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Lbacha's "Borneo Stream Biotope" terrarium (Lot of new pics 11/30)

108K views 402 replies 42 participants last post by  lbacha 
#1 · (Edited)


Well everyone, I have decided to take emersed setups to a different level, I want to display my emersed plants like we do our submersed plants so I have started looking into a terrarium. I wanted to throw my idea out there and see what you all thought first before I started buying equipment. I'm planning on using a exo terra terrarium (if anyone had a better suggestion please let me know) with a mistking watering system hooked up to a humidity controller. i will have to get a custom acrylic top for the tank as I want 85%+ humidity at all times. I'm planning no fauna for it just plants and everything will be something that is sold to be in an aquarium (crypts, anubias, bucephalandras, maybe some stems, java fern and aquatic mosses). I'm planning on a tiered pool approach with hydroton in the bottom so their is substantial water in it.

My concerns:
1. is the exo terra sealed enough to keep humidity as high as I want..
2. Will the split front glass doors be a distraction..
3. What is the best way to heat (I'm thinking heat the water)
4. How do I create circulation in the tank and is it needed with aquatic plants (I don't have any in my emersed set-ups now)
5. Will mosses be enough to keep mold and fungus down (I know moss is naturally resistant to them) if not how do I control that other than air circulation.
6. How do I keep the front glass clear enough to see into this when it is done It would defeat the purpose if I can't see in (will a fan blowing on it keep condensation off? or is this a lost cause)

If anyone has any suggestions on the above points or other things I should think of let me know.

Len
 
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#2 ·
That sounds like a great idea. I wondered when somebody would try that and I considered doing it myself. Emersed aquarium plants are so easy to grow.

The easiest way to do this would be to just fill the bottom of the enclusre with Aquasoil or somthing similar. If you want any kind of built-up structure inside you will need to have very good watering or misting because those areas will drain much faster.

The plants might appreciate some air circulation so as long as you can set it up without drying the air a little CPU fan could be helpful. A fan aimed at front pane of glass will reduce condensation some, but you will probably still get some fogging. The condensation correlates with the difference in temperature between the room and the inside of the enclosure. the colder the room relative to the tank the more condensation you will get.

This sounds like it would be a pretty simple setup. I would probably just use a regular aquarium instead fo the Exo Terra.
 
#4 ·
That sounds like a great idea. I wondered when somebody would try that and I considered doing it myself. Emersed aquarium plants are so easy to grow.

The easiest way to do this would be to just fill the bottom of the enclusre with Aquasoil or somthing similar. If you want any kind of built-up structure inside you will need to have very good watering or misting because those areas will drain much faster.

The plants might appreciate some air circulation so as long as you can set it up without drying the air a little CPU fan could be helpful. A fan aimed at front pane of glass will reduce condensation some, but you will probably still get some fogging. The condensation correlates with the difference in temperature between the room and the inside of the enclosure. the colder the room relative to the tank the more condensation you will get.

This sounds like it would be a pretty simple setup. I would probably just use a regular aquarium instead fo the Exo Terra.
My main reason for the exo terra is the opening front so I can work on it and take pictures if fogging is an issue, I plan on mounting the mister and fan to the top (I'm thinking a knife type of return that will blow air across the whole front of the tank, I was just going to recirculate the tank air so it doesn't dry out). This with the lights will make getting into it alot harder than just being able to open the front door and work on it. A tank would be a much cheaper solution though. I also want a taller tank 24" or so and really don't need the thick glass that an aquarium that height would require.

Len
 
#3 ·
Well everyone, I have decided to take emersed setups to a different level, I want to display my emersed plants like we do our submersed plants so I have started looking into a terrarium. I wanted to throw my idea out there and see what you all thought first before I started buying equipment. I'm planning on using a exo terra terrarium (if anyone had a better suggestion please let me know) with a mistking watering system hooked up to a humidity controller. i will have to get a custom acrylic top for the tank as I want 85%+ humidity at all times. I'm planning no fauna for it just plants and everything will be something that is sold to be in an aquarium (crypts, anubias, bucephalandras, maybe some stems, java fern and aquatic mosses). I'm planning on a tiered pool approach with hydroton in the bottom so their is substantial water in it.

My concerns:
1. is the exo terra sealed enough to keep humidity as high as I want..
no. you'll have to cover some of the mesh vent at the top. you don't want to cover it all though because you still want air circulation. i'd leave about 1.5 inches across the back.

