Aquarium suction cups

Aquarium suction cups

Here you can see my paludarium with fish and newts.

 There are two land platforms suspended on wires above the water level.

I use the land platform to grow mosses and land plants with roots in water.

Land plants help to keep water clean.

Also, the land part is populated with springtails, snails and isopods.

All those critters serve as food for my fish and newts.

It's a self-sustaining aquarium.

No filters, no water changes.

And there was no noticeable water evaporation for more than 6 months.

After releasing my newts, I removed the land part in the Fall 2023.

Now I have space for new projects!

I've been testing a water pump - and now I have to anchor all aquatic and land plants.

I bought suction cups with ties from Amazon - link in the description.

Buy suction cups with ties on Amazon (paid link):

https://amzn.to/3TJB9TN

I picked a set of 30 small size cups.

That should be enough to anchor more than a dozen of plants I have.

These cups measured 35 mm.

Cups made of silicon should last long in water.

And zip ties are easy to use for plants and anything else.

Take a look at the wired holders I made to hang land plants.

I used a bunch of vertical holders of the same design as shown in my previous video.

I added two levels of horizontal wires to hold more plants and to secure vines.

It works pretty well for the purpose.

Here is a better view.

I will show more details about this setup in a future video.

Now let's use suction cups with ties for anchoring land plants first.

Pull a zip tie through a hole in the suction cup.

Loop the zip tie and secure the ends.

Put a plant inside of the zip tie loop.

Tighten up the loop to hold the plant a bit loosely.

This small Painters pallet plant will grow many more leaves I would put inside of the tie loop in future.

Push the suction cup against a glass wall inside of the aquarium at a desirable spot.

It's easy to move the suction cup to another place.

I want this plant in the corner with roots in water and most leaves above the water level.

I am going to use two suction cups for holding an ivy plant.

One suction cup to hold the growing top of the ivy.

Adjust the tie loop after placing it where you want on the stem.

I hang it outside for now.

The second suction cup goes closer to the roots of the plant.

It's a very simple and quick installation!

Use scissors to trim off the loose ends of the zip ties.

And now we can move the plant inside of the aquarium.

Only roots of this ivy stay in water - keep all leaves above the water level.

Neat!

I used suction cups to anchor all land plants to the walls of the aquarium above the water level.

And I anchored almost all my floating aquatic plants using suction cups as well.

All set and ready on December 8th, 2023.

One month later in January 2024.

The suction cups changed color from clear to milky white.

It still looks nice and clean in the aquarium.

All two dozen suction cups that I put for use in this aquarium hold in the place very well.

 Also, I use the same suction cups to hang a new land platform you can see here.

Well, that is a new experiment I will talk more about in future videos :)

The suction cups work great so far.

Have fun and happy aquarium gardens :)