In this video I tear down a 40 gallon breeder aquarium and show you how to repurpose it into a front opening vivarium. I'll be using it for dart frogs but this type of vivarium could be used for an array of small exotic pets.
holy shit, was just expecting like a basic diy vivarium, but you went all out and made a proper vivarium that couldve come straight from a store, i tip my hat to you sir :P
I’m a Doc and don’t have time to make those front loading Terrariums. I paid a company $750 to make three 24 X 24 X 24 cubes. Lol.. that was 8 years ago and never got the tanks or my money back. Great work! I’m quite envious of this talent.
This is one of the most well done, thought out and professional functional builds i have ever seen in my entire life. Ive been looking for a video like this for so long. An absolute game changer
Great video all around! Love that you took the time too explain your steps in depth. Normally I'm ready forwarding of skipping videos all together but was interested throughout your done video. Keep up the great work and thanks!
Brilliant mate. Thank you, I am going to take a fifty gallon top opening tank and I want to make it a front opening tank for my beardie. You make it look so easy haha
Other online tips that I tried and liked.......After thoroughly cleaning the tank to prevent the debris from scraping the glass (always be gentle in cleaning and scraping or the glass will scratch), spray the silicon and underside of the rim with WD40 and let sit for 24 hours (Note: place the tank on trash bags so you don't ruin your floor). The putty knife should be able to work the rims off but you can always carefully cut the rim while protecting the glass with putty knives. The rest of the silicon should come up easily with the razor blade now. I recommend running the razor 1/3 the way down each of the corners first when separating the glass from itself (when I did not do this the glass chipped). This released some of the pressure so the razor was not getting stuck toward the bottom of the corner. VERY IMPORTANT-Thoroughly wash the glass several times and use acetone to remove any remaining WD40 or your new silicon will fail. Note: My razor blades dulled very fast. I probably went through 10 blades.
Great to see this I have a 2 40 gallon tanks I like to convert over to this with sliding doors in the front and still have the mesh top. My son and daughter love animals. Like snakes, Turtles, Hamsters ect and 40 gallon tanks are great for there pets. but hate haveing to go in the top every time to get to the animal's. I want to put the sliding doors in the front so they can have 2 options either top or side. to get in to the tank. My son wants his like this so when we redo his room he wants Shelves to put his tanks one and be able to stack them so he can have more Turtles snakes and such yet not have to go in the top every time to do any cleaning or handling of his pets. and a 40 gallon tank can be very very heavy, having to take down from a shelf ect.
Pretty impressive bro! Great DIY Build. I've got tons of spare tanks laying around. I think I might try it. Even though you make it look so simple I'm sure I'll fudge it up. Lol
Thanks! I have a lot of experience breaking down tanks and cutting glass. It does take some practice but it really isn't that difficult either. Main thing is to be patient and take your time.
@@TCSDartFrogs I can 100% +1 this. My first tank was pretty bad with many improvements lacking. The second tank was a huge improvement, and so was the third compared to the second one. I've been able to keep the quality consistent since and from time to time some very appreciated incremental improvements that I learned over time specifically made for my needs. Building terrariums became an essential skill for me because commercially available enclosures are either over priced or they don't provide so many benefits I have to building them according to my specific needs, but usually the case is both. In the long run this skill really gives you premium benefits while saving you money. Thank you for making this video, Travis! L.E.: Not to mention that if you manage to turn this hobby into a business I can assure you you will save so much time and resources by being able to simply give good directions and knowing what you want from the start, and building your own enclosures will surely show you standards you didn't even know you have.
I've made a few tanks now based off this video and they are progressively looking cleaner in build quality, so thank you for the great tutorial! But I do have a quick question, are the majority of your front opening enclosures built from 40 gallons? I saw in you frog room tour that you had 2 large front openings at the bottom of the rack (housing your 16 year old azureus laif) and the rest above those are a tad smaller. What do you typically use to build those? Just 20s?
