250 tank and 250 air

HX67

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Jan 25, 2008
218
44
61
Up over
...makes a 500 gal paludarium, right?

First of all, please try to bare with my lack of photographic skills.

Here's how it looked like when I first filled it with water:

As you can see, I decided to give a sort of a hamburger mattenfilter a shot in brackish tank.



The basic circulation is done by a Koralia 4 installed into a chamber so that it only draws part of it's flow through der matte...:





A mattfilter looks like crap, so I made a fake stone wall- sort of a thing to cover it. While I was at it, I decided to give a "poor man's live rock" a shot.
What I did was I made a basic mold with leca-cement mixture:




Then I covered the leca-cement with grey grout and carved it (when fresh) to resemble stone. The result is seen in following photos, the parts under water are done like this.

Then, to seed the very porous "live rock" I sunk the bits to the Baltic ocean (it is brackish, about 1.006 where the stones were lying) for a month to cure and to gather a bit of bacteria and microfauna.
This is taken from the backside of a piece after the bath:

They are actually very porous, the pic taken with a flash hides the porousness somehow...



At some point I made the fake rockwall for the upper part of the tank and the fake tree trunk thingy to hold the mangroves and sorta connect the bits to each other or something:




A couple of weeks after dumping the live-rock-background to the tank, it was cycled and the habitat looked like this:




An exceptionally crappy FTS of the thing:




Above surface:





Below, mangrowe rooting with a flash...




Just a couple of inches more and the first root hits the sand

Notice the swamp ceriths. There is a gazillion of them. I put them there to mix the sand for me. Now I'm thinking I need a puffer to cut 'em back a bit...



A happy camper. Doing his share to fullfill the monsterishness of this site.




That's it for now. I've got plans to upgrade the filtering capacity of the tank with a wet/dry undertank DIY thingy.
I also originally designed the upper rock wall to be equipped with a fresh water dripper system to accommodate some planting.
I'm also planning to add to underwater planting. Not too much, but I would like to see something there, more than the couple of dying java ferns...

And...and...and...

Maybe I get around to putting more effort to the thing now that it is a semi-public project?
Thanks for looking.
 

haynchinook334

Giant Snakehead
MFK Member
Feb 14, 2008
14,479
245
147
\m/(O_o)\m/
WOW THATS ONE OF THE COOLEST TANK I HAVE SEEN.....GOOD WORK!!!
 

jcardona1

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 5, 2007
11,491
40
0
41
South of Heaven
this is sooooooooooo cool! great work!
 

BIGgourami

Polypterus
MFK Member
Jan 31, 2007
6,181
12
92
34
Chicago, IL
THAT IS THE RADDEST (*&% EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


can you do something like that for me :D
 

Mr Pleco

Piranha
MFK Member
Mar 18, 2006
2,657
71
81
West
That's something when vision and reality come together..great set up....Your ideas have given me some ideas...thank you , very inspirational:popcorn:
 

Trippingpara

Gambusia
MFK Member
May 10, 2008
268
0
16
New England
WOW! Great job! Makes my mudskipper tank look like crap!! Dang it, now I'm gonna have to buy my wife another diamond ring so I can convince her I now need a 250g for my mudskipper!
 

dragonfish

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Sep 17, 2006
5,015
13
60
Florida
Trippingpara;1922395; said:
WOW! Great job! Makes my mudskipper tank look like crap!! Dang it, now I'm gonna have to buy my wife another diamond ring so I can convince her I now need a 250g for my mudskipper!
Let me know how that works out. I heard it was 1 carat per 500 gallon, so 1/2 carat should work out for you.

HX67, awesome tank, I'm jealous.
 

Trippingpara

Gambusia
MFK Member
May 10, 2008
268
0
16
New England
dragonfish;1922431; said:
Let me know how that works out. I heard it was 1 carat per 500 gallon, so 1/2 carat should work out for you.
Only a 1/2 carat? Great! Thanks! I was thinking that I was going to have to bend over and take it for at least a solid carat with the highest color and clarity that she could find! If you suddenly see me disappear from the forum or suddenly sell all my stuff in the Marketplace, you know how it went!:ROFL:
 
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