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Wy Renegade's 30gal Paludarium

26K views 132 replies 21 participants last post by  Wy Renegade 
#1 · (Edited)
After getting some input and doing a fair amount of research, I've started putting together what I hope will be an excellent home for my pair of Wyoming Tiger Salamanders. I've had them for about 2 years now, and their current home is a getto tank created from an old motor home bath tub. It is way too big, and the whole thing is ugly as sin, so it has to go. Based on my research, it appears that the salamanders should have a predominately terrestrial environment, but that in and of itself is rather boring, and I've been wanting to try a paludarium style tank, so this was the perfect opportunity. Unlike the bog, I'm going for looks on this one rather than native, so it will be a evolving mix of terrestrial and aquatic species. The goal is a low humidity/low tech riparium which will be unheated.

Tank:
The tank is a standard 30gal AGA aquarium (36"x12"x18"). Since my goal is a riparium setting, the tank will be only about 1/3 full of water, so I drilled the tank for two bulkheads.

Equipment:
Filter: ZooMed 501 canister filter
Lighting: Aqueon strip light w/ standard aquarium bulb and an Aqueon twin tube strip light w/ one standard aquarium bulb and one Floraxam plant bulb
Top: standard Zilla center-hinged screen top

Scape:
The tanks scape will be created using a combination of silicone, Great Stuff Pond Foam, River rock, and cottonwood driftwood.

Substrate:
Aquatic: predominately Ion Brick plant gravel, with a few pockets of aragonite sand to help maintain a higher pH.
Terrestrial; potting soil covered with cottonwood leaves and dried spagnum moss

Fauna:
Invertes:
daphnia, freshwater mussels, hydra, planaria, rotifers, scuds, tubifex worms to start, additional varieties will be added as they are aquired
Vertebrates:
Western Chorus Frogs x2
Fish will most likely be some type of shiner (possibly Emerald shiners) if I can get my hands on some.

Flora:
Emergent: Forget-Me-Nots and Mint to start, will add others as I get a chance
Floating: Duckweed to start, hope to add some type of lily as well
Submergent: hornwort, maybe some bladderwort if I can find some
Terrestrial: bonsai plant, moss, native fern, going to try some different orchids, mainly minitures and a lady slipper to start

Set-up:
Started out by drilling the tank with a bit from gl@ss-holes.com. I drilled two holes, one slightly lower for the overflow and one a little higher for the return. Basically my intent is a closed loop system with the ZooMed canister driving the closed loop. The following day was beautiful so I hiked a few riparian areas looking for some driftwood for the tank, came up with several very nice cottonwood pieces. To create the scape, I placed a few stones, used permanant marker to mark their position and layed down a thin layer of black GE Type II 100% silicone. Once it started to harden, I added the foam and placed my first layer of rock. As the foam hardened I worked my way up, bracing the various stones in place. Once the foam had hardened over night I recoated the edges with the black silicone as my goal is a 100% water tight boundary. Once the silicone begins to skin, I'll add some black aquarium sand to texture it. Then its on to the first water test. Hope to paint the back of the tank black as well to offset the color/texture of the various plants.

So since I know everyone likes photos, here are a few shots of the build getting underway.

The scape begins;


The left side, which will be one of the aragonite holding areas;


The retaining wall/boundary on the right side;


The cottonwood driftwood piece which will become a cave for the salamanders. I've already done some modifying with my skill saw, but appears I have a little more to do;


A piece of cottonwood bark which I hope to incorperate to provide a spot for mounting some miniture orchids;


And a piece of Ponderosa pine that was removed from one of my terrariums that maybe will get added as well;


This is my first fully scaped attempt at a paludarium tank, and I'm open to any and all suggestions on design, fauna, flora, ect, so feel free to jump in and give suggestions or pointers.
 
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#106 ·
Had a chance over the weekend to do a little maintanence and snap a couple of different pictures. Several clumps of the dwarf hairgrass had come up and were floating around, so I went ahead and removed those that had done so. The duckweed population is in full bloom as you can tell from the top down shot of the aquatic portion;



One of the rabbit-footed ferns had been all broken by the students in messing in the tank, so I went ahead and removed the large lava rock in order to open up more swimming space. The plant in the upper left has actually grown too tall for this tank, its bumping up against the screen top and bending over, so I may have to transplant it to another tank and move some forget-me-nots into this one.

The terrestrial portion is going strong, the mosses I've introduced seem to be taking hold quite nicely, and even the small rush seems to be doing well. Still waiting on one of the minutures orchids to bloom. It has a nice long flower spike, but hasn't opened up yet. The bonsi has put out a ton of new growth, I'll have to do some pruning this fall.



Here's an updated FTS for July;


And a close-up of one of the Mountain snails out on the glass over the aquatic portion;
 
#109 ·
Thanks! Hopefully there will be some fun changes in place here in the next month.

