This is a chronicle of the building of my tropical vivarium for Asian long-tailed grass lizards (Takydromus sexlineatus), "completed" in May/09 (as much as a project like this is ever really finished!).
Navigate your way around using these links to sections on the page:Some Basics (Lighting, Heat, Humidity)
Lichens and Moss (and Golden Guides!)
The Scene: early May, 2009: a vacant 40-gallon aquarium, empty since the release of our beloved Ike, a snapping turtle hatchling that we were fostering for the winter. What to do? Another turtle? A tortoise? We have had all manner of critters in our lives, from cats to parrots, budgies and finches, to mice, to turtles, to......
Our Ike. Wait a minute! What's a turtle doing on a lizard site? Keep reading.....
Ike's aquatic habitat - 40 gallon
The Decision: Humming and hawing....my early love of botany started me thinking of plants in conjunction with critters. The idea of a self-contained and sustained ecosystem really appealed to me. Could it be done? What plants? What critters? This is fun!
The Research: If there is anything you learn from reading this webpage, it is to do your research!!! I did...and lots of it. Also learning from the experiences of other folks is important, like those at The Vivarium Forum.
The Design: I began with a false bottom (drainage is a good thing): a platform made from "eggcrate" (actually a plastic grid used to cover flourescent fixtures) covered in fiber screening (to prevent the substrate mix from sifting through to your empty drainage layer), sitting on 1.5" pieces of plumbing pipe to raise it up. I'm now thinking that you could also use plastic spools from thread, cut to size, for the "pylons". The soil mix is really important, obviously, and should be "bioactive" (i.e., should have sufficient micro-organisms to deal with waste and to aid in plant growth). I had been keeping a bin of organic soil from my yard with earthworms in it to feed the snapper, so I had a good soil for part of the mix (complete with established worms!). My substrate consisted of coco-fibre, "forest mulch" (made for reptiles) and the organic soil; fully dampened, this made for an excellent growing medium. As I said, a small group of earthworms was already established in this mix. Sowbugs were also added to help with the garbage removal. I had cleaned the roots of all of the plants (important to get rid of the potting soil they come in, which may have fertilizers and other things you don't want your critters coming into contact with) and transplanted them to this soil mix to let them establish themselves before landscaping them into the tank. Plants included: Peace lily, various ivys, snake plant (mother-in-law's tongue), bamboo, etc., plus some lovely little wild violets that make a great low layer and are quite nice little plants. Most of these houseplants were used simply because I already had them. Turns out they were pretty good choices. I gathered wood and rocks from my (organic) property and sterilized them well (soaked in boiling water and then baked on low in the oven for quite a while). Landscaping was fun as I was able to construct some little hills with mopani wood and soil. I added a "temple" and little statue to give it an ancient jungle look. Lighting, etc. was added (more on these "details" later).This picture isn't great, but it gives you an idea of what the tank looked like in May, when it was first built:
What are those critters on the log in the upper left???!!!! How did they get there? Patience, my friend. We'll get to them eventually!
The tank had a "cool" side and a "basking side, although the cool side isn't all that cool, LOL! It's vitally important to give your residents a choice of temperature areas as they are the masters at regulating their own inner temps if given a chance. Here's the "cool" side when first built:
Zilla's Frog Moss was used on top of the substrate in places for aesthetic purposes and also to help maintain moisture levels.
And the warmer side:
(Darn it - there are those pesky critters again!)
The wild violets were a really pleasant surprise: they have flourished greatly in the viv:
Another peek at the "warm" side, complete with Aztec statue to give it an exotic look:
Now I knew that I wanted a tropical critter for this space, something relatively small and diurnal so that I could watch them being themselves. The wonderful and helpful guys at my local reptile/exotic store (ironically called "The Vivarium") helped me choose Asian long-tailed grass lizards (Takydromus sexlineatus). They seemed to fit the bill and weren't as territorial as green anoles can be (I had been considering the anoles up to then). So, three little beings came to live in the vivarium, two males and a female, Raoul, Stumpy and Chiquita.Here are Raoul and Stumpy basking:
These guys aren't called "long-tails" because they wear tuxes. You'll see just how long their tails are if you make it to the movie without falling asleep!
The graphic image in the background of this website is from an old zoological publication and shows this species and its unexaggerated tail.
