koast519

do you think this will work?
glass in tank like a divided silicone it but leave about 6 in gap in the bottom and glass on top ( one side only) silicone that too. put water in suck vacuum suck water and make one side rain forest vivarium with frog or whatever and the otherside for aquarium..

gremlin

Leaving a gap in the bottom of the divider will let water and critters go from one side to the other. I've thought about doing something like this with a betta... You would almost need to have a tall tank so that most of the bottom would be the aquarium part with lots of swimming room. You could use a deep plastic tub to hold dirt for the plants/land part and either put long legs on it (like Roman columns) or have it hanging from the top framework. Fill the tank about half full of water and the vivarium part would be the top half. If the tub with the dirt is only about half the diameter of the tank, then that would leave plenty of surface area for the fishies to come to the top to be fed and for the filter and heater to work.

koast519

something like a open bottom tank i was thinking

Slug

Why not just make a true vivarium or better yet the newest craze, a "Riparium"! Seems like your plan is more complicated then it should be.

A riparium is like a vivarium but it uses plant baskets to hang them above the water that fills the bottom. It simulates close to a riverbank or bank of a body of water. Here are some examples:
http://ripariumsupply.com/about.html

gremlin

Great pics above. That's kind of what I was suggesting, but I couldn't find any pics to show what I meant.

koast519

nice tank..i was thinking of that too but i wanted the water high on 1 side and something like those pic on the other..

Nutter

If I have the correct idea about what you mean, you want to silicone glass into a L-shape so that you can fill one side of the with water higher than the other. Effectivley sealing the water on one half with a glass lid. Do I have it right?

If I do then you are going to come across a couple of problems. The first & most obvious being that frogs etc on one side won't have access to the water unless they can get over the middle partition, & then they might not be able to get back out, especially if they swim right down under the sealed half. The next problem would be the reduced surface area for oxygen exchange. Then you would find that you won't have sufficient humidity in the sealed half of the tank to grow vivarium style plants in or sustain the animal life. Even if you don't put a partition all the way to the top of the tank so that some humidity is spread right through the tank for it's out of water inhabitants you will have trouble getting good circulation of the water for heating & filtration. Then there would be the trouble you would have decorating underneath the sealsed section.

If I were you I would pick one or the other, vivarium or aquarium. Don't try to mix the two unless you do it the traditional way of just having the lower half for fish & the upper half for plants & animals. With all those problems I have listed I'm inclined to think that I'm not clearly understanding what you want to do.

gremlin

Something like this? I think is what they have in mind...

Although, unless the aquarium side is completely sealed at the top, it would not work. And having it completely sealed at the top would make it very difficult to maintain that side of the tank.

Attached Files

fishlore divided aquarium vivarium.pdf (28.5 KB, 16 views)

Nutter

The laws of physics tell us that the pressure of the water on one side of the tank will force the level to be the same on the other side as well. You would need to install a physical barrier on one side of the tank to stop the water rising to the same level as the other side or or you will have is an aquarium with a permanant divider.

It glass would need to look like the picture on the top or you will end up with water levels like the picture on the bottom.

Attached Images

VIVARIUM.jpg (64.5 KB, 31 views)

Slug

But remember you must clean this too, so design should be important and easy to maintain.

Nutter

That's correct Slug. I realised that as well but I was so busy pointing out all the other problems with the design that I forgot to include it.

In short Koast519, bad idea. Stick to either one or the other. If you want a smaller area of land than a traditional vivarium then just build the back up higher using a light material like polystyrene then covering it with rocks & plants etc. Fill it with more water than the usual vivarium & there you go, room for your froggies & plenty of room for your fish to without all the problems associated with the other design.

Betafish305ca

cool

koast519

i agree would be kind of a pain trying to clean it but you guys are right in point and it was just idea that came to me cause i got a extra 55 gal and 30 gallon setting in the backyard and wanted to do some odd with it...