The 700 gal indoor sunken garden project

[barfly]

Hey MM, your projects are all awesome boy! Can't wait to see the end of this one. =)

You know what? you could farm aquatic plants in there! and i can help you sell here in singapore, like licensed distributor or something.

And glad to hear you like to visit here. you do a good job of promoting us. haha! i'll get tourism board to hand you a medal. maybe free passes to the zoo. =)

Keep Posting!

[trace_lynn]

I've been away for a couple of years, but got the aquarium itch again .... I come back to hobby/site and find this .... OMG this is incredible. Awesome job! Would love to see any updates or just more photos of whats currently going on with this.

[medicineman]

Well.. not much for an update for now.

The house itself is nearing completion, so the finishing work for the pond and cliff will be continued again soon.

As expected, the whole project is a mess due to the dusty and dirty surroundings. Some stains are hard to remove and dulled the initial colours, now looking more of cementy than earthy or rocky. So good scrubbing and water jetting is to be done in a couple of weeks from now to remove all the dirt and cement dust.

For now I resolve to a simple light hanger for the MH, considering all the troubles I will face should I made something of high tech. I just stick to the basics, reliable wrought iron hanger, bolted to the side of the stairs. It is pre-set to hange the lamp at approx 3 feet away from the water surface. Judging from the light distribution, I think this height is perfect (but we will see later on if it is too intense for plants).

@barfly,
Sure I love the visit to the zoo and that bird park whenever I'm in Singapore!
They seems to have something new waiting, and I could use that healthy walk within the rainforest setup
Farming of those exotics? small scale perhaps. The pond is merely a puddle compared to those of real farmer's

[medicineman]

Hi again....

Finally the work on the house in nearing completion and it is getting much cleaner now. All the major renovation surrounding the project are generally done and I suppose no more construction jobs left to ruin my pond-cliff.

After some good cleaning and rinsing off, I found the whole details to be intact. The pond glass are OK with no scratch mark (thank wrappings on the glass panels), but the cliff is not that good.
Workers were called back again and they re-touched the finishing, giving details and even more vivid colours. Places that will come into contact with water are sealed/coated so that the water system would not get too tainted by alkaliness of curing cement mix (heard it might takes months even several years before leaching stop), giving fish-safe assurance.

I chose uneven, naturally occuring pebbles of earthy colour as covering for the garden floor, an obvious break to differentiate the house granite floor from the garden floor.
Hey... it feels nice too when you stand on it, nothing like massaging your feet while enjoying the garden


(It actually looks more earthy than in the pic. Pardon me for the standard quality for it is taken using phone camera).

I guess it is time for me to start planning and collecting some plants, saving for what next to come. This is escpecially important for the emmersed plant part to be given head start since they grow slowly acting as main factor for that "jungle" look over time.

[Jessica]

Oh I'm so glad to see this thread continuing. MM, you're my hero. haha!

[knuggs]

This is going to be awesome when it gets done. You are living my dreams.

[medicineman]

Well... there is a minor setback that we found yesterday.

I've left some water to stand inside the pond for months for testing, making sure nothing leaks. Sure, it is good enough for I did not see any sudden drop in water level, nor any wet spot surrounding the pond, as well as no wet area by the other side of walls. No sweat, no worry, the pond is all water tight.

Yesterday I asked construction workers to fill in the empty pond (just rescently cleaned and I want it filled back). There is an overflow water level check drain (4) located at the filter box to keep water level constant. This overflow drain is being plugged (so to keep it from being clogged by construction debris), and out of their knowledge, complying to my request, they filled the pond full enough to just over the drain level (but not to the point where water is overflowing from the filter).

Sure enough a new flaw is discovered not long after.



Now if you take a good look at the filter box. The level of watertight layer is just a bit above the planned water level. The rest above that is not water tight (crust, porous cement work). When water gets over the watertight level, disaster will happen as we witnessed not long after, the room behind was flooded by some seeping overflowing water. This would never happen if the overflow check drain is not closed. Though not a major setback and almost impossible to happen again under normal operating condition, I do not accept such flaw and decided to play the safe route.

Adding 15-20cm of additional height to water tight layer will make sure nothing leaks to next door, even if accident like overfilling the pond happens.

I guess even with careful planning to details, flaws will always exist

[medicineman]

Ladies and gentlemen.... I present to you the finished, cleaned product


taken at 1 hour before dawn

No... not planted or decorated yet, but that part will be on the way.
This time no work will ever stain or dirty my garden again, for all major work on the house is finally over.

If you can note some plants are already there, but still in their pots and not yet planted and I still need heck a lot of plants to fill in the crannies.

It came across me the idea of a bird's nest. The same structure could be artificially built from degradable natural material such as woven plant fiber (probably attached to the walls by nails) and this can act as vantage points for epifits such as ferns, vines, small bromeliads. Already I made some three fern panels to attach bird nest fern to the walls.

A major setback that prevent me from proceeding to planting is the lack of misting system. It is virtually difficult to find any around here. Some that are available are large greenhouse "aeroponics" pumps, while othes are high pressure fogging machines running at 1000-1500 PSI. These are just out the equation for me, in capacity, pressure, machine size and not to mention the ridiculous price tag ($1,500 at the least).

This forced me to resolve something such as DIY misting system. I'm talking about high pressure cleaning machine, portable size (the stuff they use for cleaning your AC). They are able to run long time at once (though still considered intermitent duty) and max out at 500 PSI, but is adjustable via a meter gauge to run at less than half that pressure. The flow rate is 0.7 gpm, and with the right nozzles I think I will be able to run at least a dozen or so of modestly sized spays. No performance chart... but so far this is the best that I can find, costing very low at just around $ 100.

For the submersed scape fans : sorry, no aquascape yet. It is, I think the easiest and last part (though the hardest to balance) and can wait for last.

[dufus]

Wow, it's gorgeus.
Is the water clear? Have fun with the mist system,lol.

[Roc]

Looks amazing.......

Could we get some more photos, like close-ups of different parts of the tank and background, although it is a beautiful pic it's hard to grasp exactly what it really looks like from that one photo

[Martin]

I *heart* medicineman !!

wonderful finish.

by misting you mean for CO2? or for humidity in room?

if for CO2, how about pondsize powerheads?

if for humidity.. well... sry... no idea, though an easily adaptable product would be the misters used for terrariums..

or garden misters.

In greece I saw misters placed behind cooling fans to spread out the mist.


If all these ramblings are way off.. well.. I refuse to delete... :-)

[RoseHawke]

Garden misters, yes. I've ordered from a company here in the states before, DripWorks, but can't find on their website if they'll ship overseas or not. Just another option.

That looks absolutely awesome MM! Can't wait to see it planted!

[natx]

Yeah seems like a drip hose around the top could water the entire wall. Man this is going to be very cool when its all planted. I assume the entire wall will be mostly obscured once the plants grow in.

[ovenmit331]

just read all 13 pages! amazing work. and all in your living room!!! any final thoughts on fauna?

[CampCreekTexas]

OMG!!! Spectacular!! That is going to be GORGEOUS when it's all planted!! Can't wait to see that.