Some Basics:Lighting is very important for reptiles (if you're reading this page you probably already know that). The correct lighting varies, though, on the species and its needs. These are tropical, diurnal lizards, so my lighting setup is as follows:
1) On the "cool" side, Exo-terra's 2.0 uvb 13w full-spectrum Repti-Glo compact fluorescent lamp (great for the plants and the critters)
2) On the basking side, two bulbs: Exo-terra's 5.0 uvb 13w Repti-Glo lamp and their Sun-Glo Neodymium Basking Spot lamp (50w in the summer and 75w in the winter; this regulates the basking area depending on the room temp).
All of the lights are on digital timers, allowing me to regulate the lizards' "day".
Heat is taken care of with the lights and room temperature so far. A fairly realistic day/night cycle can thus be established.
Humidity is of next importance for tropical lizards. Their well-being really depends on a pretty high humidity level, aiding in the shedding process, digestion and procreation, among other things. Daily misting helps (I use the Mist'r Lizard daily and also a larger dedicated garden sprayer every now and then for a good soaking), but keeping a high humidity level in a large-ish tank can be tricky, so I came up with this idea (based on the Zoo Med Repti-fogger):
I ordered a Medisana Ultra-sonic Personal Humidifer (the deluxe one - HAH2000- with the built-in cycling timer) for $36 inlcuding shipping from Allergy-be-gone. It's small, but just what I needed, especially with the timer. Rather than get into all of the fancy "replacing-parts-with-other-parts" that usually goes on to get the fog into the viv, all I did was buy one of those spray hoses that you stick on to a faucet (you know, for washing hair, etc.). The end that goes on the faucet fit perfectly on the exit nozzle of the humidifier. Then I cut off the wide sprayer part, attached a little grid to the hose so the the lizards couldn't crawl into the hose (they're quite small and thin; originally I covered it with screen, but water blocked it up. Now I have an x-shaped cover from two plastic-coated paper clips) and put the hose into the tank through a hole in the screen lid. Set the timer to be on for 15 minutes every hour and voila!
The humidifier with the hose:
What is looks like attached to the tank. NOTE: humidifer should be higher than tank so excess water drips into tank:
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Misty day in viv (fog doesn't show up that well in a pic -the movie below shows it in action better):
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This humidifier also has a cool blue light that you could use as a nightlight if you wanted! You will still have to mist lightly daily (sometimes 2x daily depending on your house humidity), but this helps maintain a good humidity level....the fog looks pretty cool, too! Now all I need is some atmospheric lighting to go with it!
NOTE: I have also tried the "Little Dripper" by Zoo Med. I was able to calibrate the drips, but found that it concentrates moisture too much in one place, so would have to move it around a lot. Looks a bit junky on top of the tank, too. I'm still going to try to incorporate it somehow.
Heat and humidity are monitored using the Zilla digital thermo-hygrometer. These are great (I have three). They have two remote sensors that go into the tank and are actually quite inobtrusive. I use one on the cool side and one on the basking side. (The third one comes into play later, when Peewee enters the scene!)
CHANGES!!!!Update from July 4/09 (this was posted on a forum)
Just a quick update on my viv with three Takydromus sexlineatus seven weeks later. The plants have become very well-established and everyone has settled into their lush digs very well. I have begun setting up an automatic humidity system (I'll be posting about it on the appropriate forum when I'm done here!). I've already found two eggs (unfortunately destroyed before I knew they were there) and I just saw one of the males mating with the female again today! (That was a bit disconcerting as he had clamped his mouth around her middle while mating, leaving quite a mark when he was done. She's fine, though). They are really active and fun lizards to watch...diurnal, too, which makes it even better!
Three days later on the same forum:
Okay - you know how I mentioned I found some eggshells from my longtailed grass lizards 5 or 6 days ago? Guess what I found in the tank last night? This is a 40 gallon heavily planted tank and this little guy is impossibly, incredibly, unbelievably tiny! I found him hiding in the leaves of the croton; didn't know what it was at first (just looked like a curled up brown thread). Managed to catch him (using a tea strainer, LOL!) and have him in his own setup right now.
Enter Peewee:
ABOVE: Here you can compare him to a penny (at the bottom of the pic); he's at the top middle, on a leaf..
"He" was the cutest (and the most fragile) little thing you have ever seen.
I set him up in his own little habitat (a "Critter Keeper"), complete with bio-active substrate, fake plants, a hide, basking area and full-spectrum and basking lights:
As I'm sure you're aware, these "tanks" have plastic lids, not very conducive to using a heat lamp, so my first fix was this, cutting a hole and hot-gluing some metal mesh where the lamp would be:
While this worked okay, I wanted something a little more substantial, but still allowing access to the tank, so this was made:
Aluminum screening, aluminum tape and a door from an old Critter Keeper top. We were in business!
