Tank Trestle

[vallery]

Hi everyone ,

I just wanted to share a helpful Idea. I can't post pictures because I still can't figure out how. So hopefully I can explain it well enough.

I was building a new tank set up for my Pleurodonte Isabella last night and I came up with an Idea to make a background trestle for their tank since they are always sticking to the side of the tank and mucking it up. So I took some sticks and garden string and made a trestle for the back of the tank, which covers the entire back of their tank.

Then I wove Devils Ivy and Baltic Ivy and English Ivy all around the trestle sticks and let some hang down, then dug two holes in the earth and packed the substrate around the bottom of the sticks and plant roots (you could do this with small plastic pots as well).

It has worked out great, they love the trestle and are not sticking themselves on the tank walls anymore. I am sure I will get a few sticking themselves to the sides at times were the trestle isn't but this cuts way down on them mucking up the sides with slime and poop.

These Ivy plants have always grown well in my tanks and they are tough with broad leaves so the snails can easily sit on the leaves.

I am going to re do my other tanks this way.

I also have a new very high up right tank. I have my Cepaea nemoralis and Cepaea hortensis in the same tank and I want to separate the species and put one of the species in the high tank up right tank.

I am going to try to do a background plant trestle with an over hang like you see grape plants growing on, in the new high tank to see if that will stop the snails I plan to put in there from climbing all the way up to the very top. This tank is about 2 and a half feet high.

If anyone has another idea so the snails don't go all the way to the very top I hope you will share it.

Thank You
vallery

[morningcoffee]

That's a great idea vallery! I'm sure the snails love it

As a similar thing, I used to use Exo Terra hanging artificial plants - they have a suction cup at the top so you can stick them to tank walls and the leaves hang down the wall. My smaller snails used to love hiding in/under the leaves. As they're artificial, you can remove them and wash them easily if they get dirty. However they only cover a small section of the tank wall, and I like the idea of real plants more for a really natural tank set-up

[vallery]

Hi morningcoffee ,

Thank You

I believe I will use your artificial plant with suction cup Idea.

The tanks lid is glass and comes in two pieces so I can place screen on one half of the top and then just use one of the pieces glass top.

I can probably tape the screen to the one half glass that I will be using and suction cup artificial plants to it if that makes sense.

Do you use or have used silk or plastic artificial plants?

Thank you so much for the great Idea.

vallery

[muddydragon]

i'm afriad they love climbing so will almost always go all the way to the top. but i also love decorating my tanks with things for them to climb on. There's some bendy twigs you can get which are fantastic (lucky reptile branches) they love climbing on them. I've had both plastic and silk plants in the past, i say go for the plastic, the silk plants suffer more from the moisture, are harder to clean and more likely to fall about and generally get more raggedy over time.