2. Will the split front glass doors be a distraction..

i don't find that, and they really help you access the tank easily.
3. What is the best way to heat (I'm thinking heat the water)

i doubt you'll need to heat it. room temp is fine. most plants will do fine in the low 70s and some even do better in the high 60s (mosses for example). plus the lights will provide more heat in an empty tank than one full of water, but if you do need one, heat the water.
4. How do I create circulation in the tank and is it needed with aquatic plants (I don't have any in my emersed set-ups now)
you won't have flow if you fill the bottom with hydroton. the best you can get with that is water turnover. just build a small area out of eggcrate to sit a small powerhead in so that it is separate from the hydroton but still submerged and then use it to pump the water up to the pools. other option is to build a false bottom rather than use hydroton.
5. Will mosses be enough to keep mold and fungus down (I know moss is naturally resistant to them) if not how do I control that other than air circulation.
some people seed the tank with springtails and isopods. most of the mold should disappear when the tank matures though.

6. How do I keep the front glass clear enough to see into this when it is done It would defeat the purpose if I can't see in (will a fan blowing on it keep condensation off? or is this a lost cause)

you would need a small cpu fan to do that. it is a good idea to have one for circulation anyway, and the added plus is it will keep the front glass clear.
If anyone has any suggestions on the above points or other things I should think of let me know.

Len
sounds interesting :icon_smil
 
#6 ·
Thanks for the suggestions, I'm planning on having a custom acrylic top made for it if I go that route, I'm thinking of mounting an extra fan that will add fresh air once or twice a day then one that will just circulate the moist air to keep dead spots from forming, I'm really concerned about keeping humidity high becuase I plan on only using rare emersed aquatic plants and mosses (and small ones at that so they will dry out quick).

Len
 
#5 ·
I agree with vespers it would also be good to have water circulation.

You should look at some of those really cool Cryptocoryne habitat pictures from Borneo and other places in SE Asia. It would be awesome to recreate something like that. There were a couple of people (can't remember who??) who posted lots of pictures of those places on aquaticplantcentral.com.
 
#8 ·
I havn't even thought of the substrate yet but that is definitely an idea, I'm thinking of building the tiers out of pink insulating foam covered in a peat and adhesive mixed together with planters carved out of it, this will give me a lightweight planter for the crypts that is waterproof, I'm thinking of making the setup modular so I can grow different crypts in the tier and then swap them out as they get bigger and need thinned down, just a thought on my part, I've always been a fan of terrariums and if you walked into my apartment you would see it looks like a big terrarium, with all the houeplants i have lol..

Len
 
#9 ·
Oh yeah I think that junglemike is Michael Lo. I was just on his site looking at some other stuff... http://ibanorum.netfirms.com/

I like the idea of tiers. A setup for crypts might be pretty easy to make with tiers using just simple cutouts of pink insulation layered up to make different 3D shapes and then shaped a little bit for rounded edges. You could even make the water flow from one pool to the next with notch cutouts in the edge of each. Each pool could have a nutrient-rich topsoil substrate with gravel or sand cap.
 
#10 ·
Oh yeah I think that junglemike is Michael Lo. I was just on his site looking at some other stuff... http://ibanorum.netfirms.com/

I like the idea of tiers. A setup for crypts might be pretty easy to make with tiers using just simple cutouts of pink insulation layered up to make different 3D shapes and then shaped a little bit for rounded edges. You could even make the water flow from one pool to the next with notch cutouts in the edge of each. Each pool could have a nutrient-rich topsoil substrate with gravel or sand cap.
Thats exactly what I was thinking, the only thing I'm trying to figure out is how to coat the foam, for that I'm going to troll the dendrobate board and see what they use.

Len
 
#14 ·
I plan on buying a sheet this weekend and playing around with making shapes out of it, I'm looking for a pool with low lying crypts on the edges and a small rock in the middle with a couple species of Buces on it. All the bare surfaces will be covered in aquatic mosses and the whole thing will be misted regularly with a mistking system. Flowing water is less important to me than the illusion of pool with crypts growing on the banks and some buces clinging above the water line. I have the vison in my head now to make it reality. I just increased my Buce collection and I think they really need to be showcased.

Len
 
#19 ·
I knew you had caught it but not this bad, it looks like your are going to take it to the next level. I've seen the exo-terra used at our LFS and it was a very impressive set up the auto misting, etc. it just depends on what you put into it with ideas and imagination.

Good luck and I can't wait to see what you come up with!
 
