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[Pics in the next day or two, I just did the initial planting yesterday. I'll snap some photos once I recharge my digital's batteries.]
I've moved my p. cyanodorsalis into a five gallon tank - they're still so small, they were dwarfed by the 20 gallon I was keeping them in. But that left me with an empty 20 gallon tank, and after quite of bit of thinking I decided to try it as a paludarium.
What got me thinking about it in the first place was coming across some Japanese Rush (Acorus spp.) in a local pet shop one day, and Meredith asking if we could buy some. I explained to her that it wasn't really an aquarium plant, but a true marginal... the roots need to be submerged, but at least a good part of the leaves have to be above the water's surface or it doesn't do well. Then a little bit later I started thinking about HC, the popular carpetting plant used in planted tanks; it too is really a marginal that has to stay damp but grows better above the water line then below it. And that got me thinking about aquatic plant nurseries, and how half the plants used in planted tanks are actually cultivated in emersed set ups. And that got the wheels turning on the idea of a paludarium 'bog', concentrating on marginal plants that really like to be wet.
There isn't an awful lot of info on the web on setting up a paludarium (plenty on vivariums, but paludariums not so much) ... and I have to admit, I've kind of ignored most of what is there in favor of trying out things my own way on this tank. I spent a lot of time trying to research different ways of building the land/water interface and learning about some very involved methods folks have used. In the end though I went with one of the simplest and oldest ideas out there, as summed up from a page on brianstropicals.com...
How radical, huh? It does have several disadvantages, chief amongst them that you really can't have a steep slope for the shoreline. That means taking up a good amount of tank real estate with the slope with the shoreline, which is unfortunate. It did mean not messing around with eggcrate, Great Stuff expanding foam, mixing gravel with silicon, or any of the other ideas people have come up with though.
A piece of flat cork bark was used as in-tank background, siliconed to the back pane of the aquarium.
I'm also using several leftover bags of Aqua Design Amano's Amazonia Aquasoil as the primary substrate in this tank. Aquasoil is loaded with nutrients and is a clay-based soil that I know grows aquatic plants exceptionally well, so I couldn't see any reason not to use it. The soil layer above the waterline also has a small amount of coconut coir and tree fern fiber mixed into it, to help it retain it's shape and not shift. Also the coir wicks water up from lower in the substrate, keeping most of the above-the-waterline Aquasoil moist.
A powerhead equipped with a sponge over it's intake has been buried in the back left corner of the tank, it's output is attached to a length of hose which terminates in one end of a hollow tube of cork bark that I've cut open a bit. It functions as a sort of waterfall/streambed, recirculating the water and pumping it back into the main pool area.
The pond area is about four inches deep an holds about 2.5 gallons of water; the total volume of water in the tank is about 4 gallons. Mer's really on me to put a couple of neons or something in there, but the small water volume makes me hesitate. I'm planning on covering the pond in duckweed, so nutrient control really shouldn't be an issue, but still...
I have an ultrasonic fogger remotely feeding into the tank; it runs for 15 minutes six times a day. Visually it's a really, really nice effect, and it seems to go a ways towards keeping the tank's humidity levels high. I'd also picked up an automated misting system, but I've decided not to use it. The pump it uses is much too loud for a tank in the living room, even if it only would run for a couple minutes a day. Right now I'm manually misting the tank with a hand mister twice a day, but I have a neat little manual-pump mister with remote nozzles being delivered in the next couple of days which should simplify things again... just position the remote nozzles in place, then whenever I want to mist just pump the plunger on the bottle a couple of times and it mists on it's own. Tank humidity varies a bit, but runs between 70-90% relative humidity.
For lighting I'm using one 2 x 24w Nova Extreme T5 fixture. I have a second one lying around I can add if it turns out I need to, but I'm trying it with just the one fixture first.
I just put plants in yesterday. So far they consist of:
HC
Riccia
Japanese Rush (Acorus)
Utricularia longifolia (carnivorous and it flowers)
Begonia foliosa (just a sprig, we'll see how it does)
Korean Rock Fern
Oak-leaf creeping ficus (a very, very tiny leaved ivy that I plan to have cover the back wall)
Selaginella plana (a moss fern)
Duckweed (to cover the surface of the pond)
Anubias nana 'petite' (the only plant actually on the bottom of the pond)
As you can see from the list, most of the plants listed are aquarium plants that should do well emersed and semi-emersed as long as they are kept moist. I'm not sure how the selaginella, the fern and the begonia foliosa will do in such a wet environment and substrate... I'm giving them a try and will see how they do.
