Natural Vivarium Update

[Niayre]

How do you heat the tank with the substrate for your vivarium? I've been playing with the idea of building part of one of my tanks into a vivarium type area, but I wasn't sure how to heat it without hurting the plants. Do you just leave it as the cooler side of the tank?

 

[jakemyster44]

I have two lamps over the tank, each with a 60 watt incandescent bulb. I also have a heat pad in the back panel of glass behind the rock pile that stays on 24/7.

 

[jakehinds]

I just printed off a few images of their natural habitat and brought them to a local stone yard (they sell tons of rock used for construction/landscaping). The employees were very helpful in pointing me in the right direction and I was able to take my pick from various types of stone. I just grabbed what I thought looked most natural. The smaller rocks were actually bagged up to be sold as "mulch", but they happened to match the colors perfectly. Everything was pretty cheap (~$30) too!
I'd really like to know for sure the true composition of their wild substrate. From pictures it seems to be more of a clay with sand/dust scattered on the surface than a soil (in the traditional sense). Those are just my thoughts. But we're definitely on the same page here, its always great finding someone who shares my passion for replicating the natural environment as closely as possible. After keeping geckos both in a rack system and in the natural viv, I would never go back to keeping geckos in the rack again. I find it much more enjoyable to watch them behave naturally than to keep them in a 9"x13" tub just to sit under the same plastic hide and pop out eggs...

So, I've been looking into the substrate and I found a rock place like a mile away from me that sells stuff for like .15-.50 cents a pound and it looks pretty cool so I'll go there for my rock needs. But what i was thinking was this; take a 1/2" piece of styrofoam that is a bit smaller than my terrarium, and cover it with a grout/sand mixture. Put that in the terrarium, with the rocks scattered about but not full rock so they can choose what they want. Then once i get that done, I'll measure up the polystyrene for the background and do that. Now i just need to convince my parents that traveling all over town is worth it. lol

 

[MiamiHurricane]

I love this project and I want to do something very similar to show off some of my more beautiful geckos.