And so it begins...

[hun73r]

Ok I have to admit this will be a boring topic for a bit, but I am planning on updating frequently so hopefully that will keep all entertained.

We recently cleared out a room in the house that was intended by the builders to be used as an office. It was housing snakes and racks and workstations and feeders for our snake breeding and hobby business but we have recently made a change of direction and sold our collection to various individuals.

With that bit of background out of the way we can begin the saga. We will be converting the space back into an office/frog room. Currently I have removed all the reptile racks, workstation and workbench, rat racks and various other sundries and repainted. I also added a static cling to the top window of the room to simulate stained glass and block a bit of light. There was a fan shaped thingy (technical term) there that was not attractive and had to go.

We will be getting the desk on Wednesday and the first part of our planned frog display area. A custom built 90" long by 24" deep cabinet. This we will stain and poly once it is in place. On this we plan to house 5 Ghostvivs on the first level measuring 17x22x24. We will have custom built LED lighting on the underside of the shelf above the tanks as well as misting system and an on-demand fogging system for "showing off". We plan to control lighting and such with an Ecozone controller and I am currently talking with the LED manufacturer and Tony at Ecozone about options and such. It will be an adventure for sure :lol:

Here are some pictures of the room in its current state and I will add some after the furniture gets here this week:

The wall where the cabinet and tanks will go (on the right as you enter the office)


The windows


The wall where the desk will be painted in an accent color

[Philsuma]

There is NOTHING boring about a dedicated frog-room, I assure you !

Awesomeness...

[joneill809]

Build threads are always interesting! Can't wait to see how this works out. I have a 120 G Ghostviv and I am very pleased with it. I'm sure you will like yours! Keep the updates coming

[hun73r]

I think I have seen your setup posted. Is it the TV stand? That setup is really great looking!

[joneill809]

Yeah that's me . I really like the track vent Casper came up with. Good luck with the build out!

[hun73r]

Update for tonight before I hit the rack.

Carpenter came in today and installed the base cabinet for the frog wall:


View of my culture drawers:


Here is a picture of my current setup in the formal dining room for my Tinc boulangers:


Rock water fall I built:


Close-up of the enclosure:


The frogs:


A bunch of miscellaneous supplies. I think the UPS guy thinks I am growing weed with all the hydroton I got:

[joneill809]

Wow the cabinets look incredible!

[hun73r]

Update:

I have FINALLY finished staining and protecting the cabinets. If I never see a can of poly again it will be too soon.

Midway through the staining process:



Final Result:



I also got in some more equipment to run this wall. I got a Ecozone 500 controller with 4 humidity and temp probes. I plan on monitoring the outside edge tanks on both top and bottom and not all 9 tanks individually.



I got my Mist King and nozzles ready to go.



There will be two nozzles per tank and a fogging vent as well. The fogging will be more for effect than anything.

So now all I need is lights, canopy, and the vivs. Oh and a ton of viv plants, logs, GS foam, coco fiber,leaf litter, ABG, etc.

In the meantime here is a pic of my the enclosure for my Ranitomeya ventrimaculata. I have 1.0.3 at the moment. I know one calls for sure and he does it all the time but I have not witnessed any of the others calling yet. One seems to be a lot rounder than the others so I am hoping at least one is female.





And here he is hiding in his brom. It has a cold damage spot on it unfortunately from shipping but doing well now.



Updates to come soon hopefully. My LED bars should be here in about a week and tanks should be getting ready soon.

[hun73r]

Want your frogs to lay eggs? Make a post questioning their gender. This morning after posting that I was hoping to have at least one female in my Vent group I get this:



So there is at least one in there! :lol:

[srod]

Congrats! How many different types of frogs do you have?

[hun73r]

Just the two types right now.

[hun73r]

Well my LED bars are in and I finally found a way to hide my water tank for the MistKing. Since the cabinet is not designed to hold a 5 gallon bucket I had to come up with a way to have an external tank. I got a 15 gallon sprayer tank from Northern Tool and then searched and searched for an idea to hide it in the room.

