So this is my first ever viv build, but I knew from the start I wanted to have a waterfall in it. It is an exoterra 18 cube. I started by taking a diagonal section out of what would otherwise have been a rectangular false bottom.
![Click the image to open in full size.]()
This is a picture of it upside-down, but the 'missing' corner can be seen at the front.
I then cut out a rectangular piece of egg crate that spanned the height of my tank and would line up with that aforementioned missing corner. I wrapped this piece with screen to help keep big pieces of debris from getting to the pump. I don't have a picture of it fitted in the tank before I GSed it, but here is a picture of the corner piece from above.
![Click the image to open in full size.]()
It left just enough room for me to squeeze the pump in there. Being my first build I was afraid to take too much room from the floor space of the viv so I made the pump housing very small. Looking back on it I wish I had left myself more room to put the pump in because it's a pain to remove it or put it back in.
This is a pic of the pump I got from Lowe's on the cheap because the packaging was damaged.
![Click the image to open in full size.]()
I can't recall the GPH it puts out, but it was the smallest pump I could find in their outdoor gardening area.
The waterfall itself is a piece of cork bark. While I was at the Phoenix Reptile Expo I was on the lookout for a piece of cork that had a notch from which the water could come out without the pump hose being visible. When I got the newly purchased bark home I drilled a hole from the back that would fit the pump hose. The following picture shows where I drilled the bark and where the water will flow from.
![Click the image to open in full size.]()
Next I cut a hole in the mesh of the waterfall egg crate so the hose could reach the drilled hole in the back of the bark.
![Click the image to open in full size.]()
Before I started up my pump for the first time inside the tank, I picked up a filter sock from Petsmart. The packaging says they're used for aquarium filters, but it was just big enough to fit my pump, and for 98 cents, I wouldn't have been heartbroken if it didn't fit.
![Click the image to open in full size.]()
So I finally slid the pump into its snug home behind the egg crate wall, wrestled with the hose to get it into the hole I had cut in the mesh and then firmly in the hole I had drilled in the cork.
![Click the image to open in full size.]()
I left the hose a little too long thinking I could use the waterfall pump to lower the water level in the tank by taking the hose out of the cork and hanging out the back into a bucket.
![Click the image to open in full size.]()
And that's it! My freshly planted viv, (hours old! :D), with a cork bark waterfall!
This is a picture of it upside-down, but the 'missing' corner can be seen at the front.
I then cut out a rectangular piece of egg crate that spanned the height of my tank and would line up with that aforementioned missing corner. I wrapped this piece with screen to help keep big pieces of debris from getting to the pump. I don't have a picture of it fitted in the tank before I GSed it, but here is a picture of the corner piece from above.
It left just enough room for me to squeeze the pump in there. Being my first build I was afraid to take too much room from the floor space of the viv so I made the pump housing very small. Looking back on it I wish I had left myself more room to put the pump in because it's a pain to remove it or put it back in.
This is a pic of the pump I got from Lowe's on the cheap because the packaging was damaged.
I can't recall the GPH it puts out, but it was the smallest pump I could find in their outdoor gardening area.
The waterfall itself is a piece of cork bark. While I was at the Phoenix Reptile Expo I was on the lookout for a piece of cork that had a notch from which the water could come out without the pump hose being visible. When I got the newly purchased bark home I drilled a hole from the back that would fit the pump hose. The following picture shows where I drilled the bark and where the water will flow from.
Next I cut a hole in the mesh of the waterfall egg crate so the hose could reach the drilled hole in the back of the bark.
Before I started up my pump for the first time inside the tank, I picked up a filter sock from Petsmart. The packaging says they're used for aquarium filters, but it was just big enough to fit my pump, and for 98 cents, I wouldn't have been heartbroken if it didn't fit.
So I finally slid the pump into its snug home behind the egg crate wall, wrestled with the hose to get it into the hole I had cut in the mesh and then firmly in the hole I had drilled in the cork.
I left the hose a little too long thinking I could use the waterfall pump to lower the water level in the tank by taking the hose out of the cork and hanging out the back into a bucket.
And that's it! My freshly planted viv, (hours old! :D), with a cork bark waterfall!