Discus Paludarium?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
S

Sarah88

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Sep 27, 2009
3,919
7
68
Wilmington, NC
sooo thinking of revamping my tank and turning it into a paludarium with discus and my surinamensis group. i dont plan on having any plants in the water only in the top section and was wondering what you guys would suggest? i would like some nicely colored sword leaf plants as well as flowering plants, i was maybe even thinking of having some orchids in there but i would have to research more on how to care for them, was also wondering if some carnivorous plants would work as well as that would be a cool addition. what kind of lights and substrate would you guys suggest? and also where is a good place to order plants from? any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as i have never done a set up like this before :)
 
Sarah88;5110598; said:
sooo thinking of revamping my tank and turning it into a paludarium with discus and my surinamensis group. i dont plan on having any plants in the water only in the top section and was wondering what you guys would suggest? i would like some nicely colored sword leaf plants as well as flowering plants, i was maybe even thinking of having some orchids in there but i would have to research more on how to care for them, was also wondering if some carnivorous plants would work as well as that would be a cool addition. what kind of lights and substrate would you guys suggest? and also where is a good place to order plants from? any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as i have never done a set up like this before :)
Click to expand...


Okay, first off i would say whatever plants you do get, make sure to research them to make sure they will all strive under the same conditions ;)

Anyway, as for carnivorous plants, as a keeper of them myself, i would recommend against it, not because its impossible, but you would have to set the plant up in a way where it wouldn't be in contact with any of the "regular" plants soil or tap / tank water... since they need to be watered with distilled water only and kept in nutrient poor soil or it may kill their roots...

Also, depending on the type of carnivorous plant, it may need to go in the freezer for a few months a year for dormancy periods, so not exactly ideal in a paludraium setting...

With that being said, if your up for the challenge, you could make your own custom 3D background and create little pots for the plants to sit in above the soil and water below which could work :)

As for substrate, personally i used ADA amazonia in my tank, only because i know for a fact it would be fish safe and free of any possible harmful chemicals and has all the nutrients my plants need :naughty:
 
thanks for the tips and oh yeah i will be doing TONS of research before going through with this i was mainly wanting suggestions on plants that would look good where i could start my research since i really dont know much about ornamental plants (growing veggies in my garden is about all i do plant-wise lol) so was mainly just looking for a starting point haha. but yeah i definitely didnt know that carnivorous plants were that hard to care for, i was mainly thinking of just some little venus flytraps or something but if they have to have dormancy periods than i wont do that.
 
Funny you should mention the VFT (Venus Fly Trap), since they are ones that need a dormancy and require quite a lot of light to thrive... which i agree can be a bit of pain...

Anyway, if i'm not mistaken, i think orchids would work in a paludarium since i'm pretty sure i've seen them in a vivarium before? although i'm not 100% sure, since i keep just very basic water loving plants which i don't think flower in my setup...

Either way, best of luck with your setup, and be sure to post lots of pics as the build comes together... oh and btw, how large is the tank your building this in, and any ideas of how your going to separate the land and water area?
 
yeah i think i was reading somewhere that orchids were a good paludarium plant but i would really have to research more, they are my favorite flowers so i hope they will work out :) but the tank is my 120g thats in my signature im wanting to totally overhaul it and just keep my bottom dwellers (4 surinamensis and delhezi) and add in some discus. this is the very rough picture i made in Paint for the discus forum haha. i am wanting to keep at least a 16in water level for the fish and put a water fall feature in one end. not quite sure yet on how to do the shelf for the land, was thinking of making like a planter box type thing from acrylic but not sure how im going to brace the edges since i was wanting them to be like 10in wide... as you can tell this is all in the very early planning stages haha
 
best of luck with it, i'm sure with a bit of planning and research you should be able to pull everything off... as a word of warning though, just make sure you can reach below the land portion of the tank to clean... coz i know in my paludarium its a right P.I.T.A to clean beneath that area...
 
thanks, hopefully it will come along with out too many glitches haha, got an idea and was thinking i could do PVC supports going down into the tank and then surround them with styrofoam and make styrofoam branches/roots come off of them so that the supports for the land actually become the tank decoration for the water giving the fish a root system to swim between and then only deco actually on the bottom would be some rocks here and there, and that should be pretty easy to clean around with just using my python hose :)
 
could elaborate please? and im not exactly sure what the differences are between a plaudarium and a riparium...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
MonsterFishKeepers.com
Top Bottom