RED EYED TREE FROG vivarium 2 0

Around eight months ago I set up an enclosure for my red-eyed tree frogs, and at first I was very happy with it. However, over time I realized how poorly designed it was, mainly in terms of plant solutions. Almost all of the plants have died up until now, and the biggest issue in this is humidity retention. Luckily, I'm going to be fixing that today. Before we begin though, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you won't miss out on future videos. Before I do anything to this enclosure, I need to get the frogs out. I'll be temporarily housing them in these two extra enclosures from the mantis project. I started by taking out the existing hardscape and adding a few pieces of Malaysian driftwood. I then added any little plants I could find. I then sprayed everything down and went on to get the frogs. They won't be in here very long, as this project should only take me a day or two. Anyway, with the frogs moved, I can finally start work on the enclosure. The first thing I did was remove the only plant. I'll be using it again in their new enclosure, so I'll make sure to save it. After that, I removed their water bowl. I'll again be putting this back in their new one, but it needs a good clean first. After that, I started to remove all of the gross leaf litter. Most of the leaf litter itself is fine, it's just got a bunch of calcium all over it, and I wanted to add a fresh layer. Once the leaf litter was taken care of, I started to mix up the soil a bit. This probably wasn't necessary, but I wanted everything to look fresh. Now it's time to focus on the main issues, starting with this piece of mesh at the top that I'll be replacing with a pane of glass to help retain humidity. I started by removing the piece of mesh and then taking measurements for the glass piece. After removing that piece, I got my pane of glass, double-checked the measurements, and cut it to size. I then flipped the glass piece around and tapped it lightly with my tool to break it off from the rest of the glass. I then repeated this process to make it a bit shorter. With the glass piece all cut, I can finally move on to installing it. To start, I'll wipe down the edges of the tank with some isopropyl alcohol. I'll also wipe down the glass to remove debris and create better adhesion. I then proceeded to tape the glass to create cleaner lines of silicone. Once the glass was taped, I ran a bead of silicone along the inner edge of the rim. Rookie mistake incoming. It was at this point that I realized that I didn't test fit the glass and I needed to sand down the side a bit. It's an easy fix but it could have saved me a little time. I sanded it down a bit and everything fit perfectly. I then pressed the glass down firmly in place and ran a bead of silicone along the corners. I then smoothed it out with my finger. I then removed the tape and wiped down the glass with some more isopropyl alcohol. Now the second part of the problem, the planting up in the hardscape. I'm going to be using some plastic planter pots to help fix this issue. I started by placing pots throughout the hardscape in places that I wanted plants to go. In the original enclosure, I just had the plants in little sphagnum moss bags that didn't retain enough humidity. Using pots like this will ensure that I can get the proper amount of soil and hopefully retain the moisture better. Once I was happy with the placement of the pots, I needed to attach them permanently with some gaps and cracks expanding foam. I tried to cover as much of each pot as possible while also making it blend with the background. After getting all the pots foamed in, here's the result. I think it's already looking pretty good. It'll look better once it's carved though. I placed a towel at the bottom of the enclosure prior to carving to make cleanup easy. I then proceeded to carve the foam. There really was no pattern or anything to this. I just started carving until I got what looked like natural shapes. I tried to replicate the texture of the background as much as possible but it was a lot harder using a different tool. I could have tried to use the same tool but it would have been hard to get it in these small spaces. After a little bit of work though, I got everything looking good and here's the result. After carving, I removed the towel with all the foam pieces. As I said earlier, this made cleanup really easy. The next step is to paint the foam. Like usual, I'll be starting with a dark layer of drylock that I make sure to get over everything. I'll then go over it with a brown dry brush technique and then I'll work my way up using progressively lighter dry brush coats. I'll then go over it with an off-white dry brush coat to highlight all the edges. And with the painting done, here's the final result. I think it looks pretty good. My color matching skills weren't exactly on point but once all the plants and everything is in it, you won't be able to tell. Plus, this should work to fix my issue. Like I said earlier, the previous enclosure had the plants in sphagnum moss bags that just didn't retain humidity for long enough. This will hopefully fix that issue though. Anyways, the next step is my favorite part as you guys know, the plants. I start like I always do by removing the loose soil from the plant's roots. I try to get as much as I possibly can off in this step before I go on to spraying them down. Spraying them down will help to remove any remaining soil as well as clean off the plants. Anyways, with the plants all prepped, it's time to begin planting. I'll start by filling up the middle right pot with some substrate. I'll then place the first bromeliad here and cover it with a little more substrate. Bromeliads are going to be the main plant of this scape so I'll repeat the process in the top left pot. Again, filling it with substrate, placing in the bromeliad, and covering it with more substrate. In the bottom left pot, I repeated the process except this time I installed a philodendron. The color and texture of the leaves will help to break everything up. These leaves also have a lot of surface area for the frogs to rest. I then added a small umbrella plant to the top right pot. The next plant I added was the ZZ plant from their previous enclosure. I put it in the exact same spot as before. I then added a Dracaena to the bottom left. With the bigger plants in place, I placed back in their water bowl to get a better idea of where to put the smaller plants. I started with a few pieces of Fittonia next to the ZZ plant. These will help add a bit of color. I then placed in a lemon button fern towards the back right of the water bowl. I added a small ivy just to the left of that as well as right in front of the Dracaena. I then added one more piece of Fittonia towards the back of the enclosure as well as up by the left bromeliad. I then began to add a fresh layer of leaf litter. I then decided that leaf litter wasn't enough so I added some botanicals. After filling up their water bowl and spraying down the enclosure, it was time to get the frogs back home. After months of gathering materials and waiting to build this project, I finally got it finished and I couldn't be more happy with the result. I want to know what you guys think though. Is this an improvement from the last one? Let me know down in the comments. Although this project only took me a few days to complete, I had a lot of other struggles along the way, some of which I'll talk about in a second. As of recording this video, I've had the tank set up for over a week now and all of the plants are still thriving. I think it's safe to say that so far I've fixed the issue. Some of the plants are still taking a bit of time to adjust like the Fittonias, but I think they're getting there. Other than that, the enclosure is doing well, the frogs are happy, and I think it's safe to say that they're enjoying it as well. As most of you know, I haven't uploaded a video in quite some time and the main reason is because I've been starting up a new YouTube channel. The majority of you don't know this, but I have a huge passion for gaming. Starting this new channel doesn't mean that I will quit doing the stuff that I do now, it's just another hobby I wanted to experiment with. I plan to release my first video about a week from now and I'll leave a link down in the description so you can go subscribe if that's something you're interested in. Anyways, that's going to do it for this one. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.