Exo Terra Vivarium/waterfall w/ Chameleon

[LucyLoo]

I'm fairly new to the forums (and chameleons and thier husbandry in general) and just wanted to come out of lurking and say this is a neat project and thank you for sharing it!

I do not have experience with bioactive soil and drainage, but what about adding a second or even third drainage point so it drains a little faster and doesn't have as much time to build up?

It must be hard to work with glass and not be able to "undo" an extra hole as easily; I just finished my Lucy's "Big Curly Girly" cage with a homemade misting system and even dealing with having to drill into just screen and plastic made me nervous

It looks great so far! I'm excited to see where it goes once you have the drainage right and it is inhabited!

 

[jamest0o0]

Just wanted looked through this thread and seems pretty interesting. Any updates on how this is going? I have often, just for fun, played with the idea of some sort of sump/refugium.

 

[RcManChild]

@jamest0o0

I love the look of the tank but I abandoned the water fall...

I was hoping that I would not need to replace the water every 2-3 days....

So here is where I feel I went wrong...

When I did the drainage layer, I tried to put rocks over top of the hydro balls... Unfortunately Nothing separated the soil from the rocks.....

So Everything worked very well other then the return system...
I am debating whether or not I do this again....

If I do I will get some glass pieces and silicone some glass maybe 4"x4" in the bottom of the exo terra where the water lands.

I have also learned that the Exo terra Sun ray fixture is garbage.

So I will be switching to an Arcadia Lighting system I think, along with a different heat source.

Here is a picture of the cage as it sits today...

Full of plant life. Bromeliad and Orchid are surprisingly both still alive...