Discus Paludarium?

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ok cool thanks that was an interesting read but yeah i think that i would definitely prefer to go the paludarium route even though it will involve more actual building. i want to have the water feature and the more 3-dimensionalness that comes with a paludarium instead of just having plants on the backs and sides of the walls
 
Pothos, bromiliads, mosses, and some orchids all do well in well planned paludariums.

Check dendroboard.com, there is a ton of info on creating planted terreiums/paludariums
 
Sarah88;5111511; said:
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 :)

That actually sounds like quite an interesting idea you got there... almost makes me wish i had thought of doing something like that in my tank...

BTW, don't think i have asked this before, but are you going to use any sort of substrate in the bottom of the tank for decoration?
 
yeah i am going to leave in the pool filter sand that i have in there currently i really like the look of it, but yeah iv been looking around and i think i might avoid the acrylic all together and just sculpt it all out of foam and eggcrate and then do parts i want to look like bark above the water with silicon and coconut fiber like some people on the dart frog site do and then paint everything with different shades of tinted dryloc paint... hmmm yeah the more im looking into ways to do this the more i am wanting to start carving stuff haha but definitely still have a lot of plant research left to do now lol

ceej thanks for the suggestions and the forum site that place is pretty helpful with lots of build threads for ideas :)
 
so im thinking about doing different types of bromeliads on the bottom and then doing ecoweb on the back and far side of the upper glass and have 2 or 3 orchids growing on the ecoweb. would it be possible to get moss to grow on the walls as well? also since all of these plants require indirect light what kind of bulbs/wattage/spectrum should i use so that it doesnt overpower them? i was wanting to do like a taller growing red bromeliad in the center but read they can get up to 2ft. do you guys have any suggestions on smaller growing spp?
 
Can't answer all your questions, but if you can find a way to attach the moss to the background, no reason why it won't grow... i have moss naturally growing in my polleni tanks background, although it does come off pretty easily once it grows out a bit...

As for lighting, best is probably to try and get as much of the light spectrum as possible, personally on my tanks i was told best bet would be to use at least a mix of 5000K and 6500K bulbs to give plants the best full spectrum of light to grow all types of plants..
 
Agree with one of the previous statement just check out a bunch of forums. Most of the dart frog forums, vivariumfroum.com, orchidboard.com, stuff like that has tons of ideas and build logs you can look up.

Lots of mosses will grow up the walls.
It sounds like you want to do something like this but with a water feature and instead of the moss on the bottom you want to have water.


Oh and for scale, the frog on the obttom is one of the larger dart frogs, reaching about 2.5 inches

Frog tank.jpg
 
Hey Sarah... any updates on how this project is going?
 
Moss will definately grow on the back. I have a good growth of java moss growing on the emersed section of driftwood in my tank. Grows better out of water then in it.
If you want to try a carnivorous plant, try a Nepenthes. Tropical pitcher plants. If you have a lowland species it moght work. You just have to keep the aquarium water from getting into its roots. It won't like the nutrients. Having it in its own pot would be the best way.
 
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