Paludarium Journal

[ValRasbora]

btw for the plants I mentioned, your land should be quite dry. You could buy some of those mini terra-cotta pots and seal the bottom and then just fill it with the plant substrate, and hide the pots in the sand. There's another plus to that- when the crabs burrow they won't be disturbing the roots

Your plans are looking good!!

 

[teresap989]

Ok so I had an excelent idea that I need to share. I am still going to have th wame basic setup, but it will have a river made of plastic water bottles going through it. I'll jsut glue on gravel so the river looks natural. All I need to figure out now is how to get the output of the waterfall filter thing to face a different way as the intake faces. Also I heard that they like to burrow down right to the water line, so I might make the land area 3 inches higher and put some holes in the plexyglass to let water soak the bottom layer of sand. Sorry about all the rambling, i just have so many ideas flowing through my head right now. Suggestions? Tips? Comments?

I also think so.thanks



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[ValRasbora]

be sure to make many, many plans and sketches, then, start making dry setups. The initial drawing of mine looks nothing like now!
Let the ideas float onto paper

 

[paperdog9]

Well, its been a while since ive posted and after a bunch of planning im getting ready to start building. I glued on my rock wall and am waiting for some sand to dry out so that I can start experimenting with the river. I don't know when I will be able to post pictures, but hopefully after I add sand. Thanks for the advice and imput, more is welcome!

 

[ValRasbora]

I've been reading and ghost shrimp seem to be able to adapt well to brackish conditions. I also had a thought, what about endlers? They grow about 3/4 of an inch and originate in brackish water but are generally kept in FW... with acclimation they'd prolly be able to go brackish! I'm still looking for ideas for your stocking, but it's hard because you're not sure about how much water... If you can punch the rough dimentions in an aquarium calc that would help a bit

 

[paperdog9]

Oh sorry Is actually going to be about 2.5 gallons of swimming space (roughly 5inches tall, 7 inches long, and about 10 inches wide) so that limits my otptions quite a bit, if only I started this project with a bigger tank, endlers would be so awesome, I've always wanted to try them. With 2.5 gallons though I could probably only get one endler though, but i'm not an expert. Thanks!

 

[ValRasbora]

you could probably have 2 endlers if you have good filtration. The RCC might consider them a snack, so don't buy them if they're expensive. Otherwise, just stick with the ghosties. I'll look up some more options for you

Any new plans or pictures?

 

[paperdog9]

Well, right now things are slowing down again, I need to get some sand to fill the land side the nthings might speed up a bit. I will see what endlers cost and I have very high filteration so I would be fine there. Thanks for the comments and suggestions!

 

[ValRasbora]

endlers.. I have seen them cost from $2 to $13. It varys greatly in different areas. I can't find any cheap, available brackish fish so ghost shrimp or endlers is it. I believe you can keep nerite snails in brackish as well.

 

[paperdog9]

Yes! I finally got my sand and set it up. I havent got the river yet, but I'm thinking about just making it go from the top rock in the sand strait down to the water and using some tubing just because I have less space then I expected. I will probably just go with ghost shrimp and RCC's. I was thinking 3 Red Claw Crabs for my amount of space, does this sound good? Maybe like 4 ghosties? i couldn't find any narate snails around here so X on that one. I don't know quite yet what I'm going to do with plants so suggestions are welcome! I might do just something siimple like java fern because the lighting is just a lamp over the top (as you can see in the second pic). Sorry about the bad pictures, I had to use the flash because I still need to find a power stick or something to hook up the lamp. For land plants, I was thinking maybe some kind of cactus? SUggestions, comments, insults?

 

[unwritten law]

not cactus... too wet... but there are plenty of tropical plants out there that work well in those conditions... types of ferns and stuff... cant think off the top of my head tho..

 

[ValRasbora]

I thought cactus would go with sand but obviously I wasn't thinking of other factors >_<

 

[ValRasbora]

and I like it so far! You can look back on the start of my thread and see how far mine has come. Yours has the makings to be quite beautiful! Too bad you can't have too much in the way of plants.. I'd say a venus flytrap would be cool and *might* work but the crabbies might eat it, and they're somewhat expensive. If you have a big yard you can look around in moist areas and see if there are any plants that would suit you. Also you can collect moss and grow it on a rock. If you can find some non-tacky plastic plants i'd say pick those up too...

 

[paperdog9]

Ok, thanks for the suggestions, I was thinking of trying to find some kind of a moss, but my options may be limited because winter is near and plants are dying around here. Does moss need any high lighing, because my lighting is just a little clip on desk lamp.

I was also thinking of a larger anubius of a few to grow from in the water, because I have read that they will tolerater small amounts of salt and can are terrestrial plants and aquatic plants so it could grow out of the water. I don't have any experiance with abudius so if someone could help me out with that. Val you have been really helpful thanks a bunch, at first I thought you would be the only one to post besides me, but unwritten law has broken the streak it seems Thanks everyone especially Val (not saying the others aren't helpful)

 

[ValRasbora]

I have the cold problem too... there's still some green moss around though. You might be able to find some at a nursery if not in your yard.

Liltank was posting for a while... I haven't seen her around much lately though.

 

[paperdog9]

oh ya almost forgot (I have nothing against you littletank ) I'll see what I can find, oh and an update, I just added three ghost shrimp and they are doing great (don't worry I ran the filters in my other tanks for 3 or 4 weeks) I'm thinking about starting to add my crabs next week, and I'm guessing I should add them all at once for territorial reasons. I got a huge peice of silicon tubing and I just need to wait for a stack of books to straiten it out before I can cut it and glue on rocks.

 

[ValRasbora]

how many crabs were you getting?

 

[paperdog9]

I was planning on three, and when I said next week I ment in the next few weeks, sorry. Does 3 sound good? According to all my sources, a ten gallon is good for 3 to four crabs.

 

[ValRasbora]

three sounds perfect. Four would be tops, yes. Keep an eye out for nerites too!!

 

[paperdog9]

Well, It's been awhile. I've been trying to get this project done, but it isn't quite the paludarium I've been wanting, so I'm debating taking the whole thing apart and making a foam scape with plants and waterfalls everywhere. My inspiration is from this . I kinda want to ditch the brackish thing because It would be a lot of work and money. I was thinking a few fire bellied toads and maybe some corys for the bottom. I'm still in the planning process, so thell me waht you think. Thanks