I hava a leaky one to raise caterpillers in. I feed them until they are quite fat and happy and go enter their chrysalis stage and then away we go!{{gwi:154898}}{{gwi:154899}}
Please click a photo and check my butterfly slideshow

What a fascinating idea. I would love details on this, I am guessing I can search google but if you have some sites you think are good please let me know. Can you identify the caterpillers or do you end up just going for the big surprize?

Thanks for sparking an interest!
Jen

Well I was going to say plant terraiums but I see you don't want them - I love the catepillar idea also. Let us know what you do and please post pics.

I had 8 aquariums with fish running in the house and I finally had enough!Way too much work. I wanted the space so I don't really want them in the house again but the butterfly one is interesting enough to have just one inside.
I was trying to figure out how to have the rest in the yard with plants or something but they would need cover from rain or they would just flood and they are really quite ugly! If I could disguise them some way I would consider drilling holes or having water plants in them.

I vote for water plants!

Can you mosaic them with stained glass and make a small fountain in it? Maybe even dig it into the ground a bit...

I saw someone make a roof out of 2 small shutters and put it on the aquarium and it looked like a small green house it was really cute!

Raising butterflies and caterperllers takes alot of research The swallowtails cats will only eat dill,parsey fennel and things in that family.The nonarch cats will ONLY eat milkweed, etc etc. So you must feed according to the caterpillar.Once they become butterflies they are not as picky but will only lay their eggs on plants their bebies can consume. Which means you must constantly be bringing the fresh plants to them and keeping the aquarium clean since they eat like pigs they poop like pigs!But I think it is soooooooo worth it.

Raising butterflies and caterperllers takes alot of research The swallowtails cats will only eat dill,parsey fennel and things in that family.The monarch cats will ONLY eat milkweed, etc etc. So you must feed according to the caterpillar.Once they become butterflies they are not as picky but will only lay their eggs on plants their babies can consume. Which means you must constantly be bringing the fresh plants to them and keeping the aquarium clean since they eat like pigs they poop like pigs!But I think it is soooooooo worth it.
A fun place to start is the Butterfly forum

I have been looking at the caterpiller idea. I was thinking more raise and release rather than keeping them but even so I can see this is a big comitment!
Stained glass also ran through my head but I was thinking just one.... if I did all four and placed them in a grouping on the patio I could add airation for waterplants....find a pattern with butterflies and have the best of all three! I will have to check in on the stained glass forum too.

Thanks for all the thoughts.

Jen,
The Butterfly idea is a good one and fairly easy once you know what your 'cats' will eat and what they will become.

We found a few (7) caterpillars on our Butterfly Weed last year, IDed them as Monarchs, and in one day the birds ate 2. So we took out an old aquarium, placed the cats in them in the house, and every day we would bring in fresh B Weed. They do eat a lot, but we just made it to the chrysalis stage. It took two weeks to get there. Then we waited patiently for another two weeks, and one day we got home and all 5 were the most beautiful things I have ever seen. They were drying out their wings, and so we brought them outside and let them go. One of them took his/her time and made us ooooh and aaaah for over an hour.

We are anxiously awaiting their arrival this year!