Walter's Vivarium

First I put the tank together. The construction page shows 
how I assembled it. The first animal I added was the Betta. 
I then added 4 Neon Tetras and 2 Ramshorn snails. The Betta 
chased the Tetras around until he killed one. I took the 
other 3 back to the store. The Ramshorn snails only ate live 
water plants. A $3 Ramshorn snail eats about $6 worth of 
plants a day. I brought them back too. 

I then bought the African Clawed Frog 
and a few freshwater clams. I learned 
that the Betta wants to be left alone.
Even though the frog was bigger than the
Betta, the Betta harassed the frog a lot.
He would flare his gills at the frog and
push him around, while the frog stayed
motionless. After awhile, the frog would
either move or slap the Betta. It became
apparent that I needed to seperate the
Frog and the Betta. I also discovered
that this little 2 inch Frog I bought
would soon be a good 10 inches long. I
started a second tank for the Frog.

The Frog seemed lonely in there, so I 
bought a Paddle Tailed Newt. They 
would lean on each other and step on each
other and both were very permissive of 
each other. They seemed like pals. The 
only problem would be if the Newt wanted 
to eat. We would feed them at opposite 
ends of the tank, and the Frog would go 
right over to the Newt and eat any food 
near it. Then the Frog would go back and 
eat his own. We would have to feed the 
Newt on the sly while the Frog wasn't 
looking.

In August of 2003 Orpheus the Bettta died.
With the Frog in a seperate tank and the 
Newt in a third tank, there was now nobody
living in the Vivarium. I wanted animals 
that would go on land and in the water, so I 
bought 2 Fiddler Crabs, one Fire-bellied Toad, 
and some guppies.
 

The Crab walks around up on land, and
also scavanges at the bottom of the 
water. The crab eats dead plants and 
leftover food. It's nice to have him 
running around cleaning up. He also 
borrows in the substrate, making nice
little tunnels to the water.