Description

Commission a Custom-Built Bioactive Euro Vivarium

A Frogfather custom-built vivarium is not an off-the-shelf enclosure with a background added to it. Each one is individually designed and hand-built around the needs of its future inhabitants, the space available in your home and the appearance you want to achieve.

From the dimensions and ventilation through to the background, planting, wood positioning and equipment, almost every element can be customised.

Our normal build time is approximately four to six weeks from commissioning to completion. Particularly large or complex projects may require additional time, but this will always be discussed with you before the build begins.

A Genuinely Collaborative Design Process

This is not a case of placing an order and waiting to see what arrives. You will be involved throughout the design and build.

We begin by agreeing the dimensions, intended frog species, equipment requirements and overall visual style. We then build the glass Euro vivarium, including its doors, ventilation and any required drainage arrangements.

As the interior develops, we will work together through photographs, videos, calls and messages to finalise:

• The overall visual style and layout
• Background shape, texture and carving
• The positioning of cork, branches and natural wood
• Plant choices and planting positions
• Climbing routes, ledges and usable surfaces
• Hides, feeding areas and breeding locations
• Water areas, streams or water features, where appropriate
• Lighting, misting, monitoring and drainage equipment

This collaborative process gives you the opportunity to shape the design as it develops. The finished vivarium will be suitable for its intended inhabitants, work properly within your available space and be completely unique to you.

What Is Included?

Every commissioned vivarium includes far more than the glass enclosure and visible decoration. It is supplied as a living bioactive environment with the biological foundations required to begin establishing a functioning ecosystem.

Custom-Built Euro Vivarium

The glass enclosure is built to your agreed dimensions and includes carefully positioned ventilation. Fine ventilation mesh helps retain feeder insects while providing the airflow required by a healthy tropical vivarium.

Aged Bioactive Substrate

Rather than starting every build with completely fresh and biologically inactive soil, we maintain large quantities of aged bioactive vivarium substrate.

Our substrate is aged for approximately three to six months and contains established organic matter, beneficial microorganisms and microfauna. This gives every new commission a significant biological head start and means that much of the substrate’s initial maturation process has already taken place.

Aged substrate does not remove the need to test and settle the completed vivarium. Lighting, misting, drainage, plants and newly installed natural materials must still be monitored before frogs are introduced.

Complete Microfauna Clean-Up Crew

Your commissioned vivarium is seeded with the microfauna needed to support a healthy bioactive ecosystem.

• Mixed tropical springtails
• Tropical white woodlice
• Grindal worms
• Additional beneficial organisms already established within the aged substrate

These organisms live within the substrate and leaf litter, where they help consume fungal growth, decaying plant matter, waste and other organic material. They also recycle nutrients back into the substrate and help support a more stable living environment.

Premium Tropical Leaf Litter

Every build includes a functional layer of premium tropical leaf litter.

Leaf litter is not included merely for decoration. It provides hiding places and foraging opportunities for frogs, creates protected humid spaces and supplies food and shelter for the springtails, woodlice and other organisms living within the enclosure.

Live Tropical Plants

Every vivarium includes a carefully selected collection of live tropical vivarium plants.

Plants are selected according to the vivarium’s dimensions, lighting, humidity, intended inhabitants and design. Depending on your chosen specification, the planting may include climbing plants, trailing plants, bromeliads, ferns, mosses, orchids, ground-cover plants and larger feature specimens.

You will be able to discuss your preferred plants, colours, textures and planting positions with us during the build.

Why Choose a Euro-Style Vivarium?

Euro vivariums are particularly well suited to dart frogs and other small tropical amphibians. Unlike many mass-produced reptile enclosures, they can be designed around the environmental and practical requirements of the animals that will live inside them.

Better Humidity Control

The glass construction and carefully positioned ventilation make it easier to maintain the elevated humidity required by tropical amphibians while still providing essential airflow.

This balance is considerably harder to achieve in many off-the-shelf reptile vivariums with large areas of open mesh.

Better Fruit Fly Containment

Dart frogs eat extremely small feeder insects. Melanogaster and hydei fruit flies can easily escape through the mesh and ventilation openings found on many standard reptile enclosures.

Our Euro vivariums use fine ventilation mesh designed with small feeder insects in mind. This significantly reduces the number of fruit flies escaping from the vivarium.

Made to Fit Your Space

A custom Euro vivarium can be built in a wide range of practical shapes and dimensions. This allows us to use an awkward space, provide additional height for climbing species or create a footprint that is not normally available from mainstream manufacturers.

If the exact dimensions you require are not shown in the product options, select the closest available size or choose Bespoke Dimensions.

We will calculate any difference in glass, materials and construction costs and agree this with you before ordering the glass or beginning the build. No additional charge will be made without your agreement.

Designed Around the Intended Animals

Ventilation, drainage, planting, usable surfaces, background design and equipment can all be adapted to the species you intend to keep.

A tall tree-frog vivarium will require a very different layout from a terrestrial dart-frog enclosure. The design will therefore consider how the animals climb, hide, feed, court, breed and use the available space.

Natural Mould During the Settling Period

Although we use aged substrate and established microfauna, newly introduced wood, cork and other natural materials may still develop a temporary white fungal or mould bloom as they acclimatise to the warm, humid environment.

This is a normal part of establishing a bioactive vivarium and is not usually a cause for concern. The springtails, woodlice and other microfauna will feed on the fungal growth, which will normally diminish naturally as the enclosure settles.

We recommend allowing the completed vivarium to stabilise and checking its temperature, humidity, drainage, misting and lighting before introducing frogs.

Available Customisation Options

Depending on the dimensions and intended inhabitants, available options can include:

• Wi-Fi-controlled misting systems
• Full-spectrum plant lighting
• Species-appropriate UVB lighting
• Lighting risers and mounting systems
• Automated drainage
• Water areas, streams or moving water features
• Standard, heavily planted or premium planting packages
• Rare or specimen plants
• Bromeliads and epiphytic planting
• Additional cork, wood and climbing structures
• Custom background carving
• Hides, feeding areas and breeding locations
• Digital temperature and humidity monitoring
• Wi-Fi environmental monitoring

If you need something that is not displayed among the available options, tell us what you have in mind. The options are intended to make commissioning straightforward, not to limit what can be created.

Choosing Your Vivarium Size

Select your preferred dimensions from the available options. If the exact size you require is not shown, choose Bespoke Dimensions and provide your preferred width, depth and height.

Alternatively, select the closest standard size and explain the required dimensions in the design-notes box. We will then confirm whether the proposed dimensions are suitable and calculate any difference in material and construction costs.

Please measure the final location carefully and check that the completed vivarium will fit through every doorway, hallway and stairway leading to that position. Large glass vivariums can be extremely heavy and may require more than one person to move safely.

Collection and Local Delivery

Completed bioactive vivariums are heavy, delicate and contain living plants, matured substrate and an established microfauna population. They cannot safely be sent through a national parcel network.

• Collection: From Nottingham
• Local delivery: £30 within approximately 50 miles of Nottingham
• National parcel delivery: Not available

If you are unsure whether your address falls within our local delivery area, please contact us before placing your commission.

Commission Your Frogfather Vivarium

If you are uncertain about the most appropriate size, ventilation, lighting or internal design for your intended frogs, please contact us before ordering. We will help you choose a suitable starting specification.

Commission your Frogfather Euro vivarium today and work directly with us to create a unique, mature bioactive habitat built specifically for your animals, your home and the way you want it to look.

Experience the Frogfather difference today.