Starting Out
Dr. David Hepworth
Last update: 17 February 2000
I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about a project that I have been working on for several years. In fact it was 2 years ago almost to the day.
Having always had a lifelong interest in both keeping animals (I am a Zoologist by training) and also in art, it therefore seems natural to combine the two. What better way to do this than create a miniature ecosystem inside a vivarium, make it look fantastic and also sustainable? Easy I thought, two years ago. If only I had known!
The first vivarium leaked, misted up and went mouldy. The second one looked good but was difficult to service. After that I got better and I have now worked out some good environmental control systems. However, another problem was to decide which animals to put in. Dendrobatid frogs were an obvious choice. I soon found that the different species preferred different types of vivaria and different types of plants. For example, D. pumilio and D. tinctorius love tall vivaria with loads of bromeliads, spending the night in these plants and coming out to hunt at dawn and dusk. In contrast, my D. auratus climb much less.
I'm sure that these are things that you all know about but it did take me some time to get things right. I have also found it possible to keep different species together in large vivaria, especially if they are exploiting different niches. An interesting aspect of these large vivaria is that they generate a lot of food for the frogs; small flies and springtails abound in the leaf litter and presumably all add to the health of the frogs. Frogs kept in these large vivaria seem to breed much more readily than those kept in a standard setup and generally appear much more lively.
My latest vivarium is 4 ft high, 3 ft wide and 3 ft deep (1.3m high x 1m wide x 1m deep.) I made it myself out of acrylic, bent and glued so that it is completely clear with no visible joins. It is designed to look like a small slice of S. American rainforest, with an artificial tree base and a shallow stream section containing neon tetras. It doesn't mist up although the humidity is over 85% and there is no mould or algae. I intend to add some arboreal dart frogs in the near future. If anybody is interested in this sort of setup themselves then please contact me. I have loads of information. I would also be interested to hear about other people's experiences with naturalistic vivaria.
Dr David G. Hepworth can be contacted by e-mail at either: David.Hepworth@bbsrc.ac.uk or David.Hepworth1@tesco.net