I'm getting really interested in putting together a paludarium or tank with water and land. Having fish, lizards, toad/frogs, newts, plants, and whatever else I can think to put together is pretty cool. I was wondering how to even start one. If anyone here has pics or advice to help me out with starting this up that would be cool. This is going to be a fun job. It's like having your own eco-system if you know what I'm saying.
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Does anyone have a paludarium?
- Thread starter JMurphy97
- Start date
seedjar
Let's positive thinking!
I always wanted one of these, but never really had the motivation and funds to make it happen. I usually get to the point where I'm looking at aquarium stands and I can never get over the fact that a $300 75-gallon tank needs a $150 tank stand. If only I'd known what I'd be spending on plants these days! I always wanted to have a terrarium with a miniature waterfall and stream in it. Never heard of a paludarium before - I'll have to add that one to my vocabulary. Doesn't even seem to be in my dictionary! But Wikipedia has it, and now I know the difference between aquaria, terraria, paludaria, and riparia. And even formicaria, vivaria for keeping ants! 'Cuz knowledge is power!
Basic terrarium practices apply, but you might want to look into things such as fountain supplies and the proper adhesives for attaching things like dividers and mounted rocks and wood to the tank. I'm sure you can find better instructions if you search around the web, and if you browse the greenhouse and terrarium or fish forums you can probably dig up some links on culturing certain types of invertebrates and fishes. Generally speaking, you'd probably start by doing a sort of dry landscape in the tank to come up with a plan, then you'd take everything out and attach your dividers, let the adhesives cure thoroughly, put in your fill media, sculpt water features and planting areas, put all the nonliving features in, add water, get a handle on climate control and water circulation, then let things settle. A few days after all that's done, you'd plant it and let the plants get established. Once the plants have grown in you'd add the various animals one by one, in an order designed to allow each niche to properly establish before introducing competition. Or, certain animals may be best introduced during or before the addition of plants - it all depends on what you want to have in there, and that's where you'll have to do some research.
I saw a very interesting forum thread - I believe it was on cpuk - depicting a sort of 'composting terrarium.' It had a dart-frog habitat on one side, and a big heap on compost on the other. Bugs fed off the compost on one side and then became frog food when they happened to wander through the permeable divider into the terrarium side. It's an ambitious project, but very doable and a great foundation for a (roughly) self-contained ecosystem.
Best luck!
~Joe
Basic terrarium practices apply, but you might want to look into things such as fountain supplies and the proper adhesives for attaching things like dividers and mounted rocks and wood to the tank. I'm sure you can find better instructions if you search around the web, and if you browse the greenhouse and terrarium or fish forums you can probably dig up some links on culturing certain types of invertebrates and fishes. Generally speaking, you'd probably start by doing a sort of dry landscape in the tank to come up with a plan, then you'd take everything out and attach your dividers, let the adhesives cure thoroughly, put in your fill media, sculpt water features and planting areas, put all the nonliving features in, add water, get a handle on climate control and water circulation, then let things settle. A few days after all that's done, you'd plant it and let the plants get established. Once the plants have grown in you'd add the various animals one by one, in an order designed to allow each niche to properly establish before introducing competition. Or, certain animals may be best introduced during or before the addition of plants - it all depends on what you want to have in there, and that's where you'll have to do some research.
I saw a very interesting forum thread - I believe it was on cpuk - depicting a sort of 'composting terrarium.' It had a dart-frog habitat on one side, and a big heap on compost on the other. Bugs fed off the compost on one side and then became frog food when they happened to wander through the permeable divider into the terrarium side. It's an ambitious project, but very doable and a great foundation for a (roughly) self-contained ecosystem.
Best luck!
~Joe
Lol! I was actually considering one of those things when I started. Consider a big tank....half has basically the CP media blocked with a divider. in the remaining half.....1/4th is sloped from the CP media into a beach shape using some water SAFE substrate that is more black in colour I guess to match the peat. Sculpt all the required water habitat shape...throw in two or three pieces of small driftwood for turtles. Plant the CP media and viola....a CP terrarium with a turtle habitat.
The reason I didn't do it...is becos....a) funds b) don't know if turtles can survive on acidic peat media c) too much effort for a beginning project
d) if anything goes wrong....poop will hit the fan
The reason I didn't do it...is becos....a) funds b) don't know if turtles can survive on acidic peat media c) too much effort for a beginning project
Clint
Stay chooned in for more!
JB_OrchidGuy
Cardiac Nurse
JMurphy there is a conversion kit you can buy from the petstore that will put the waterfall and stream into a tank. I used to have a 20 gallon with one in it. I had frogs fish and newts in it. The frogs were just green tree frogs. If I remember the kit was about 40 bucks. I don't think I have any pictures of it. The kit puts a wall up in the tank and has a slot fot a filter. There is a waterfall that hides the pump and a stream to pet the water go back into the water side. I cannot remember who made the kit or if they still sell them, but they did have them at one point in time.