Here is what I came up with today:



This is an end table from Pier One that has a sliding top on it. The water tank fits perfectly and the tank was predrilled and tapped on the bottom for a bulkhead so I just picked one up and installed it. It had to be 1/2" so the one that came with the MistKing was too small.



The tank a bit closer:



I have also been sourcing frogs and looks like I may be getting some locally from Brad (IDPM) which I am super excited about. Now just need to get the vivs from Casper and build them out and plant. Fun stuff for sure and will try to remember and take lost of pictures.

Oh and here is what the LED bars look like powered down. These came from Build My LED based here in Texas and are great quality. They had a special spectrum mix that Orchid growers are really liking and I am trying it out as well.
http://www.buildmyled.com/

[joneill809]

The tank idea looks great. Can't wait to see the viv build outs!

[IDPM]

Tank in chest, clever!

Have you had the light bars powered on for any length of time? Curious as to how warm they might get. I'm going back and forth between more bars or just Jungle Dawn type LEDS over each tank, hate dealing with all the sockets and cords. Thanks for the buildmyled heads up, their customization tool is pretty neat.

[hun73r]

I have run them for about a week with a normal dusk/dawn cycle. They get warm to the touch and register around 107-109 with a temp gun, but about 3 inches away there is no air transfer of that heat. They will be in a canopy so that is a concern, but I think I have it addressed with fans mounted on the front of the canopy and on one side ( 2 intake and 2 exhaust).

[hun73r]

Another update today. I got a couple of the tanks from Casper this past week and started on the one for the benedicta. Brad said they liked a canopy effect so I created that with wood. Hoping this looks really cool under full light. It is a combo of cork bark pressed panels and Epiweb along with some GS and two really nice pieces of wood.

Top view of first piece:



Front view:



With background:

[joneill809]

Looks great! My tincs appreciate canopies and climbing shelves too. I agree - once lit up the shadows the ledges throw will be impressive. Great thread! (Nice vivs Casper!)

[hun73r]

Got to start playing with plant placement. These are still not great pics due to crappy phone camera, but I will take some good ones soon.

Tank shot:



I also took a poor quality video of a vent tadpole I found yesterday. It really did not move at all during video, but still can see it and I think it is pretty cool. I never saw the transporting or even saw the eggs so they are sneaky. The first clutch I showed in this thread did not have any viable ones in it. I have 4 tads in 3 different broms right now. I tried to get one out but it is nearly impossible as they swim down to where the turkey baster can't get them.

[youtube]P77lMHg1Inw[/youtube]

[IDPM]

The tank is looking good.

Dumping the brom may be the only way to get the tad. I make it a habit of tossing flies at the brom axils in my vent tank, I've had a lot of surprises crawl out. If I know where a tad is and I can get to it, I'll drop a few tad bites into the axil every so often.

[hun73r]

Met up with Brad this past Saturday and picked up some of the inhabitants for this wall of frogs I am working on. Let me just say that it was a true pleasure to meet Brad and he is a great guy. His collection of animals is awesome and he has some great looking vivs as well. We talked for quite awhile and I had a great time. Thanks Brad!

These are some blurry pictures as I was taking them in their QT tubs with one hand holding the lid and the other my camera. I will get some better ones with help and as they slowly transition to final homes after QT and build out.

Banded Imitator is first. They are small and not too long out of water but doing great and eating springs like champs:



Next up are the Vanzolinii. I believe Brad has posted these before but I have J and U due to the distinct letter shaped markings on their bellies:





Then we have a single shot of one of the Benedicta. These guys may be shy but they can jump so I had to be quick:



An finally we have the Vulture Point Pumilio:



All the frogs are doing great in their QT setups and I am working on my second tank and should finish by mid week. I will then get the final three from Casper very soon to complete the first row out. I will post some pics of the tanks later.