#20 ·
I knew you had caught it but not this bad, it looks like your are going to take it to the next level. I've seen the exo-terra used at our LFS and it was a very impressive set up the auto misting, etc. it just depends on what you put into it with ideas and imagination.

Good luck and I can't wait to see what you come up with!
I needed a good fall project, lol... My cube was my project earlier this year (built the stand from scratch).. I also have a dark corner in my livingroom that I need some plants in (only open spot in there without plants)

Len
 
#21 ·
Well after some research last nigh I have decided I'm going to make it a Borneo biotope, this will help me limit what crypts to use (the list is still pretty long), I havn't decided if I want to include terrestrials but if I did there are some great nepenthes (pitcher plants), ferns as well as other harder to find Aridarum, Piptospatha (now Ooia), Schismatoglottis, Rhaphidophora & Homalomena. Most of these all grow close to the stream bed so they will work great for my concept terrarium, check out the thread below if you want to see my inspiration, I was planning on spending 2 weeks in thailand in march but I may have to take a few days and head to Borneo as well.

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum/showthread.php/72735-Aquatic-amp-semi-aquatic-plants-of-Borneo

Len
 
#22 ·
Hey I would be veru interested to know if you have any luck digging up any of those other strange little aroids.

I have some rare & unusual palms that I recently ordered that include a couple of stream associates and I think that at least one of them is from Borneo.

I am also getting some Aglaonema minima with another order. Supposedly this one grows as a swamp-associated plant on Borneo. It is not a true underwater aquatic and they sell it in Europe (but not here much apparently) as a faux aquatic that dies underwater.
 
#23 ·
Hey I would be veru interested to know if you have any luck digging up any of those other strange little aroids.

I have some rare & unusual palms that I recently ordered that include a couple of stream associates and I think that at least one of them is from Borneo.

I am also getting some Aglaonema minima with another order. Supposedly this one grows as a swamp-associated plant on Borneo. It is not a true underwater aquatic and they sell it in Europe (but not here much apparently) as a faux aquatic that dies underwater.
I'd be interested in seeing that, I'm planning on doing sandstone rocks, that seems to be the most common rock in the streams I'm seeing in the pics and I have access to a whole stream full of them (They are also easy to break into shapes). I like the moist rocky look with patches of moss and small little plants coming out of the cracks, I also think a patch or two od crypts half emmersed and half submersed will look neat as well, I have to figure out how to make the sloping clay bank so it will hold its shape but I'm getting excited about the idea.

Len
 
#25 ·
That sounds like a good concept. So are you going to ditch the foam structure in favor of natural materials to build up the shapes?

Check this out...

www.ifeanet.org/publicaciones/boletines/21(2)/415.pdf
I'll have to open the link when I get home it won't open on my work computer, as for foam I still plan on using it as the base, I'm going to sandwich layers together and then carve it out, this is like bulding scenery for a model railroad, lol, I even have foam carving tools made specificly for this purpose. I'm thinking of only using real stone for the small islands that will have the bucephelandras on them.

Len
 
#26 ·
I cant wait to see what you will come up with. I might have to plagiarize some ideas from you later.

For your buce islands, are the plants going to make contact with the water? How do you intend on feeding them? Wabi-kusa type of mounds might be something to consider. A German (?) member from APC experimented them on a mound made of a filter sponge that had soil soaked in for nutrients.

My great grand parents were from Singapore. Once my child gets older, I want want to do some traveling in SG pay a visit to borneo as well.
 
#29 ·
I cant wait to see what you will come up with. I might have to plagiarize some ideas from you later.

For your buce islands, are the plants going to make contact with the water? How do you intend on feeding them? Wabi-kusa type of mounds might be something to consider. A German (?) member from APC experimented them on a mound made of a filter sponge that had soil soaked in for nutrients.

My great grand parents were from Singapore. Once my child gets older, I want want to do some traveling in SG pay a visit to borneo as well.
That is a great question, I could fertilize the water so that the mosses and crypts get fed or I was thinking about maybe mounting them in crevices in the rock filled with soil, I really want the look of buces growing on bare rock like you see in alot of the pics so nutrient rich water may be the way I go, I'm probably going to put drip tubes above each clump of buces so that the islands are always wet, I may put them on timers havn't decided yet. Lots of things to work through in my head as far as the inner workings go, I always over engineer these because I have to make them go a week at a time without anyone being around. The good thing about slow growing is that they are probably slow at uptaking nutrients so I would only need a little soil or a light nutrient load in the water.

