Planning a PDF tank (my White's divided-water/land tank idea has been shelved ... I'm moving on to what I've always dreamed of having, PDFs, with a much more planted tank and smaller streamlets rather than one large waterfall). The tank is approx. a 25 gal. tall (I think ... if 10 gal. is the 'standard' size tank you see in every pet store, then mine is basically twice that and a little more).

So right now my plans are such: (badly rushed Paint pictures later)

-Rock wall will have many areas for plants and hideouts, starting thin at the top and coming down to about 1/3 of the tanks with at the bottom.

-False bottom tank, water lever rather high though gravel/moss substrate will be scooped out for a small pond. Larger rocks for contrast.

-Fully planted, no plastic here

-Instead of one waterfall, and trying to go for a removable foam background (my problem with the first project), I'll instead make this one using GS on a mold, cut it off with a straight blade, and silicone it to the tank.

-It will have a few streamlets from a modified drip system connected to the pump, that will fill about three succeeding (right word?) pools down to the floor. Many pockets and a couple larger 'pots' for bigger plants.

-A couple hand-made PDF huts made from hollowed out GS $ siliconed foam chunks.

Sounds good to me, and in planning actually seems so much easier to maintain then what I wanted before. Sorry Dumpy's, but if I ever plan on buying a pair of you again I'm going to do it right with a bigger, taller tank and nice sturdy heavy plants.

With all that said, my idea of planting this would include:

Acorus

Pitcher plant

Maranta

various orchids and bromeliads, mostly epiphyte variaties but maybe one large bromeliad on the floor

The last plant I'm wondering about is a Dieffenbachia, "dumb-cane plant" also known as "mother-in-law plant". Poisonus, but technically it's the sap that contains oddly shaped cells that cause irritation and swelling when swallowed, can be especially harmful in small children and pets. I wounldn't think this would be a problem for the PDFs, right? Or am I oblivious to something? On that note, anyone have any experience with any dwarf varieties of this, or am I looking at something that will quickly outgrow everything else? That's the same reason I passed on any Philodendrons and Ficus (though I loved the elastica, that's actually the 'strong' plant I want for a White's tree frog tank one day).

Sorry, I type forever. Thanks for any advice. New to PDFs, but confident with plenty of research behind me and patience ahead of me that I can take great care of these little beauties.