10 gallon paludarium - Paludariums

Fish_man33 · 09-30-2006, 10:20 PM

Hey guys.

I am really interested in makeing a paludarium with my 10 gallon tank, that I want to house guppies (has a few already) and fire bellied toads.

I need to know how to make a land area, and a waterfall, and still have the most amount of roomn for the guppies to swim. I also need to have it the lightest possible, and i would like not to have to silicone anything to to the tank. And I need to not have to spend a whole lot...so any ideas? Thanks, and sorry for me being picky.

_Fish man

yoink · 09-30-2006, 11:46 PM

I made the very thing you are asking about. I used chuck gadd's design and scaled it way down for a ten gallon.
Chuck's Aquarium Page
The styro and paint and pretty cheap, it's the epoxy that is a little pricey. You can't spray paint styrofoam, it will melt. Why are you opposed to using silicone? I think it would be hard to make stable without being siliconed in place.

Fish_man33 · 09-30-2006, 11:58 PM

I meant to say i would prefer not to silicone anything, because I might want to make it a fisk tankagain, not a paludarium, but I definatly do for now, and probably until I move or something. I will use silicone if i have to. I dont have a lot of money to spend, so I want to make it as cheap as possible.

Thanks. Oh, also do you have pictures? I would love to see some.

epicfish · 10-01-2006, 03:11 AM

Chuck's Aquarium Page

Pics of Chuck's paludarium are there.

Fish_man33: If you could update this thread often with pics of your construction, that'd be awesome.

yoink: Do you have pictures of yours? I never even thought of a paludarium until I saw this thread right now! And if you don't mind me asking, how much did it cost to build it all?

yoink · 10-01-2006, 02:39 PM

I don't remember exactly how much it cost. I already had the paint and sand. The sheet of styro wasn't more than a few bucks. I think the epoxy was somewhere around $20, and I used it all. I regret not taking any construction photos now, but I do have some that show the setup along the way. I cut the styro down to size, make sure it will fit into the tank. I cut a smaller piece and glued it to the back piece with liquid nails. I tried some foam board adhesive the first time, but it took weeks to dry. After the main piece was glued together, I make a waterfall out of great stuff expanding foam. The waterfall is powered by a whisper mini pump and flows through a chamber behind the waterfall that is full of filter floss. Sanding the foam to shape is really easy, but messy. Once I had the final shape, I covered the entire piece in epoxy, front and back. You can paint it the color you like after the epoxy has fully dried. I then put a couple more layers of epoxy on the front(visible) side, throwing some sand onto the epoxy as it dried. Lastly I siliconed some coconut fiber sheets to the back. I hoping it gets completely covered with moss one day. The tank holds about four gallons of water.
Here is what it looked like when first started up.

Side view with some terrarium moss in it.

Waterfall in the beginning

Shot of it grown in a little bit. Shultz aps is the substrate on the land section.
Moss from backyard.

Here is what it looks like now.

Here are my toads.

epicfish · 10-01-2006, 05:04 PM

Awesome pictures. =)

I might look into it for a nano tank or something. I have a 7 gallon nano now that have some shrimp in it. I might get another for a paludarium. Thanks again for the pics and explanation.

Fish_man33 · 10-01-2006, 06:07 PM

Hey zoink...You said that you used a Whisper mini filters, how exactly did you do this ( I have one on a 5 gallon, and I could just switch them) and also, are there other ways to create a fals bottom for a tank this small? I am not against using the styrofoam, but I want to view all the possibilities. by the way...your tank looks awesome.

Thanks

yoink · 10-01-2006, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fish_man33

Hey zoink...You said that you used a Whisper mini filters, how exactly did you do this ( I have one on a 5 gallon, and I could just switch them) and also, are there other ways to create a fals bottom for a tank this small? I am not against using the styrofoam, but I want to view all the possibilities. by the way...your tank looks awesome.

Thanks

Thanks for the compliments. I took the small pump out of the bottom of the whisper mini filter and attached it to a small plastic piece that then went into a tube. The tube leads to the bottom of the waterfall chamber. You can see the pump in the first pic. I originally had a larger pump, but the flow was too great. This one is perfect with the pump set on it's lowest setting. I know nothing about false bottoms or why you would use one.

Fish_man33 · 10-02-2006, 07:17 PM

I was under the impression that a false bottom was something that was not really connected to the bottom, but was like you have yours, With nothing underneath the styrofoam. Sorry if I am mistaken.

I am still looking for other ways to complete this project, to find the best way for me. I was thinking maybe to Put some driftwood in there, and make land some toher way. ACtually, I mainly want to know how to make the land the best possible. Weight is not the biggest issue, but I would prefer to keep it down. Rocks is an option.

Tahnks

epicfish · 10-03-2006, 09:21 PM

In the 46 gallon paludarium construction pictures, I *think* a false bottom is where it seems as if the land area is actually built up from the bottom, but in fact, is false. That's where the filter/pump/tubing goes.

If you're going for rocks to build up the land area, I don't think it's a false bottom anymore.