Hi all - I'm a little late to the party, but thought I'd share just the same.
I wasn't much impressed with this line when it came out a few years back, I saw it as it was just starting to be pushed by T-Rex and really thought it to be an over-priced sponge as described. There is a bit more to it though and here is what I learned:
Not your typical sponge - the sponge material for this product is made in Mexico for some very deliberate reasons, apparently the US and a number of other countries require various flame retardent and other chemicals in the sponge production itself, so the company went looking for a place where it could produce the foam without adding anything that could harm even the most fragile of amphibians. I myself don't find the paint attractive (although it is the same used for safety tested infant rattles and such or the foam itself all that good looking in the box but having seen it used in a number of systems it is a great medium for holding/growing a variety of plants which in turn adds to filtration and once fairly covered in plant matter it looks good..
I still wasn't convinced regarding the usefulness of this product especially in comparison to so many of the DIY set ups I've seen over the years. The one thing that impressed me more than any other were the unsolicited testimonials of the pdf breeders who were using it at that show and in their facilities. One in particular - for the life of me I cannot pull the name out of my tired brain right now, but if it is of importance to anyone I can look through some old reciepts as I bought a slew of supplements from them at that show which was where the occaision for hearing about the trex foam system came in - anyway, they swore by the stuff. They had hundreds of froglets for sale and went on (and on and on) about how much increase in breeding and survival they had using those filters - raved about it actually and had a number of them set up that were pretty impressive in exo terra viv's back then.
The story of its development was pretty impressive if you have ever seen any of The Herpetocultural Library books or heard of Philippe De Vosjoli you might be surprised to learn that this product was his idea - took it to a fellow at T Rex over dinner one night and hand a hand in the development all the way through - don't know for sure if it is still so, but at the time he had never had a hand in product development or put his name to any product beyond books on care and keeping despite decades of influential research and experience, this was sort of his brain child.
So that's it, a brief bit about the foam units and what I saw/learned. I've always thought I might try them out, seem like a great option for breeding not just amphibians but fw shrimp and some other smaller fragiles as well.