Photos will follow in the next day or so. It's only gotten the initial planting so far, so nothing's had a chance to grow in yet.
I've moved my p. cyanodorsalis into a five gallon tank - they're still so small, they were dwarfed by the 20 gallon I was keeping them in. But that left me with an empty 20 gallon tank, and after quite of bit of thinking I decided to try it as a paludarium.
What got me thinking about it in the first place was coming across some Japanese Rush (Acorus spp.) in a local pet shop one day, and Meredith asking if we could buy some. I explained to her that it wasn't really an aquarium plant, but a true marginal... the roots need to be submerged, but at least a good part of the leaves have to be above the water's surface or it doesn't do well. Then a little bit later I started thinking about HC, the popular carpetting plant used in planted tanks; it too is really a marginal that has to stay damp but grows better above the water line then below it. And that got me thinking about aquatic plant nurseries, and how half the plants used in planted tanks are actually cultivated in emersed set ups. And that got the wheels turning on the idea of a paludarium 'bog', concentrating on marginal plants that really like to be wet.
There isn't an awful lot of info on the web on setting up a paludarium (plenty on vivariums, but paludariums not so much) ... and I have to admit, I've kind of ignored most of what is there in favor of trying out things my own way on this tank. I spent a lot of time trying to research different ways of building the land/water interface and learning about some very involved methods folks have used. In the end though I went with one of the simplest and oldest ideas out there, as summed up from a page on brianstropicals.com...
How radical, huh? It does have several disadvantages, chief amongst them that you really can't have a steep slope for the shoreline. That means taking up a good amount of tank real estate with the slope with the shoreline, which is unfortunate. It did mean not messing around with eggcrate, Great Stuff expanding foam, mixing gravel with silicon, or any of the other ideas people have come up with though.
A piece of flat cork bark was used as in-tank background, siliconed to the back pane of the aquarium.
I'm also using several leftover bags of Aqua Design Amano's Amazonia Aquasoil as the primary substrate in this tank. Aquasoil is loaded with nutrients and is a clay-based soil that I know grows aquatic plants exceptionally well, so I couldn't see any reason not to use it. The soil layer above the waterline also has a small amount of coconut coir and tree fern fiber mixed into it, to help it retain it's shape and not shift. Also the coir wicks water up from lower in the substrate, keeping most of the above-the-waterline Aquasoil moist.
A powerhead equipped with a sponge over it's intake has been buried in the back left corner of the tank, it's output is attached to a length of hose which terminates in one end of a hollow tube of cork bark that I've cut open a bit. It functions as a sort of waterfall/streambed, recirculating the water and pumping it back into the main pool area.
The pond area is about four inches deep an holds about 2.5 gallons of water; the total volume of water in the tank is about 4 gallons. Mer's really on me to put a couple of neons or something in there, but the small water volume makes me hesitate. I'm planning on covering the pond in duckweed, so nutrient control really shouldn't be an issue, but still...
I have an ultrasonic fogger remotely feeding into the tank; it runs for 15 minutes six times a day. Visually it's a really, really nice effect, and it seems to go a ways towards keeping the tank's humidity levels high. I'd also picked up an automated misting system, but I've decided not to use it. The pump it uses is much too loud for a tank in the living room, even if it only would run for a couple minutes a day. Right now I'm manually misting the tank with a hand mister twice a day, but I have a neat little manual-pump mister with remote nozzles being delivered in the next couple of days which should simplify things again... just position the remote nozzles in place, then whenever I want to mist just pump the plunger on the bottle a couple of times and it mists on it's own. Tank humidity varies a bit, but runs between 70-90% relative humidity.
For lighting I'm using one 2 x 24w Nova Extreme T5 fixture. I have a second one lying around I can add if it turns out I need to, but I'm trying it with just the one fixture first.
I just put plants in yesterday. So far they consist of:
HC
Riccia
Japanese Rush (Acorus)
Utricularia longifolia (carnivorous and it flowers)
Begonia foliosa (just a sprig, we'll see how it does)
Korean Rock Fern
Oak-leaf creeping ficus (a very, very tiny leaved ivy that I plan to have cover the back wall)
Selaginella plana (a moss fern)
Duckweed (to cover the surface of the pond)
Anubias nana 'petite' (the only plant actually on the bottom of the pond)
As you can see from the list, most of the plants listed are aquarium plants that should do well emersed and semi-emersed as long as they are kept moist. I'm not sure how the selaginella, the fern and the begonia foliosa will do in such a wet environment and substrate... I'm giving them a try and will see how they do.
Photos will follow in the next day or so. It's only gotten the initial planting so far, so nothing's had a chance to grow in yet.
