The 700 gal indoor sunken garden project

[Tdon1md]

Another masterpiece. I've sat for at least 4 hours reading and gazing and just admiring your work between the 3 threads you've done. Thanks for sharing all of your hard work with us. You truly have a lot to be proud of! I think my fav is the 260 on the balcony. That's where I'd spend my time unwinding. Don't you have constant breezes there? Sitting on the balcony, breeze blowing through softly, stress melting, deep tranquility,........

Anyway, very, very nice work!!!!

[octopus44]

Incredible!

How is the emersed part of the project coming?

[medicineman]

Another update on the growth from last week.
Sorry for the low res-pics, keep forgetting to take out the SLR from the other house

Here you can see forest of crypt wendtii green. These kind grow quite big. Growth has been strong ever since they were planted less than 2 months ago.


And here you can find Hygrophila agustifolia with flamboyant, green, long leaves that sways to the current. This plant has been growing strong as well, now reaching water surface.


A good news at last. I've won my battle against pesky BBA. They fast dissapearing and right now there are less than 10% and nearly gone.
A strange thing because I did not do anything special, just keep on taking after the setup like usual : micro bubble CO2 injection, fert dosing (Wonder-Gro liquid macro+, micro+ and tablet root+).
No excel addition yet, which is a good sign that the setup is healing itself.

[jinx©]

Well it took me a pot of coffee and an hour to catch up on this thread, and all I can say is well done MM!
Very beautiful and thank you for sharing the build and progression.

Now if I could have only spent the hour sipping coffee while sitting beside your pond...ahhh...lol

[Fugu]

.................... I honestly thought i was going to wet my pants! Pure commitment to the hobby!!!!!!!!! I cant beleive it! Is this in your own house? If I had that house, i would guard it with my lie! It must have cost millions to make! WOW!

[MarkTheShark]

Beautiful! Incredible!

Maybe a few birds to fly around indoors, a butterfly or two would look great too.

Any new photos?

[medicineman]

@jinx,
The garden is a nice house piece, and we did glad of the additional ambient lighting coming from the skylight.

@Fugu,
I never do service job doing setups. The garden is built within our house, right by the living room.

@MarkTheShark,
Heheh.. birds belongs to the cage (we happen to have some). Dont want any guano on the couch.

Update on the garden.

A setback was found around two months ago as water level keeps receding each day. A leak of around 20-30 gallon per day is obvious and fresh water is added daily to compensate the loss. I never intend to do continous water change, but what can I say that now I'm forced to do such. It is a bit wasteful and I prefer not to do it. But fixing and looking for the leak would mean the garden needs to be torn down, and I'm not ready to do such thing at such early stage. Next year perhaps, and only if the leak gets worse.

Growth has been fairly explosive well so far to the terrestrial as well as aquatic plant.
The pothos haired down with wild effect and plants grow bigger. Some branches started to climb up though most are keen to hang low.

[fishscale]

Uh. Errr. I...guh.

I think I just peed myself.

[dantimdad]

I have dreamed of such a system to combine my reef tanks into. Then I read about the other tanks you have! Wow!

Keep up the good work!

BTW, are you sure it's a leak and not evap? The waterfall could possibly cause that much.

dantimdad

[medicineman]

@fishscale,
Dont wet that pants in the winter yet

@dantimdad,
Pretty sure it leaks. I have already did a series of testings by the help of a series of valves.
1. Turned the waterfall off.
2. Turned the tank return line off but waterfall on.
3. Turned the tank return line on but the waterfall off.
4. Turned the main pump off and seal the valves.

In the end I still get reduced water level at the main tank, but not the filter chambers. It must be a tiny crack, or perhaps a series of hairlines (which by experience sometimes gets self clogged, reducing the leak rate significantly).

A close up on the pond section.
Already some lotus formed aerial leaves. I havent got the urge to jump in and do trimming yet to those assorted hygros.

[fish man 101]

really, really impressive Medicinman!

shame about the leak but i am sure you will get on top of it! the aquatic garden section looks great.

[medicineman]

Indeed the growth has taken over the pond section that now you can hardly notice the piping form the pic (although still can see them easy in real).

Close up on climbing pothos (philodendron scandens variety)



The growth has been rampant, occacional sprinkle of aquarium macro fertiliser seems to be helping a lot. That orchid has not flowered yet, need to learn how to induce flowering on them and get more to cheer up the still bald cliff.

This kind of plant can even go under water, but not as aquatic plant. You can see below that already a branch long enough reached water surface and start to grow along water line. More of these will be seen in the future for the plant will learn that the pond is nutritious.



Here you can find tiny hygro poliserma budding out of water. They appear not so good, perhaps due to lack of nutrition (no substrate) grown with just water and any dissolved fert. Or perhaps they remain that size because of humidity factor, any bigger and they may dry up.

[medicineman]

Some of the hygro I use.

Here you can see Hygro corymbosa, Hygro compacta and Hygro poliserma.
Combination of tall corymbosa and short compacta creates an illusion of bushy and full growth of one species, even though the two are different.



Initially I intended to use the poliserma for starter plant, keeping growth fast and algae minimum in a newly setup system. Now I'm getting a fond to it and refuse to throw it away

[medicineman]

More of the views







Enjoy!

[Green Leaf Aquariums]

So cool, again so cool....