Help with waterfall design

[DarkSoul]

I'm setting up a terrarium for some flytraps, sundews and maybe a pitcher or two in a 20 gallon aquarium. I'm not doing anything incredibly fancy but would like to include a waterfall with a pond fogger at the top.

I've made "enclosures" for the water pump, and the fogger and will have those in place when the silicone cures. The setup will basically look something like this (without me holding it )

I have some great stuff foam, and some sanded morter and wanted to have a simplistic waterfall that won't cause problems for the plants (IE killing them) if possible even growing live moss on the waterfall/rocks itself.

Does anyone have any tips or pointers on how I should approach this? I would like it to look somewhat realistic but I would like to avoid painting it with anything and stick to using things only safe for carnivorous plants.

I've been searching and haven't seen a design that resembles what I have in mind (see pics) so I'm really just looking for some guidance here.

 

[DarkSoul]

One thing I thought of;

The boxes themselves will be secured to the aquarium, I need to build the waterfall around the boxes and have that portion removeable.

How can I prevent the expanding foam from sticking to the glass and plexiglass?

 

[petmantis]

Nice concept, but I would avoid growing flytraps (and Sarracenia, if that's what you mean by pitcher plants) long-term in a terrarium. Unless, of course, you have really great lights, in which case you could get away with it; maybe even with great results!

I can't offer ideas on how to prevent the foam from sticking, but perhaps someone here has done something similar! Anyway, good luck with the setup!

 

[dueoka]

I had to create a expanding foam ball for something, and used a glass container with plastic wrap, then sprayed in the foam. It was so long ago, I'm pretty sure it came right out clinging to the plastic wrap, but I would test using plastic wrap on something expendable. Not sure how I took off the plastic wrap.

Otherwise, maybe non stick PAM?

 

[DarkSoul]

Well because the flytraps require a dormancy what I may do for those is just keep those in the pots and have holes in the dirt that the pots can sit into.

As for the lighting, I have a 24" dual T5 fixture, bright as all get out. I will be picking up a second one next month and they are bright. They fit perfectly in vinyl rain gutter as a hood too, so light shouldn't be too big of a concern, I may also have room for a third totalling 6 T5 bulbs across the top of the tank.

 

[DarkSoul]

One thing I've been thinking here that may or may not be a problem is the water return to the resivoir.

The bottom "box" where the pump is has 3 rows of 1/4" holes drilled in it now to allow water to return to it from the dirt. But I'm thinking it will take longer for the water to run through the soil and back to the resivoir than the pump needs so it may end up running dry frequently.

basically the substrate will need to be totally soaked to keep water flowing. Would this cause a problem for the plants? They grow in bogs so I wouldn't think that having completely saturated soil would be a problem.

 

[DarkSoul]

Well I got a foam mountain made around the resivoirs. I'm not really sure how to carve it like rock though, but at the same time I'm half considering covering it in silicone and dirt to make it just look like a hill, but I prefer rocks because then I only need to use grout.