My shallow, deep, riparium style chocolate Puddle

[Alastair-T]

Hi everyone,
After having been Taken in by the whole immersed planting and riparium style tanks on here and one awesome one on a forum over here in the uk, I thought I'd hang up my high tech gear, sell off my equipment and go for this.

Tank is lxdxh 120x70x30cm on a homemade stand.

Here is the tank on day of delivery



And sat on the cabinet


I have purchased shower/bath suction caddies to use as hang on planters which I'm only planning on using in the rear right corner. I'd like that part full of immersed plants.
I've currently got some cyperus alternifolius going in the planters, and will possibly try to squeeze in a peace Lilly but will be having a large echinodorus growing right out of the water in that same corner.
Hardscape is redmoor wood and as a substrate I'll be using John innes top soil capped with columbo flora base.

Lighting is an ati sunpower 4x54 w but am only using two tubes and having it suspended 3 feet above water level.
Filtration will just be a small eheim 2213 but I don't want fast flow, I'm aiming for little if any water changes.

Below water will be crypts, mainly wendtii, rotala rotundafolia,,juncus repens, some smaller echinodorous species and various mosses.

In their ill be keeping chocolate gouramis ( hence the name chocolate Puddle) shrimp and some corys.



Cabinet varnished and tank filled but very muddy as the hosepipe went on a dance spree


Will pop up some more pics tomorrow of how it's progressing as its been filled and running two weeks. The cyperus has gone mental already and I've had to raise the light unit.


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[duff]

What a beautiful tank you have! And those shower caddy's are perfect. Looking forward to seeing your updates.

[AirstoND]

Originally Posted by duff

What a beautiful tank you have! And those shower caddy's are perfect. Looking forward to seeing your updates.

Never thought of the shower caddy, thanks!

[sockfish]

Love that tank--did you build the stand for it?

sox

[Shimagoma]

ah so cool! cant wait for an update

[schoolzoo]

Great idea for the shower cadies I think I'll try that too.

[PaulG]

Hi Alistair,

Tom's tank is on here too, which I assume is the one you're talking about!

I'm Morgan Freeman over on UKAPS.

[hydrophyte]

That tank is a great shape for a riparium. It will look a lot like a pond all set up.

[AirstoND]

Originally Posted by hydrophyte

That tank is a great shape for a riparium. It will look a lot like a pond all set up.

Yeah, when are u going to add the banjo playing, talking frog.

[Alastair-T]

Thanks everyone for the positive comments so far. I was looking for hanging planters but just doesn't seem to be anything so with a bit of searching online I found the shower caddies and they are perfect. Would have preferred deeper ones but were out of stock.

The cabinet was handmade yes and hi paulg. Good to see you on here too.

@ hydrophyte that's great coming from you as its your blogs and posts that clued me up on suitable riparium style plants and how to go about planting etc thank you.

The tank is coming along great, much of the planting has been delayed due to lots of cory fry. A plant I transferred over was covered in eggs and I genuinely didn't think they'd survive with the tank being recently set up but they're all doing great.
I have some rotala rotundafolia, juncus repens, mosses, needle leaf java fern and java fern trident with a couple of crypts currently planted underwater. Not much yet but my order of tropica plants arrives tomorrow so it will hopefully all be filled in.
I have an E.cordifolius just infront of the cyperus Alternifolius in the corner which is just breaking water so will hopefully blend into the cyperus. I never realised how quick this stuff grows though. It's already a good 60cm plus in height.

Here's a couple of pics of how the tanks looking at present
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Hopefully the crypts etc will arrive tomorrow to cover most of the substrate, and need to get looking for other plants to add in with the cyperus.

Thanks for looking so far :-)

[duff]

Beautiful Alastair-T! Maybe trimming some of the taller cyperus would help or switching it out for the Dwarf variety? What type of crypts are you adding? (sounds like you have a lot coming tomorrow!)

[Alastair-T]

Originally Posted by duff

Beautiful Alastair-T! Maybe trimming some of the taller cyperus would help or switching it out for the Dwarf variety? What type of crypts are you adding? (sounds like you have a lot coming tomorrow!)

Thanks Duff, I do actually trim the cyperus but it's sending out new stems constantly. I've looked for the dwarf variety but had no luck so far.

I'm adding lots of cryptocoryne wendti green, the wendtii tropica, marsilea hursulata, the very tall eleocharis, so it will flow along the route of the filter. I've also had a bag of the new ada Amazonia arrive to add as some of my current substrate wasn't deep enough too keep my topsoil under but must say I'm really not impressed as it contained lots of bits of glass and what looks like quartz too.
This is what I pulled from just a litre of it



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[mcqueenesq]

Fantastic!

[Chrisinator]

Awesome!

[Alastair-T]

Just a quick update on hoe things are progressing, would like some ideas on smaller riparium/marginal plants as the cyperus is just growing way too tall no matter how much i trim the stuff. Anyone help at all??

i have finally added my first lot of my chocolate gouramis and they love it, they seem much more at home in this set up than my high tech tank, and have really coloured up well


Untitled by Mr-T-, on Flickr

and two shots of the tank now as its currently looking. i still need to add in some more crypt varieties but my echinodorous cordifolius is sendind some lovely leaves above the water. Havent taken any shots of these yet though

Untitled by Mr-T-, on Flickr

and my favourite shot


Untitled by Mr-T-, on Flickr

will be adding to the chocco collection shortly by another 5 and hopefully will be having a total of 15 in.

Any ideas on smaller riparium plants would be great. Thanks everyone