Travis, this is a brilliant idea given the astronomical costs of front opening vivs and terrariums. Can you provide a little bit more detail as far as your build... How many cuts are you making, what dimensions are these pieces of glass that you were using to put your vivs together, how limited am I as far as what size I'm able to build out of a 40 gallon... Things of this nature. I have several ball pythons which I'd like to put in front opening bioactive vivariums, the only thing which bars me from it utilizing front opening the variums is, once again, the astronomical costs of these enclosures. any information that you were able to provide is greatly appreciated!
I'm currently getting all the tools I need to add to my 20 gallon long aquarium sliding glass doors. I never done this before but I heard it was pretty simple, so i did some tutorial research. I'm just tired of lifting the screen lid to feed & clean. too much work. I just want to make sure I get the right tracking, what do you suggest??
i've made my own vivariums from old aquariums kind of a pain haha. where did you get your aluminum spacers and e tracks at? I never found them with adhesive before. haha i had to order a bulk where i got mine. Thanks for the great video
Yea it's certainly not the easiest way to make a vivarium but it probably is the cheapest if you don't count your labor, I got the spacers and track from a friend, I'm not sure where he sources his materials but he makes the tracks himself, unfortunately he doesn't sell to the public
Great video one question on the setup though. Are the front back and sides on top of the bottom piece of glass or on the outside edges of the bottom piece of glass? or does this even matter? I want to make a 30Wx33Hx18D Rimless Paludarium using 1/4 glass with a water feature in the front just below the vent about 6" high of water about 15 Gallons at Max of water. if you have any suggestions on the design your ideas would be much appreciated
im thinking of doing something kinda like this but out of a 20 long i want to cut the front glass to put in doors using the pieces i cut out and haveing them swing out like a exo terra does.. would prefer to do this without taking the tank apart .. is there away to cut it with it in place or should i atleast remove the front panel and do my cuts i need? how would you do this? any vids on this would also be very helpful too
@@TCSDartFrogs where did you buy your e tracks? I'm having a hard time finding black ones and I haven't seen any that already have adhesive backing, I'd really appreciate if you could let me know
hey travis, attempting this and need some help also when you cut your glass how did you make a allowance for the cutter wheel being offset? did you factor it in to your original measurements when you used the the marker? or did you just slightly move your straight edge away from the line and line up your wheel?
I think your overthinking it, you just line the cutter up with the mark and use a straight edge to keep the cutter going in a straight line along the mark.
Great video. I understand the dimensions are 16×16×12...... but what are the smaller glass dimensions like the doors, and all the other smaller cuttings
Thanks! All the smaller pieces vary with each build, I'm not the best at cutting the glass to the exact size it should be which ends up making the openings bigger or smaller than they should be, each build it varies by fractions of an inch and so I often have to measure and cut as I go, the doors are often something you need to measure for and then cut as they need to fit just so. I believe the doors are roughly 8 1/2" x 7". I don't know the exact measurements of the rest of the pieces but since many people have asked about the dimensions I may make a video laying out all the different pieces you would need.
I got them from a guy who builds custom vivariums but he doesn't sell to the public anymore, I believe you can get square aluminum tubing at most hardware stores and cut it into the size you need. Alternatively you can cut small pieces of glass and glue them together in a stack until you have the size spacer you need.
I appreciate what you did there, I was looking to do something similar for a Bearded Dragon so I want to keep it as large as it can be. I basically want to just put the doors on the front of the tank, and will probably need another piece of glass for the top. Any tips, suggestions would be great.
I’m making one for my bearded dragon right now. It’s essentially what he’s doing, but rather than undoing the whole tank I’m only going to take out one pane of glass to cut into shape for sliding doors. That way the top can still have a mesh cover for airflow. So from the five faces of an preexisting aquarium, only take out one to cut and turn into a sliding door to silicone back into place. Hope this helps
They just slide into place, the channel at the top is larger than the bottom channel so you just have to push them up far enough to get them into the slots. Best thing to do is make a template out of cardboard to make sure it fits before cutting the glass or before ordering glass.
