Well the 75 gal viv is looking even better than before.

I added a lot of moss, a new water feature, some sticks that had some lichen on them already, some rocks that had a little algae, I added a bunch of climb out spots in the water feature, made some burrows, planted a few more plants, including a total of four orchids, added a bunch of rocks, covered the heat rocks to keep down the risk of hot spots, made a little "toad dock" on one corner of the pool, found a big fat earthworm outside and added him in, there were already a bunch but he'll definitely help out, added a few more millipedes, built a drip system with the Mr. Beer keg and some IV tubing but it went south fast and I had to change to my silver edition slippers and new socks.

Here is the link to the latest version. I have yet to add something cool as the resident but will soon. Suggestions on what should live here? I still think H. incei or Dendrobates. Be well.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EH7DiPfwzMo

Dart frogs all the way for that monster. Be careful, though. If you haven't sterilized the decor and quarantined all the animals/microfauna in there than all you may have is a pathogen filled death trap.

Yeah, I thought about the fungal and bacterial load. I'm a little worried about that. I didn't start this viv myself, it was passed on to me and I added a great deal to it. So it wasn't baked or boiled before it was put together. And since then I have added items that couldn't be heated like live mosses and lichen. I really wanted a colony of H. incei but I can't think of any way to eliminate fungus and bacteria. The hottest I've been able to get this tank was about 95oF on the hot (left) end and about 75oF on the cold. Not hot enough to kill pathogenic microbes and with it being wet they would proliferate. It is for that reason that I have started thinking about making it into a viv for local stuff. Specimen that would already have been exposed to the flora that we have here. I may also try Fire Bellied Toads. They are fairly hardy and I have used this type of setup for them before (albeit much smaller). I also have to wonder if a healthy gang of isopods like T. tomentosa would help. Being detritivores they would reduce the amount of available carboniferous material that fungi could colonize. I dunno...anyone have any ideas on making this more immune system friendly?

---------- Post added 03-30-2014 at 11:50 PM ----------

The problem with the way I have built this is that it's been done with plants that I grew here and took cuttings of and mosses and grasses that I collected here in the yard. I had always planned on making it a Bufo americanus viv so I never sterilized. But then I'd always be reorganizing what he tore up and knocked over. Same for chelonians like sliders and painted turtles. And they'd both eat everything else in here. So I guess I'm looking for something that stays small and won't destroy the plants and mosses, and something that doesn't climb too much (or at least until I fashion a screen cover that seals reliably), and can live with some other interesting specimen.