# How to put live plants into vivarium, HELP



## bobo10 (Sep 10, 2010)

Hi, im wanting to try and use live plants in a vivarium that will be getting setup over the weekend, and im going to try and use live plants within it, which i have never done before.
The tank is for the white lipped tree frogs, and i was told to use a Pothes plant, as they hold quite well apparently.
Iv been told you can put pebbles in the bottom and then lay down soil or woodchips on top, as this would act as a drainage.
Can somebody please just basically tell me what to do in order to get it right.
Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks.


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## OlyFroggyBoy (Nov 18, 2009)

You can use rocks yes, but they will make the tank very heavy as you will need about 2 or so inches of rocks. The best stuff to use are hydroleca balls, which are lightweight little clay balls. Fill the bottom of the tank with about 2-3 inches of them, then get some sort of weed mesh and lay it over the balls, this seperates the earth from the balls. Once the mesh is in place you can put your substrate in, if i was you just go with plain eco earth. then simply push the roots in the soil, if they dont feel sturdy enough, you could put some big pebbles round the base of the stem. Make sure the pebbles are too big for the frogs to eat. 

Hope this helps


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## bobo10 (Sep 10, 2010)

OlyFroggyBoy said:


> You can use rocks yes, but they will make the tank very heavy as you will need about 2 or so inches of rocks. The best stuff to use are hydroleca balls, which are lightweight little clay balls. Fill the bottom of the tank with about 2-3 inches of them, then get some sort of weed mesh and lay it over the balls, this seperates the earth from the balls. Once the mesh is in place you can put your substrate in, if i was you just go with plain eco earth. then simply push the roots in the soil, if they dont feel sturdy enough, you could put some big pebbles round the base of the stem. Make sure the pebbles are too big for the frogs to eat.
> 
> Hope this helps


Would i not just be able to use woodchippings or cocofibre, and just put the plant pot into that.
What do you reckon.
Thankyou


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## Ron Magpie (Oct 11, 2009)

bobo10 said:


> Would i not just be able to use woodchippings or cocofibre, and just put the plant pot into that.
> What do you reckon.
> Thankyou


 Yes, you could, although it might be best to repot the plants in fresh, fertiliser-free soil. The advantage of doing it that way is that if the plants peg it (some probably will!) you can just hoik out the pot and bung in a replacement.


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## bobo10 (Sep 10, 2010)

Ron Magpie said:


> Yes, you could, although it might be best to repot the plants in fresh, fertiliser-free soil. The advantage of doing it that way is that if the plants peg it (some probably will!) you can just hoik out the pot and bung in a replacement.


Ok cool, Thanks for that, appreciate it.


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