Frog Tank

Here is something for animal lovers, or indoor gardeners! I love frogs, so one day I decided to make a frog tank using Ray’s turtle tank (that was actually Mika the snake’s cage).

I made a working waterfall using rocks, aquarium silicone, plastic pipe and a little submersible water pump.

Because the tank was made for turtles it had a pebble coated glass shelf which had the supports siliconed in place. I spent ages scraping the silicone away with a razorblade so it didn’t obstruct the view of my waterfall.

I used the smaller part of the turtle shelf to create a separator between land and water, again using silicone to keep it in place and watertight.

When I made the waterfall I balanced the rocks in position until I was happy. Then I laid them all out in rows on the floor in the order they needed to go back in. To stick them down I just used big blobs of silicone under the rocks, one row at a time. Once it was dry enough I checked the rocks were stable enough and then moved onto gluing the next row.

I left a gap behind the waterfall where the heaters, pumps can fit, as well as my arm for cleaning!

To make the waterfall effect I just used a long piece of pipe and pushed the end into a space I left between the rocks. You can change the way the water falls over the rocks by pointing the pipe at rocks to spread the water out.

The plants I used were mondo grass, bromeliads, Madonna lily, mother-in-laws tongues, ferns and orchids. I also broke up some plastic aquarium plants to poke in between the waterfall rocks.

I used a small piece of log with plants in it behind the waterfall to hide the power cables. All I did was drill a hanging hole, carve out a hole to plant a little fern and peel back the bark to hold some baby orchids.

As for keeping frogs… one day I will!

Even without the frogs it is a beautiful indoor garden, safe from being eaten and destroyed by my cats.