Feeding this little fella was a real challenge, but with help from froggsong on The Vivarium forum, FLhaven4strays on the Turtle Forum (who had some experience with baby long-tails) and a lot of online research, I was able to provide a healthy and varied wild diet while waiting for the flightless fruit flies and pinhead crickets to arrive (they would end up taking over a week).This led to a whole different area of pursuit that you can check out on a separate page: Wild Caught Food for Lizards.
Dreaming of Plume moths.
More on Peewee later, but first, enjoy a very poor quality but action-packed movie:
Here's a short movie of some of our Vivarium, starring Raoul*, one of my male long-tails (Rated H for herp-friendly):Note: the music in the movie is part of "Un Dia de Noviembre" by Leo Brouwer, played by me on harp.
****Raoul is still looking for an agent....he feels that there hasn't been a significant lizard movie since Godzilla. Geico commercials do not count.
Of Lichens and Moss....As I mentioned far above, one of my very first interests was botany, particularly the weird and wonderful world of lichens and mosses. I don't know how many of you remember the Golden Guides (are they still in publication?), but my childhood and teen years were filled with reading, re-reading and checking off facts in books like "Pond Life", "Stars", "Weeds", "Reptiles and Amphibians" and the inexplicable "Hallucinogenic Plants" (what were they thinking?). My very favourite one, though, was "Non-flowering Plants", all about lichens, moss, ferns, gymnosperms, etc. Okay, now that I've branded myself forever as a total geek, I came across my small collection of these books in the basement when we were going through our vast book collection. Out came "Non-flowering Plants". Then, on a recent trip to Northern Ontario (the Sudbury region specifically), I had an opportunity to collect some wonderful examples of pixie-cup lichen, star moss, etc. I had severe doubts that they would survive even in my vivarium, but it was worth a try! I made sure that I collected the entire plant, which means the soil and the rock, if the plant happens to be growing on one. I positioned them so that they were directly below the outvent of the fogger. They have thrived!!! Not just survived, but grown and flourished! They make such a lovely addition to the habitat.
Some of the moss. Chiquita chose to lay some eggs under it...more on that later!
There are a few pixie cups in the foreground, but the entire pale-green field in the background under the fog is also pixie cups.
In this one, you can see why they're called "pixie-cups".
The Continuing Saga of Peewee/PenelopeAug. 3/09 - Hmmm,....well, little Peewee has been growing by leaps and bounds, and I'm tending to think it's a girl, so Peewee has become Penelope, After Lady Penelope of the Thunderbirds (you have to be a certain age to get that one)! I was able to get a really good price on a new 12"x12"x12" Exo-terra terrarium with 3D background (only $49 CDN - that's quite amazing!). Today, I placed a false bottom in it and added my mix of tropical substrate (same one I used in the "big" tank). Sowbugs and worms were added, then I landscaped - some small hills, a cave, ivy, parlor palms (I got 16 small ones for $2!), moss and basking sticks. Thermometer installed, lights lit, mister activated...now how to get the tiny lizard into the cage without an escape? Head 'em up and move 'em out! She was sitting on her stick in the old habitat, so all I had to do was angle the critter keeper into the new cage (love those front-opening doors!), lift a corner of the lid and gently move her stick forward. She walked right into the new hab and up one of the new basking sticks...atta girl! I really like these Exo-terra terrariums for quick-fix situations. A lot of thought has gone into various little tweaks in the design. I'm quite impressed. So, without any further ado, here is Penelope in her new Palace:
Sorry this is a bit blurry, but you can see her on her basking stick, upper-mid-right.
And here's Her Ladyship herself. No Parker yet (another T-birds reference)....Penelope's Mom has been a pretty busy lady herself. I was cleaning under a bark cave in the big tank and found 18 eggs!!!!! Yes, 18. Luckily, one of the guys at the local reptile shop would like to incubate them and start some captive-bred long-tails, so I now save him any eggs laid by Chiquita (5 more this past week) in damp vermiculite and hopefully the rest will be history.
Toodles for now!Well, this extremely verbose journey through my ongoing vivarium adventures is going to sign off for now.
The National Anthem will now play.....
Check back soon for updates (especially one called "Maintainance for the Planted Vivarium"), and don't forget to check out Wild Caught Insects for Lizards which will give you an idea of where I'm headed.
Comments? Questions? Suggestions?
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site updated august 11th/09