#143: 151L Paludarium The way out.

C. Flores Los Angeles, United States

Comments

Though the submersed growth is doing really well it steals the show from the emersed growth. A little stronger presence of emergent vegetation would have help tie the land/water sections better.
— Ghazanfar Ghori
Pretty wild and just plain fun!
— Karen Randall

Aquascape Details

Dimensions 91 × 46 × 41 cm
Title The way out.
Volume 151L
Background A south facing window in sunny Los Angeles, CA, USA. Please excuse my neighbor...
Lighting 150w Metal Halide (10000K), plenty of natural sunlight
Filtration Purely mechanical via a MagDrive 1.5 and a broken Eheim canister filled with floss. I try to apply Walstad's principles of plants and substrate creepies as biofilters, while incorporating large regular waterchanges to ensure high nutrient export (Barr's Estimative Index as a filter).
Plants Anubias nana 'petite', Blyxa japonica, Cryptocoryne parva, C. wendtii 'Green gecko', C. wendtii 'Mi Oya', Hemianthus callitrichoides 'Cuba', H. micranthemiodes, Lindernia rotundifolia 'Variagated', Ludwigia arcuata, L. senegalenesis, Pogostemon helferi, P. yatabeanus, Polygonum sp . 'Sao Paulo', Riccia, Rotala indica, R. mexicana 'Goias', R. sp 'from Araguaia', Syngonanthus sp 'from Belem', Tillandsia sp
Animals Breeding colony (1M/3F, 4 unsexed fry) Blue Paradise Fish, 6 false Siamese Algae Eaters, 6 Otocinclus, 4 White-cheeked Gobies, 1 Rubbernose pleco, 1 Bristlenose pleco
Materials Aquasoil Amazonia, Red Sea Florabase, and plain old potting soil make up the substrate. Hardscape is Manzanita wood from manzanita.com and a handful of rocks from a hobbyist.
Additional Information I target about 40ppm CO2, 8ppm NO3, 3ppm PO4, a minimum of 10ppm K, and regular input of trace nutrients. The tank is engineered around those assumptions and the tools at petalphile.com, particularly http://wet.biggiantnerds.com/ei/con_v_time.pl and http://petalphile.com/drop_calc.pl

My goal in this half-filled aquarium/paludarium/thingymajigger was to flower plants, which I've done successfully with Blyxa japonica, Linderia rotundifolia 'Variagated', Polygonum sp. 'Sao Paulo', and Tillandsia sp. This was very rewarding for me, and even more enjoyable is that the Paradisefish spawn and I'll see a new fry or two who survive regularly. The tank has served as a piece of nature and relaxation in this hobbyist's day to day.

All of these photographs were of the tank in its regular day-to-day state. You're welcome to see more pictures on the websites above.

Thank you for a wonderful organization and all of your contributions to our hobby!

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