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riparium advice

4K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  blackneon 
#1 ·
hi. i've always been fascinated with riparium set-ups so im gonna start my own. im setting it up with an existing planted tank with all low light plants. currently medium to high lighting with co2 injection. posted a photo of the initial set up. background and leftside of the tank is till going to be painted with flat black. just need a few advices:

  1. should i adjust my ei dosing since i raised my lights about 3in from original height and its gonna be shaded by the emersed plants. still want to run my co2 coz its plumbed via rex grigg reactor.
  2. can i still keep my water level all the way to the top? im just concerned about my fishes. i got 7 tiger barbs and 1 bristle nose pleco in that 25gal. they might not like the small volume of water if i lowered it.
  3. would an old rubber black flipflop be a good idea as an alternative for the trellis raft? it just crossed my mind. i might be able to follow the pattern from the original trellis being used in repariums.
  4. what plants can i suspend on these rafts?
  5. what other house plants can you suggest with my existing set up? right now i have cuttings from my Dracaena sanderiana and Dieffenbachia. are there any dracaena sp suitable for ripariums? garden centers doesnt sell pond plants till late spring.
thanks a lot in advance for all your advices and thoughts on my current set up. hope to hear from you guys especially the ones with experience with ripariums. I LOVE THIS HOBBY!!!! :smile:
 

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#2 ·
I think that you can keep water level all the way to the top, but i think that u need to put there only low light plants. I don't think that light go down to botom of aquarium, especially because now you have a lots of plant on the top.

This is low light plants that i recomend down in aquarium monoselenium, cladophora, anubia i cryptocoryne

I am not expert, but this is what i have learnd :)

I have in my riparium Iris plant (blue and yelow) acutualy only one week, but it start growing, temerature is 22 degrece, no co2, just treset and osmokot.
I also put pontederia.But highest level in my aq is 34cm, and i have now only at 25, but evry 3 days i put 10 l of water more.
 
#3 ·
Your tank looks really nice. The water level can be kept right to the top as normal, I did this in my journal in my signature and had both riparium style plants and aquatic plants. I would keep your dosing pretty much the same if your still going to be injecting co2, also because any emmersed plants can sometimes have some very big hungry roots.
Ideal riparium plants or house plants you can use are big standard peace Lilly's, antherium Lily's, calathea plant, pothos which trails really well across the back of the tank....
Also any of the echinodorus species do do great grown emmersed with just the roots submerged.
It may be best to drop hydrophyte a pm as he could give you a list of many different plants to use.


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#4 ·
thanks for the replies. i might just lower the water just a few inches. im thinking the rim might obstruct the view of the floating plants once i get some. i've been doin a lot of research now about plants. what i really wanted to find are grass like house plants or anything with slander pointed leaves since there's no one selling pond plants this time of the year. dracanea species has some but im not sure if they can be grown in riparium set ups. im also wondering if hydroton balls are really necessary. i cant find anything locally. thanks
 
#5 ·
I believe the stuff sold as 'lucky bamboo' is a variety of Dracaena, and I imagine it would do pretty well in a riparium.

Pothos is pretty much a classic, and I've had some sort of ivy before.

As to grass-like, the closest would probably be some sort of reed-like marsh plant. check some of the local pond shops or greenhouses. Sometimes even a home center will have a small section of pond/aquatic/marsh plants.

maybe horse-tails/equisetum.

I think hydroton is used because it's been used with hydroponics (which isn't really that much different from a riparium setup), is relatively cheap, and pretty lightweight.

If you had nothing else, you could probably even use just straight gravel, but something like small lava rock or pumice might be better.
 
#6 ·
i actually had some cuttings from my 3yr old lucky bamboo. its the one on the left side. now my lucky bamboos are just 3 pcs of stalks. lol im just using straight flourite red for substrate in the planters. i dose ei so i hope they can get their nutrients through their roots. still tryin to figure out how i can construct my trellis raft. so for these plants on the raft, i just need to insert the stems through the hole even without roots? i'll be shopping for plants this weekend and finalize the set up. its just really nice when you can shop for plants just about anywhere with these ripariums and they're cheap too. =)
 
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