vivarium

[mattman]

I have a question is the pebbles and active coal at the bottom under the soil necessary.and when I put a fan in it what size of fan is a appropriate size fan for a 40 gal tank I will only turn it on about once a day just to get the stale air out

 

[The Snark]

A little more information would help. What are you keeping and what's the environment?

 

[mattman]

i am going for a mossy forest floor, live plants and vines and keeping amphibians salamanders frogs and the two american toads ive had for the past year

 

[viper69]

You'd want to look into what your fans CFM is before you choose

 

[mattman]

i got a fan out of a old microwave

 

[The Snark]

VERY roughly a fan moves about 1 CFM for every 10 watts. Most fans are rated in amperes, amps. To derive watts (Power, P) multiply volts (V) times amps (I). P=IxE. If air flow is restricted, that 1 CFM can easily become .5 or less.

 

[RzezniksRunAway]

Depending on what you're going for you can do a false bottom or a drainage layer. Go for hydroton or something similar, which is an expanded clay ball that's super lightweight, activated charcoal mixed in as kind of an impurity remover. I use fiberglass screen overtop of that, then my soil mix (Based off an ABG mix, tweaked to fit my laziness), then add my plants. My tanks all have easy plants, no broms, no orchids. I buy the "exotic angel plants" from lowes or home depot. No fans, my tanks are front-open exoterras and zoomeds, but I'm only keeping geckos in them, so it's not super high humidity. I did one tank without a drainage layer and ended up tearing it apart less than 2 months later, it just wasn't functioning properly.

Hop on over to Dendroboards and check out some of their tanks. Some of those guys post some insanely detailed step-by-step builds. There are a few in the vivariums and terrariums section on here, as well.