Looks great! Thanks for the responses. You're right, that other site is NOT active. By the way, I saw that someone else in the thread asked how the sponges were and I was also curious.
LOL, yeah I posted there for awhile, then kind of slacked off. I'll have to check on the sponges this weekend, I'd actually kind of forgotten about them to be completely honest.
 
#110 ·
Snapped a few more pictures last weekend. The two anubis plants are growing quite well;




The Java moss has really taken off as well, and is starting to climb up the driftwood;


And the moss in the terrestrial portion is hanging on as well;


The rocks were getting a pretty good coating on them, so I moved two Horned Nerite snails into this tank from another (thanks Severum and HN1). Not the greatest picture;


A shot from the long view;


And a updated FTS;


I did look of the sponges, but I had placed them in the area of the driftwood, and now I can't find them. They may be under the Java moss, but I didn't want to disturb it to see.
 
#111 ·
Been a while since I updated, so I guess its time. I actually snapped these pictures back in August, just haven't had time to get them posted. Right now the duckweed has really started to grow, and most have roots of an inch or more, so its quite a bit different from the pictures. I'll have to update again soon.

Riparian portion;


I added a couple of Forget-Me-Nots to either side of the emerging driftwood.

Terrestrail portion;


And a close-up of the interior of the driftwood cave;


I've been experimenting with some different mosses, but don't think I'm keeping them sprayed enough. I think I'm going to have to add a fog maker of some type to get the effect I'm really looking for with this portion of the tank.

The emergent driftwood has become nicely covered with the Java moss, and I'm pretty pleased with the effect;


Unfortunately my Rabbitsfoot fern has died way back and lost all of it's old root growth, so I added a native fern from my bog tank in that I know does well under emersed conditions (on the right);


One of the mounted orchids bloomed this month, so a couple shots of it;




Updated FTS;


and an updated end shot;
 
#113 ·
Yeah Bill, there seems to be a very fine line with these. I grew one for several years in a large plastic bowl, which was filled with water. Of course the water evaporated regularly, so it was always full and the roots where not submersed all the time. It did very well. This one, as you can see, the old leaflets and the old roots have all died off. I'll be curious to see over time what happens to the new leaflets and roots.
 
#116 ·
Your tank looks great. I am going to try something similar - I have an empty 25 gallon, that I want to turn into a newt/frog habitat. I don't think that I'll be brave enough to drill holes in the tank for circulation, I'm leaning towards a fuvel canister and hiding the parts similar to what I did for the crab tank.
 
#118 ·
Your tank looks great. I am going to try something similar - I have an empty 25 gallon, that I want to turn into a newt/frog habitat. I don't think that I'll be brave enough to drill holes in the tank for circulation, I'm leaning towards a fuvel canister and hiding the parts similar to what I did for the crab tank.
Thank you. I was worried the first time I did it myself, but actually it is pretty easy and forgiving. I have broken a tank, but that was because I tried to drill a few too many holes in an old tank. I think the fluval with the parts hidden will work just fine. The main reason I drilled mine is I wanted it completely sealed, and you can't do that with canister parts run over the back of the aquarium.

I'm kind of the same way. Not that i'm nervous to drill it, i just can't bring myself to "destroy" a perfectly good tank.......lol
Yep, its definitely permanent once you drill it. Fortunately I have enough tanks sitting around and up and running that drilling one or two (or more) isn't too big of a deal. I also figure that once you foam/silicone that rock in there, its pretty permanent anyway. I tried to pull some foamed/siliconed rock out of a tank once and broke it in the process.
 
#120 ·
I was going to drill a 5 gallon so that I could try a hydroponic loop in my classroom, under the grow light. My plan was to use a simple gravity feed from the fish to the plants and then pump the water back from the plants to the tank. I took the tank down to my local glass shop - they can't drill it as it is tempered. Are all standard aquariums tempered glass? How does one drill a tank?
 
#121 ·
Normally, only the bottoms are tempered. But you can still get the same effect by drilling a hole low on the side glass. Cutting a hole is pretty straight forward from what i am told. Use a glass hole saw. Drill slowly with very light pressure and keep it wet and cool. Take your time and go slowly and you should have no problems. Again, i've never done it so i am just relaying info.
 
#123 ·
Wow.....i really need to start wearing my glasses when looking at my phone. How did i miss the part about it being 5 gallons? Duh!! Yeah, i agree with renegade, i wouldn't drill anything smaller than a 20. The thin glass on smaller tank is just begging for disaster.
 
