I had a 10 g paludarium running for a couple of months.
You can certainly get them to look great but you do need the time to work on it whenever it needs work which is often.
If you are a couple of days late you will often have gone beyond the point of no repair.
Also, because of the small volume you will have a hard time avoiding peaks in water chemistry. Just adding a new plant with just a little too much fertilizer left in the soil between the roots will leave you with the algae bloom from hell.
Same goes for animal habitants. Almost anything will be too much for a tank that small.
Still, it can work and it is fun.
If you use fast growing plants that take up a lot of nutrients and you let them settle before adding anything that helps a lot.
Beware of false light and use a timer. That way you can combat algae a lot better.
Be very strict about using animals. Things like one male betta, maybe three white clouds or just a couple of shrimp will work. But be sure your tank will punish you the second you put in too much.
And feeding must be doen with care. I fed my white clouds one flake at a time to make sure nothing was left to rot.
I had to take the minnows out eventually and soon after it became a mosquitoe breeding pool so I took down the whole thing.
Still..it was a lot of fun and looked very cool while it lasted.
Who said everything has to last forever to be fun?
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