Awesome product. But to pay for the 3dprinted parts plus glass you can get a 40gallon terrarium when they are on sale. Currently at petco a 40g terrarium is $129. Nonetheless, cool product
The great thing about making you own tank is that you can make the measurements whatever you want, and if you can't calculate the measurements for building a tank then I probably wouldn't suggest attempting it in the first place.
I didn't understand the Sherman Vent. What is that exactly? It seemed like the screen was glued on top of the glass rather then between the glass strips. Did I just see it incorrectly?
I'm really having a hard time finding that as well. I've found some brown ones but black is either hard to find or stupid expensive (as in over 25 bucks for just the top or bottom track... that's insane. It would be cheaper to buy a terrarium!)
@@sarahtedrow3692 they're expensive too though. I had found them as one of the few who carry the tracks in black but they only sell in multiples of 12 ft which is fine but shipping is another 14 bucks. So to get one set of 12ft tracks cut to say 4ft pieces it runs at about 30 dollars. That's a lot for some plastic. Eek
The glass is shorter than the opening, but the E channel's edges are tall enough that the glass doesn't fall out or into the vivarium. It is hard to explain but the top edge of the glass is inserted at a slight angle into the top E channel. Then the glass is lifted straight up as it is straightened/swung inward until it is above the lower E channel. At that point the bottom edge of the glass is set down into the bottom E channel. The bottom edge of the glass is resting on the bottom of the lower E channel while the top edge of the glass has a gap above it inside of the E channel. To take the glass out, the process is reversed. The glass is lifted straight up inside of the E channel until the bottom edge of the glass is higher than the top of the lower E channel, then you simply swing the glass towards the outside of the tank until it clears the edge of the bottom E channel and pull it down, out of the upper E channel.
it looks lovely! Cant find decently priced L-tracks... you'd think an extruded piece of plastic wouldn't cost so much! Does the steel mesh ever rust from the moisture in the tank? Thank you for the video!
Thanks for the question! It really depends what size tank you want to build. Your not going to have nearly as much glass with a 20 gal long, alternatively you can also buy glass precut to the size you need from any glass shop if you are not interested in spending the time to tear a tank apart. I do not sell tadpoles.
A low wattage heat lamp would probably be fine but anytime you heat or cool glass too quickly you run the risk of it cracking or shattering. I would recommend putting a larger screen section if you plan to have heat bulbs on top of the enclosure.
Wish I had some of these tools and they weren't so expensive... I'd probably get carried away and build something every other week. I enjoy building tanks (thus far only the interior portion) way too much Too much for my wallet that's for sure 😂
*I actually ended up investing in a dremel (the 3000) and took apart a 55gallon and put 2 tanks together completely from scratch. Trust me when I say it isn't as easy as youtubers make it look. Was it worth it? Yes. Would I do it again? 99.99% sure I won't. Royal pain in the ass. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong and it isn't as fun as doing a background. For me it really took the joy out of it and felt like work. Definitely don't recommend it at all.
It could be done with glass but I'm not sure what you mean by swivel doors, if you're talking about a hinged door then yes that is possible and should be in an upcoming video.
@@TCSDartFrogs awesome work ! Well maybe for an additional stream of income make An Amazon account or something else , search for the products and put the links here as a reseller. Great work 👍
Can you please help me.. I want to make a divider for my 55 gallon terrarium but I dont know what to use.. glass or plexiglass. It's for my juvenile cornsnakes.
@@TCSDartFrogs permanent is ok with me I can reuse the tank for other reptiles in the future. I just want it to be divided well without them slythering to the others side of the tank lol
@@GirMommie20 If you don't mind it being permanent, I'd use glass and silicone it in place, the tank would obviously need to be cleaned out completely do that and I would recommend waiting at least a week before putting anything living in there after the silicone has cured.
