First off, how sweet are cork rounds? How do they get those?
Well finally replaced my old crummy 10 with a brand new one! Been wanting to try another paludarium with a little more land than my little 5g I've had going a while now, trying to decide if I ultimately want to do full aquarium or paludarium in the future with an empty 40g I have waiting in the wings. So far been real pleased, though It's been a little frustrating at times.
Just used flora max as the main substrate, with some super naturals black sand. Simply sat with some force on the cork rounds to break them up. Once again used tubing to connect the intake for the HOB to a point lower in the tank, hidden by the mound. I actually had to build, destroy, rebuild the mound like eight times. Kept getting sand in the impeller of the filter, stopping it promptly. Everytime I'd get the mound right, the filter wouldn't run; get the filter to run, mound breaks. Not to mention how many times I had to build it again just because the bouyant cork didn't hold in the substrate and floated up. That freaking happened so many times, so I'm sooooo pleased to have it all finally set in place. In the future I'd glue stones or something to the bottom to avoid the problem in the first place.
I'm not sure what if any kind of amphibian I'd like to keep in here, or if I'll keep any fish in here. One way or the other, I'd like to give it some time for roots to develop more, maybe help the cork to stay in place better too. I'd hate to come home to another soil break and dead filter due to a creepy crawly.
Pictures from about the first week or so.
basic hardscape
one of the first of many water fills
mound problems
You can see little hitchhiker sprouts growing from the cork, it also brought some moss with it
up close sprouty
Almost all plants except for the cryptanthus are from other tanks, I'm using mostly hair grass, pennywort, marsilea quadrifolia, lilaeopsis brasiliensis, rotala, few different crypts, e. tennelus, various mosses, mondo grass, bacopa sp., baby tears, and even tryin out a couple trimmings from my gold fish plant, and a lone java fern. But some of those you can't see yet. I've already got some more pictures from May, but I'm a little tired to post em now. So look for an update soon. Thanks for looking!
Well finally replaced my old crummy 10 with a brand new one! Been wanting to try another paludarium with a little more land than my little 5g I've had going a while now, trying to decide if I ultimately want to do full aquarium or paludarium in the future with an empty 40g I have waiting in the wings. So far been real pleased, though It's been a little frustrating at times.
Just used flora max as the main substrate, with some super naturals black sand. Simply sat with some force on the cork rounds to break them up. Once again used tubing to connect the intake for the HOB to a point lower in the tank, hidden by the mound. I actually had to build, destroy, rebuild the mound like eight times. Kept getting sand in the impeller of the filter, stopping it promptly. Everytime I'd get the mound right, the filter wouldn't run; get the filter to run, mound breaks. Not to mention how many times I had to build it again just because the bouyant cork didn't hold in the substrate and floated up. That freaking happened so many times, so I'm sooooo pleased to have it all finally set in place. In the future I'd glue stones or something to the bottom to avoid the problem in the first place.
I'm not sure what if any kind of amphibian I'd like to keep in here, or if I'll keep any fish in here. One way or the other, I'd like to give it some time for roots to develop more, maybe help the cork to stay in place better too. I'd hate to come home to another soil break and dead filter due to a creepy crawly.
Pictures from about the first week or so.
basic hardscape
one of the first of many water fills
mound problems
You can see little hitchhiker sprouts growing from the cork, it also brought some moss with it
up close sprouty
Almost all plants except for the cryptanthus are from other tanks, I'm using mostly hair grass, pennywort, marsilea quadrifolia, lilaeopsis brasiliensis, rotala, few different crypts, e. tennelus, various mosses, mondo grass, bacopa sp., baby tears, and even tryin out a couple trimmings from my gold fish plant, and a lone java fern. But some of those you can't see yet. I've already got some more pictures from May, but I'm a little tired to post em now. So look for an update soon. Thanks for looking!