20 gallon rimless mish mash...paludarium?

[tharsis]

Current FTS 10/14/12



FTS 9/23/12



FTS 9/5/12

[tharsis]

So I have this derimmed 20 long and I was bored this weekend so I decided to try something different.

I wanted to do a riparium but the height of the tank is fairly limiting so I decided to try a mish mash of a riparium/paludarium.



The tank is in my basement on a large shelving unit intended for storage (but is slowly becoming my fish rack...don't tell me wife). I had an led fixture that I made a while back so i mounted that to the underside of the shelf above.

I had this intank filter doodad from an old eclipse tank that i decided to turn into a sort of mattenfilter. It seems to work well, the only downside is that it is not very easy to change the filter floss.



Added the rocks and anubias...was going for a rocky steep sided river edge with emergent portions. Covered the out put of the pump and added a koralia nano and voila!





The output allows the water to cascade over the rocks on the right and splish splash into the tank.





I added some mosses and creeping jenny to the emergent portion.







I think i am going to add some terrestrial plants behind the tank to give it a jungly feel. I am undecided if I want to add some other plants in the foreground or leave it bare.



I also don't know whats going in the tank yet, thanks for looking! It was a fun little project.

[SpecGrrl]

Very dramatic!

It looks awesome!

[rocksmom]

Very cool, I love it. I say leave the sand area bare unless you just tuck a few anubias or something around the base of the rocks here and there. Is that some anubias in the emergent area on the right? I don't think it will do very well, or at least mine don't. It's also really dry here though.

[tharsis]

thanks! The shimmering from the leds gives it a really nice effect as well... kinda adds to the drama!

Yeah on the right I have some exposed anubias. The rhizome is below the water line though and the leaves are above for the big plants. The leaves don't seem to be drying out but its only been a few days so I will keep a close eye on it. I also have some smaller plantlets under the rock that is getting a constant stream of water above it so it is pretty mutch entirely wet all the time.

[thebuddha]

Looks awesome! I like the idea of adding terrestrial plants behind it


and if I were you I would throw some nana petite around the bottom of the large rocks



eager to see how this plays out

[Kai808]

Great looking tank! Did you just stack the rocks or are they glued together? I wanted to do something like this on my nano tank. Great job again!

[tharsis]

Originally Posted by thebuddha

Looks awesome! I like the idea of adding terrestrial plants behind it and if I were you I would throw some nana petite around the bottom of the large rocks eager to see how this plays out

Thanks, yeah plan on adding some more anubias around the bottom when I trim my 75 gallon tank. I wish the anubias were a little smaller leaved in general but that is what I had lying around. These anubias were actually sitting in a bucket outside for the last 2 months since I set up my 75 gallon tank. So they are in surprisingly good condition!

Originally Posted by Kai808

Great looking tank! Did you just stack the rocks or are they glued together? I wanted to do something like this on my nano tank. Great job again!

They are just stacked, I was going to glue them but they are very stable and won't be going anywhere anytime soon. Plus, once the anubias attaches itself to the rock it will be an additional anchor.

[tharsis]

So I am thinking of ways to get terrestrial plants in the back of the tank. I want a shallow slope leading from the tank to the wall to make it look like the edge of the stream. I will have grasses and mosses and maybe some ferns at the back. But I don't really know how to do this.

I was thinking of building a small plexiglass box that will lie flush with the back of the tank and the wall...but if anyone can think of something else i am all ears.

[RedseaReefer]

Styrofoam is a pretty common media to raise up substrate. You might be able to use some inexpensive egg crate kinda like people do for coral frag racks. Besides that you might just be able to stack substrate up with some kind of dividers. Looks great! I'll be going rimless on one of my smaller tank setups. Great hard scape btw!

[dudebro]

Cool tank. I like the rock set up.

Adding the wall to tank platform sounds messy. Maybe use some sort of plaster or arts and crafts cement to affix rocks. I have seen some DIY with resin as well.

[RedseaReefer]

They also make the aqua-stick epoxy. you could use driftwood and aqua stick to make some kind of platform to grow from!!

[tharsis]

Thanks for the advice guys! After much contemplation i think i will build a little platform that will be flush with the back of the tank and then rise about 5" up to the wall. Then I will find some large shallow tupperware containers to place on the rack.

[caykuu]

Creative! This isn't a commonly done setup, and you've done a gorgeous job with it.
Can't wait to see some fauna about in it, hehe; if you're planning on adding some, that is.

[diwu13]

Wow this looks awesome. Where do you come up with all those anubias haha. Got like 100 in each tank!

Careful with the back platform. Not sure if the lack of rim might make the silicon weaker.