#124 ·
Thanks for the information. I have decided not to drill my 5 gallon (actually the glass shop made that decision for me), instead I went to my local pet store and purchased a small plastic one for cheap that I'm going to try to drill to get my loop running. While I was there the owner asked me if I was interested in a couple of tiger salamanders- naturally I said sure that they would make a great addition to my room, so I guess its time for me to start a new thread, and seek advise. I will be using the 25 gallon that is currently empty - the stand is almost finished. I don't think that I will drill it, but that I am going to attempt something similar to what you have done Renegade. Thank-you for the inspiration. Any suggestions for what they will need, and set up for them would be great.
 
#125 ·
You are more than welcome. In researching for my tigers, what I found is that they need considerably more room in the terrestrial area than the aquatric area (for two figure approximately the area of a 20 long in terrestrial). I also would not include anything in the aquatic section that you are really fond of, because once they move into and starting stirring around, things really get mixed up. I'd keep the water section fairly shallow or figure out a way (maybe with driftwood) to give them easy access into and out of the water. According to all I've read they should spend the majority of their time in the terrestrial portion. If I were redoing this tank, I'd do the reverse of what I currently have - since that is almost a negligable amount of water, I'm now planning a 4OB for mine.

Look forward to both the thread on the salamanders and the thread on the hydroponic set-up.
 
#126 ·
Time for an update!

The duckweed has gone hog wild as you can see in this shot. I'm pretty amazed that anything manages to find its way around in there. I did remove over half of it and moved it to a window tank I use for growing scuds. If you look carefully, you can see the tanks only fish, a small Swamp darter I added last fall, down in the bottom right;


The Java moss is also doing very well, climbing up and out of the water in its emersed state to cover the whole front of my driftwood. I'm thinking about adding some to the bank area as well.




The Forget-Me-Nots I added to this tank are growing great guns, so they have also made a nice addition;


The Rabbits Foot fern is making a strong comeback, so I'm still holding out hope for it;


While the native fern suffered a bit of a set back from the transition (the original fronds are all dieing off), it is also making a nice come back;


I was hoping to have some new orchid pictures to post up, but unfortunately my new flower bud died off without opening up, not sure exactly why at this point.

Last spring at the end of the year, I moved this guy from the tank I had previously been holding him in, into this one. He has done quite well, and I think the aquarium provides him with plenty of food in and of itself. We examined some "pond water" samples out of it this fall and it is crawling with different microscopic life. He is often times hard to see, not only because the tank is overgrown, but also because he blends in so well as you can see here;


In fact I had some students swear up and down that there were absolutely no fish in that tank. The funny part was, he was sitting right up in the front, and I was able to walk up and point him right out to them. Kind of fun. I'm sure he's a little lonely in there, but I'm hoping that my supplier is going to be rounding a few more up to send me here soon.

And of course here is the obligatory FTS shot;


The mosses on the terrestrial portion just haven't done well for me, I'm assuming its because their just isn't enough humidity, but I'm not sure. I decided to steal an idea from Fishes in Philly and go ahead and add one more feature to the tank, which has kind of made a nice addition. Unfortunately, the fog doesn't quite get up onto the land, I think I would need to switch from a screen top to glass in order to accomplish that, and I'm not sure I want to do that at this point.

Anyway, kind of a fun feature;


 
#129 ·
I was talking iwht my students today about what we are going to need to do for our salamander- I used this tank as a reference for them. I hope that mine will be equally impressive. Going to start my build this week.
Wow, thanks! I'm sure that whatever you come up with will be equally inspiring. I'm looking forward to seeing how yours comes together.

don't tell renegade this, but that emersed piece of wood he has in there, inspired the tank i'm currently building ;)
***chuckle*** yeah well I stole your sonic mist maker, so fair is fair. I'm still trying to figure out how to do the West African river system tank using your foam background and waterfall idea on a smaller scale.
 
#130 ·
Oooohhhh....a west african tank? Sounds very cool. Dwarf cichlids? I use a reptiflo 250 pump for 90% of the water features i make. I get them for $7 at an aquarium outlet store around here. Only 80gph and about a 14" head height, but effective nonetheless. And i have used eggcrate, pvc and the tank as structure for my water features. Hope that helps :)
 
#131 ·
Oooohhhh....a west african tank? Sounds very cool. Dwarf cichlids? I use a reptiflo 250 pump for 90% of the water features i make. I get them for $7 at an aquarium outlet store around here. Only 80gph and about a 14" head height, but effective nonetheless. And i have used eggcrate, pvc and the tank as structure for my water features. Hope that helps :)
River cichlids; I've already got the paired Kribs, a school of Congo tetras, and a small school of synodontis catfish. I'm working on incorperating a canister filter to drive the return, which will be PVC pipe with various outlets below the substrate, and I'd like to make one of those outlets a small waterfall. I'm leaning towards a riparium type tank, but I'm working with a 30 breeder, so height is pretty limited. Since I want to add some African butterfly cichlids (not sure as that may be too much of a bioload), I'm trying to figure all that out with a screen cover.
 
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