# Planted Tanks > Vivariums >  Paludarium Project

## Fei Miao

Hi Guys,
Hi Guys.. suggestions needed.

Hands starting to itch again... thinking of starting a small paludarium with a 1ft cube tank.

Flora-- 
above water-probably some small palms, emerse MMs, nanas, singapore moss,
below water- nanas, small crypts 

Any suggestions what kind of fauna would go with it? besides these...
Boboras maculatas, wild bettas? (it's going to be really low pH ...tea-colour water!  :Smile:  )

Nevada! give a hand hor...(can't wait till CNY! :P)

----------


## vinz

Newts!

----------


## Fei Miao

Yes Vinz... and my 2 firebelly newts, ...  :Smile:  it's been almost 3years and they are still healthy and around. I planned to introduce them in later when the tank/plants are more mature.

It's a pity I do not see much of newts in lfs nowadays, let alone other more exotic species, like red elf...  :Grin:

----------


## checkerboard

personally I find nanas a bit tough to keep out of water unless you have a mister or something that showers it with water. exposed to bright light, it will cringle up. if you noticed, Teos nanas are showered periodically (like every 15 min) and keep under thick black screen.

If I may recommend, some easy to grow emmerse plants are marselia crenata, hairgrass, glosso, marselia hirsuta. taller specimens possible are cyperus helferi (really easy emersed), some echinodorus sp.

under water, crypts and nanas are good choices though.

If you have some kind of spray to keep the environment humid, youc an even try crypts emerse. for that, albida, wendtii, becketti, tropica are good easy choices.

Have fun, I am itching to set up one paludrium too. but have to wait... =)

----------


## Fei Miao

Yes, I intend to do some sort of a sprinkler/mist system, or a water cascade... do you think emerse crypts will do well here?

----------


## vinz

Anubias emerse are ok, if you keep them in a covered tank and have some water surface movement or a waterfall. The humidity in the tank will keep the anubias moist enough. As well as the moss, etc.

----------


## Fei Miao

One more new occupant to this tank ... a Bombina Orientalis or commonly known as Oriental Fire Belly Toad.

----------


## Fei Miao

some update on the progress. My very first Paludarium more or less up.. took me a couple of hours. It's harder than I expected...  :Knockout:  

I found difficulties in make the spray, what I did is to use the spray nozzel from those hand-spray container and managed to connect it to the tube from the pump via a DIY nozzel adapter. Unfortunately, the small pump is too weak to have enough pressure for the spray.. so have to fore-go the spray idea for now. Unless someone have some other ideas to make it work, I can't use a bigger pump beside of the water level. Now it's cascading waters instead.  :Opps: 

Amphibians moved in, boy, I didn't know the newts were that fierce till now, gang-up and nipped the FB toad on the back-side when it encroach into their water domain, make the fella jump clear out of the water..heehee.. I guess it'll take some time for them to get use to each other.  :Grin:  

The Boboras will be in later. Got to get more plants in before I post the pic :P

----------


## vinz

Errr... generally, what I read says never to mix amphibian species. They tend to prey on each other and the toxins they produce could prove fatal either way.

----------


## checkerboard

if you dun want the spray but want a good distribution of the water, you can try one of those Azoo or Ista products that allows you to divert one outflow source to many tiny tubes that you can channel to whereever you desire in the tank.

there are some nice paludriums at Sam yicks United Square using the above, you can go there and take a look.

----------


## Fei Miao

Better late than Never;

Set Up on Nov 26 2004


Updated Shot on 10 Jan 2005

see if you can spot the frog in the 2nd pic  :Grin:

----------


## vinz

Frog... half way up, 1/3 from the right?

What plants are you using in the "land" area? Very nice.... much nicer then what I even envision for my tank. Only just started to do things to it.

----------


## Fei Miao

> Frog... half way up, 1/3 from the right?
> 
> What plants are you using in the "land" area? Very nice.... much nicer then what I even envision for my tank. Only just started to do things to it.


Yes Vinz, the frog is on the right  :Smile:  
As for the plants, most of them are pick from roadside, open grass patches, the land plants you referring to are some kind of moss I found in one of those places.

----------


## Simon

interesting looking, how does the airplant handle the moisture level? I was advise not to wet them by a local florist.. what frogs you have in there?

----------


## ranmasatome

> Fei Miao Posted: Tue, 23 Nov 2004, 14:53 Post subject: 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> One more new occupant to this tank ... a Bombina Orientalis or commonly known as Oriental Fire Belly Toad


??? :Smug:

----------


## Fei Miao

> interesting looking, how does the airplant handle the moisture level? I was advise not to wet them by a local florist.. what frogs you have in there?


Air plant seems okay for the moment  :Smile:  I try not to spray directly on them when I mist the other plants once a week. The tank is partly cover so the moisture retains quite weel. It's all trail and error for me now. 

The frog is a Fire belly toad which amazingly, I read in a book which says it's a frog...mislabelled as a toad  :Smile: . (the other sections mentions .. all frogs are toads but not all toads are frogs...)

----------


## juggler

It is very nice!

----------


## dkk08

very nice setup, simple yet nice... how's the Fire belly toads doing? Updates on pics?

----------


## Fei Miao

> very nice setup, simple yet nice... how's the Fire belly toads doing? Updates on pics?


Thanks for the comments...The FBT is doing fine, does anyone knows of any other place where I can fine Amphibians, ...if anyone interested, saw 2 paddles @ Chinatown LFS (besides the hawker centre) on Saturday; selling $3 ea.

If I can redo the tank... I would spend more time working on a false bottom to enable better water flow.

----------


## dkk08

neh bro... amphibians difficult to get in S'pore... I've some T.shanjing and T.verrucosus... false bottom is good but quite troublesome to setup and maintain the pump

----------


## joestoys

How does one maintain the tank??? must change water??? This is new to me  :Knockout:

----------


## arclaveus

Very interesting looking setup! Nice!  :Well done:   :Cool:

----------


## fuse

hi all,
hey bro FM, that is a very nice setup!!!
may i know what u use to hold the land area up?
and are you using a filtration system for it?
wat are u feeding your newts?

try to remove the toad, hes in danger, they need to be submerged in water and the newts are not helping the case.

hey bro dkh is here also (remember the pics u say u will post for me to see?)

----------


## Fei Miao

Actually maintenance is quite easy, it's a 1ft cube and my first attempt in Vivarium. Water change about once a week and I just siphon off the water, which takes less than 15 minutes. Fishes are just a couple of Boboras Maculatas and they don't dirty the water too much.

Land area are prop up with rocks and driftwoods. BTW I removed the newts from the tank.

----------


## fuse

> Actually maintenance is quite easy, it's a 1ft cube and my first attempt in Vivarium. Water change about once a week and I just siphon off the water, which takes less than 15 minutes. Fishes are just a couple of Boboras Maculatas and they don't dirty the water too much.
> 
> Land area are prop up with rocks and driftwoods. BTW I removed the newts from the tank.


haha same as my toad setup. for me i am using a sringe to remove the water as i have a small water area. will post pics later of my new terrarium, setup when was too bored with studies.

anyway back to mug and will brb!!!

----------

