large powerful and surprisingly finicky animal they need space food and most importantly clean conditions I've been keeping fish for longer than I've had MJ so I'm pretty good at keeping a clean tank if you've never kept aquatic animals at all then I especially do not recommend bullfrogs lastly if you see one down at your local pond or something I'm all for the catch and release but please leave them there most local fish stores carry bullfrog tadpoles and if you're seriously interested in getting one they usually sell for two to five dollars a piece not only will you get an awesome frog but you'll also get the reward of seeing it transition into one and that's exactly what MJ is a product of don't get me wrong by anything I just said of course I've had my ups and downs with MJ but this is my dude he's been with me for 12 years and I hope that we still have many years to come however he is getting pretty old for a bullfrog and upon doing a quick Google search 16 years is the record lifespan of a captive bullfrog I sure hope that he'll have passed that but time will tell in the meantime we'll enjoy him together and if you want to see more of him in future videos be sure to subscribe if you aren't already also if you liked the video be sure to show me some love with the thumbs up and a comment down below it really does go a long way and I greatly appreciate it thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one surpass God peace

Channel: SerpaDesign

Views: 747,600

Keywords: paludarium, vivarium, terrarium, aquarium, bullfrog, bullfrog paludarium, frog, diy, do it yourself, scape, aquascape, naturalistic

Id: fV5MucIp1M8

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 12 2019