Hanging Garden Paludarium

In the previous years I had multiple projects with land plants and critters on top of aquariums.

I kept caterpillars and garden snails in the top land part.

And fish and aquatic snails and nymphs among other aquatic critters live in the bottom - the water part.

Here is one of my smallest setups with land and aquatic snails in a joined plastic cups.

That's probably the smallest paludarium ever made.

Here is my sketch of Eastern newt or red spotted newt.

It is the pet I want to keep.

But first I need to make a space for a large enough enclosure for keeping the newt.

And I need to culture food for the newt.

I started breeding isopods and removed a bunch of my sustainable aquariums to make space for a paludarium.

On June 21st of 2022, I was gifted with this beautiful vertical terrarium.

The tank measures 12 by 12 by 18 inch height.

The aquatic part can be up to about 6 inch deep.

The top is covered with mesh that can be used as a door.

There is a glass door on the front.

I certainly can use this terrarium for a lot of experiments!

And there is a magnolia pod for Springtails.

Thank you very much!!

Wash the tank clean.

I put the tank in place of 3 smaller aquariums.

Fill the tank with water to the full capacity to check the integrity of the tank.

12 liters of water fit in this tank.

Let it sit overnight to make sure there is no water leak.

The next day I put gravel, rocks, plants and fill the tank with dechlorinated water.

Somehow I lost the video files of the original setup.

So, here you can see the two month old aquarium already with fish.

I put a flat rock under the feeding spot and made a couple caves on the back.

The flat rock should help to reduce food leftovers.

I want to check how a plastic grid would work as a base for the terrestrial part.

Cut out the bottom part of a disposed milk crate to fit it in the tank.

Also, I cut about a 6 inch long ramp in the front part of the grid for newts to climb out.

And then I tied corners of the grid using a fishing line to the corners of the cover on the top of the tank.

Make the fishing line long enough to suspend the grid right above the highest water level in the tank.

This fishing line can hold up to 14lb.

Strings of fishing line attached to each corner of the grid should hold a much heavier load than I would ever put in.

Okay. Let's put the grid in the tank.

Insert grid in the tank from the top.

So, now I can fine-tune the length of each string by wrapping it around each corner of the top cover.

I raise the rear side of the grid slightly up.

I think the elevated rear makes for a better view of the entire surface of the terrestrial part.

The grid is about 1-2 inch above water level for now.

I picked some land mosses from Central park.

I am moving everything from this 3 liter sustainable aquarium garden with Endlers into this tank.

Two Painter's pallet plants go in.

I wonder how well these plants will do in high humidity.

Moving all fish from one tank to another is a great opportunity to count the fish.

I put 1 female with 3 males Endlers in this 3 liter aquarium garden.

15 months later I counted a total of 19 fish.

15 babies were born in the past year or so.

My Endlers have been doing fine in all my aquarium gardens so far.

All alive and breeding well.

I hope Endlers will enjoy this spacious tank even more.

I also moved the dirt from the old aquarium into the new one.

It comes with all the bacteria, seed shrimp and scuds.

I have a couple well established cultures of Springtails with Grindal worms on land moss ready for this tank.

First I cover the grid with a couple pieces of plastic.

The moss with Springtails and Grindal worms goes on top of the pieces of plastic.

Hopefully, it would save Springtails from falling in the water right away.

But most importantly, I would be able to compare how well moss grows on top of the plastic vs the grid.

I choose to use a grid instead of any solid platform for a number of reasons.

First of all, a floating solid platform (which is easier to get and to put in) would reduce water to air circulation.

Some of the evaporating water would condensate on the plants and mosses placed on the grid.

While mosses on the solid surface would need frequent watering.

And I want the Springtails to fall through the grid occasionally.

That is a way for my fish to get live food.

So, those are 3 key points of using a grid vs solid platform.

The rest of the grid I cover with the land moss from Central park.

Also, this land moss can grow underwater - so I put some moss on the ramp as well.

I put some wilted leaves on the plastic in the middle.

Springtails and Grindal worms are already spreading around exploring new space.

Endlers seem to be quite happy with their new home too.

And a small newt (if I get one) may find some nice spots to hide and fish to catch.

Red spotted newts get born and spend breeding age in water.

Though, they mature by living on the land for a number of years.

So, in the water my newts would feed on fish.

The ramp would allow young newts to climb on the land part.

And while living on the land my newts may feed on isopods and such.

Well, I would know for sure if newts feed on isopods when I get newts.

Meantime, I need to check how well isopods would breed into this Paludarium.

And preferably with as little maintenance as possible.

So, here I put some bark with a bunch of isopods from a well established culture.

Benefits of placing the flat rock under the feeding area become noticeable after the first feeding.

Fish pick all the food clean.

There is no gapes as with gravel for food to fall in and out of fish reach.

The feeding space above the flat rock is all fish's favorite area to hang out now.

Flat rocks also make it easy to create caves and tunnels for fish and newts.

No water changes, no air pumps and no man-made filters in my aquariums.

It all works well in my smaller setups since 2016.

And I hope it would work the same way with newts.

It took about two weeks for mosses placed on solid covers to dry out.

The mosses placed on the grid in direct contact with water seem to do well.

I've seen some isopods fall in water on different days for great enjoyment.

Here you can see some isopods still survive.

So, breeding isopods in this setup is playable.

I have to remove the plastic covers to keep the moss on the grid.

Let's see if the dry moss can be resuscitated in this way.

For now I just rearrange pieces of bark here to make more space for the dry moss.

On July 21st I removed the bark.

The dry mosses got even drier in the past week.

I notice some isopods are still crawling in the thickets of mosses.

Let's remove this plastic cover as well.

The moss on plastic gets very dry.

Also, the water evaporates a lot through the top and through the gapes around the front door.

So, this time I low the grid all the way down to lay it on the water surface.

The capillarity force would raise the water up the grid watering the moss.

So now, basically the part of the grid would stay in water for days.

The water level drops up to one inch through the week.

I added water to the level about once a week in the past month.

I got fresh samples of moss from the park.

I clean the moss a bit and let it soak overnight.

The next day I put the soaked moss on the grid in the terrarium.

And I keep the old dried moss in the terrarium as well.

Remember, there are Springtails and Isopods and Grindal worms lurking in the old moss.

Here you can see Springtails already exploring the new moss.

And here you can see an old isopod has drowned...

It would take time for toothless Endlers to nibble it apart.

Once a week or so I add about 1 liter of dechlorinated aged algae rich water to the level.

The moss seems to grow fine after all the adjustments I made.

I will keep you updated on the development of this hanging garden paludarium.

Have fun and happy paludarium :)