Any Suggestions

[Weather1]

I have a 20 gallon aquarium sitting here empty.

I have been giving some thought to a plant tank.

Any suggestions on how to start a nice setup.

IE.. type of plans, substrate, water level and any creatures to add. ect

Thanks for the advice

[Dilshad]

Let's start with a couple of basic considerations...what kind of animals do you want to keep in there, and what are the dimensions (L X W) of the tank?

[Weather1]

The dimentions of mthe tank are 24x12x16

As for the type of animals???? I am open to suggestions.

[Phantom]

Hmmm..... a couple of dart frogs (denadrobates azueres(sp?) would be plain beautiful in an plant viv!!
What do you think??

Phantom

[Weather1]

I agree, A few Dart frogs would be great.

So what ind of substrate and plants do I need to plant?

Also what are the heating and lighting requirements?

Thanks

[snakedude_03]

for darts.. heating should be in the 80s.. i used a under tank heater to do that.. lighting.. well darts live like at the bottom of the rainforest.. they dont exactly need that much light.. but then if you got plants.. u need the light.. use a flosecent light of course.. the kind.. im not all too sure.. i used to use reptisun 5.0.. the substrate.. i had used sheet moss and gravel and pebbles under that.. now i plan on making anohter vivarium.. i hope it'll turn out better then the one before.. :P

[Dilshad]

Good plants for a dart frog tank include:

Spathiphyllum, Asplenium antiguum or Asplenium nidus, Philodendron scandens, or even Aeschynanthus ssp. -- Lipstick Vines. Some of these plants do better as mounted epiphytes, such as the Aspleniums (Bird's nest ferns) and Lipstick vines. There are many more, but these are a good start.

You could do bromeliads too, but these should be mounted to prevent rotting out, and to my knowledge, aren't a big part of D. azureus microhabitat.

If I had to choose just one plant from the short list above, I'd go with the Philodendron scandens. It's cheap, grows fast, looks nice, and more tolerant of lower light levels found in many vivaria. I posted about my preferred substrate somewhere else in this forum already, as did Mark Pepper and maybe a few other people...

[Weather1]

Thanks everyone