4ft aquarium conversion

As a few of you know I am converting my old 4ft fish tank into compartments for my scorpions... basically to house all my hets

The false bottom thread was very useful to help me with this, although instead of using mesh between the stones and the substrate i cut up the under gravel filter after giving it a good clean i might add!

Anyway first off was to order the glass which cost under a tenner for 4 sheets. this means each compartment will have a floor space of 10" x 12"
Siliconed the glass into place, 10" apart (my tank is an odd size, i say 4ft but it is actually 50", but makes it easier to space the glass anyway!

I left a 1mm gap under each glass sheet to allow the water to disburse throughout the false bottom

The advantage of using an undergravel filter is that they have tube fittings so the water tube stays fixed in place, and has a cap on it to prevent any accidents.

Anyway due to the fact kids are driving me nuts i will have to post pictures later on.
The heterometrus beccalonae is now house in the 1st completed enclosure, purely because she had the coolest enclosure.. not that this seemed to bother her she has eaten well! but it bothered me.
About 3" short on the substrate but that will be sorted tomorrow, the main thing was to get her into a warm enclosure with a heat mat (she was sitting on top ov a vivarium getting heat from that) and she has a good 3" to dig at until tomorrow

so pics later tonight people...
LRC xxx

well good luck lisa.

I got a 20 gal the other day and I'm still not sure what to do with it lol.

I'm looking forward to the pics.

I want to do a tank that big, but just as one community for H. longimanus.

ok here's yesterdays work.... scorpion went in late this afternoon

1) took out all the decor from the aquarium... lovely and smelly under the undergravel filter lol


2) Tank now cleaned and 1st dividing glass in place


3) There is a rad behind the tank so it cured the silicone over night so in went the stones, cut up filterplate with tube and the substrate... followed by the het. becalonae. Extra substrate going in tomorrow. water has not yet been added for obvious reasons lol!


So tomorrow all going well the two het. madraspatensis will be going in
Note the small heat mat in the becalonae. this isn't a permanent fixture just temp until i affix the big heat mats to the back.
And finally to add this picture... it shows the black and brown dappled effect of the colouring which is a pain to catch on camera, this is the first time i have got it properly

pretty cool.

4) finished this about an hour or so ago. all the dividing panels are now in
(I need to get some vinegar solution on the glass... far too many streaks for my liking!)

man that's so cool! it's deep enough to keep deep burrowers too... you could keep like 10 haplopelmas in dividers in that giant lol.

oi dont go giving my hubby idea's!!!!! it's my chuffing tank!

But I am building him a shed load of smaller tanks for all his haplopelma's and various other earth tigers.

Sit them along the top of the water dragon viv, so yes we could get about 10 on top of there because that is 4ft long too!
Works out a lot cheaper building your own, especially when you buy the glass in bulk

Looks great lisa

Im thinking of doing something similar for pokies

i'm kicking myself really because it is such an obvious thing to do if you are practical enough, i wish i had thought of doing something like this years ago!

And i reckon a row of pokies would look good too!

Looks awesome. Now I want to see it with each section filled!

That looks really really nice. I have been working on my 20 gal tank...building a mega hide out of cork tiles that will allow me to see them when they are napping out. I hope it works. Keep giving us more pics Lisa

Mr. Mordax wrote:

Looks awesome. Now I want to see it with each section filled!

Hahahaha that wont tank me long mike! 2 more are about to go in!

And Bayss, sounds like a good idea you have there you will have to get some pics when it is finished Only problem i found with 'peek-a-boo' hides is that they never use them unless you cover the viewing area with card or something. And just take it off to have a nosey

enclosure 1 is just about finished finished. Substrate level topped up close to 6". heterometrus madraspatensis female in #2 and the het.madras' male is in #4

as you can see enclosure #5 has the filter in place ready for substrate and #3.. i ran out of undergravel filter by about an inch!!!! HOW ANNOYING!

A partial lid is on until I get a full size lid next week. The temperature is pretty snug in there, as a guess it's about 80 degrees... even at the other end of the tank where there is no heat mat.

Sooo planting. I know spiderplants and sweetheart vines grow pretty well in anything, does anyone have any other suggestions for planting?
What have you had in your terranium that grows well?
I think I have seen umberella plants in newly set up terraniums but i dont know how well they do in the long term

cheers connie

hahahaha! I can just see that on the wedding gift list!

microwave
toaster
other household stuff
big scorpion tank with lots of compartments

In regards to planting, I hear that most live plants don't tend to do well with burrowing scorpions. Although spider plants would be pretty cool . . .

All I can say is WOW!!! What's going in 3 and 5?

the spinnifers will be going into #3 and the swammerdammi will be going in #5

the spinnifers are 2" at the moment and about to shed so i think they will be fine to go in once they have popped. They are one of those species that you can rely on to eat and shed ok, pretty much leave them to their own devices with little or no problem

the swammerdammi is fat and hardly eats at the moment. it hasn't eaten in ages. so once that has shed a couple of times it can go in too. It's only 1" at the moment so i want to grow it on a little.

I think i may put in spider plants as they are soooo robust and do feed on a lot of stuff that isn't good for other plants.. good air cleaners too if you smoke - as i found out the other day.
~I know sweetheart vines do exceptionally well in these kinds of enclosures. In my last 4ft tank i planted a 3" vine.... 12 months later it covered the entirety of the back glass panel, looked pretty sweet. when i eventually took the tank apart, the longest vine was 8 feet long and had thrown out about 6 runners... thats a lot of plant!

That is looking soooo good! Check out Earth Star Plants...crypthanus I think is the proper name. They do good in terrariums and look really cool...interesting colors and stay compact. They kinda mound up and look like a starfish. Thanks for the tip on my peek-a-boo hides. Maybe they will at least like to climb around on it.

Here we go...Cryptanthus Bivittatus or Earth Star

Or Not! Anyway...you can see it online. Apparently they don't want to let anyone see it