Len
 
#27 ·
I've been loooking for a link but I can't find it, the guy made a tree stump with all the roots just like you'd see on the side of a river bank, he started with foam and carved it, then small diameter foam tube and it all got cover with concrete and painted, it was so good.

Hydrophyte does this ring a bell?
 
#31 ·
I really want to do a setup like this now.

In a lot of those pictures by junglemike you can see the crypt plants growing in real dense stands in shallow water with their leaves held horizontal and just below the water's surface. When they flower then plants growing like that hold their spathes up above water and it looks pretty cool. I bet this is a pretty characteristic way to grow for many species of crypts. These shallow pools in this setup idea of yours would be perfect for growing crypts like that.
 
#32 ·
Those pictures are exactly what I'm thinking of, I have always been a fan of displaying things in a natural way and I really think this might be a neat way to display some crypts most people don't see often, I figure I'll start small with my first try then go from there, imagine a group of keei or hudoroi growing like that, I'm wondering if 2-3" of water is enough or if I should go deeper. I can't wait to start playing with the foam this weekend, I'll post pics as I go. This will also let me know if the size will work.

Len
 
#33 ·
I bet that 2" or so of water would be about right. You would want to build the pools deeper than that to leave depth for the substrate.

I have wondered about what pollinates the flowers of those wild crypt plants. There must be some little fly or some other insect that flies real low over the water to reach the spathes.
 
#34 ·
Well I changed the title since it is definitly going to be a Borneo biotope, question for anyone looking, is java moss found in Borneo or is there another more typical aquatic moss from the region, I know Java moss is found in many different locations but confirmation would be great. If someone has a better suggestion for a moss to fill the gaps let me know, I plan on covering most of the surfaces that don't have plants in moss, so it looks like a mossy stream bank with patches of plants.

Also if someone has a nice specimin of Piptospatha, Schismatoglottis, Rhaphidophora & Homalomena that they would be willing to sell or trade I'm looking for something that will get no bigger that 6-8" that I can use as a centerpeice plant in the set-up. (I know this is a stretch but I figured it would be worth throwing out there, lol) I really want something to throw a size contrast to the low growing crypts and small Bucephalandras.

Len
 
#35 ·
I have looked and looked, but it seems that nobody in the US has Piptospatha for sale. I think it would take a special import to get that one in.

There are Borneo species of Schismatoglottis, Rhaphidophora & Homalomena , but those genera also occur over a wider area. If you wanted to have a totally authentic selection you would need to research the species that are Borneo native.

I have this Scismatoglottis 'Frosty Kiss' which is a real nice riparium plant. That 'Frosty Kiss' is just the variety name and I lost track of the species, but I am pretty sure the species is from Malaysia and not Borneo.

 
#36 ·
I have looked and looked, but it seems that nobody in the US has Piptospatha for sale. I think it would take a special import to get that one in.

There are Borneo species of Schismatoglottis, Rhaphidophora & Homalomena , but those genera also occur over a wider area. If you wanted to have a totally authentic selection you would need to research the species that are Borneo native.

I have this Scismatoglottis 'Frosty Kiss' which is a real nice riparium plant. That 'Frosty Kiss' is just the variety name and I lost track of the species, but I am pretty sure the species is from Malaysia and not Borneo.

That is a nice plant, just based on the pic it is a little bigger than what I'm looking for but the colors are the type of splash of color I'm looking to add, I figure I'd start asking around now and maybe someone will have something, I'm also headed to thailand (might try to fit a few days in Borneo into it) in March to visit my brother while he is on leave from afganistan so maybe I can find a source that can get me something while I'm there, I'm working on what it will take to bring stuff back from my trip (lots of fun paperwork and permits, lol)

Len
 
#37 ·
Well if you can't find stuff elsewhere I could part with a division of that same plant. It is not a true Borneo speies but represents that general area more or less. A dwarf palm could also be nice for adding some more vertical dimension in a setup like that. I have some stream-associated Pinanga and Licuala palms that are also not Borneo native but pretty nice plants and unusual. As far as I know nobody has really tried to grow these things in fish tanks before but mine are doing well so far.

The Licualas are cool because they have these pleated leaves. Look at the center plant in this shot.

 
#42 ·
It cuts it really well actually, I'm starting to rethink how I want to do this, I may not do a tier because of the space it takes up, I may just do a rocky slope going into the pool and plant the bucephalandras on the slope, I'll then carve it into a slight waterfall and let water run down it, this way I'll have crypts on the main level and the background will be rocks covered in buces.

Len
 
#44 ·
I really like where you are going with this. Bummed I didn't see it sooner!
 
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