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Here is my 29 gallon tall aquarium / paludarium populated with 3 Eastern newts, Blue Star Endler, plants and critters.
It has a land platform where I grow terrestrial mosses and other plants growing with roots in water.
The land platform is populated with terrestrial critters.
Isopods and Springtails make the largest bulk of all living critters on the land part of this tank.
It's a well established colony of Isopods - you can see tiny baby isopods here.
Isopods and Springtails feed on dead and decaying organic matter.
Basically they help me in keeping the land part clean and tidy.
I don't have to remove any wilting plants at all, ever :)
Isopods are great explorers - the colony is spread all over this land part as you can see.
It's near impossible to count how many isopods I have here - hundreds.
Isopods usually hide from bright light - they mostly come out in the dark at night time.
Springtails also hide from bright light.
Here you can see tiny white springtails are jumping on the water surface.
White springtails jump very high in unpredictable directions to escape from any danger.
And springtails walk on the water surface.
My Enlders fish wait by the open water space to eat any unfortunate springtails to land here.
Yes, my fish and Eastern newts feed on Springtails and Isopods.
Here you can see a time-lapse recording of Isopods day-night activity.
Isopods stay mostly hidden during bright day light time.
And they get more active as it gets darker - safer for isopods to move around.
This behavior makes isopods interesting and yet difficult to observe pets.
You can see water condensates on the walls of the tank.
This paludarium offers very high humidity environment isopods and springtails enjoy greatly.
Though again, the condensation on the walls makes it really difficult to make any observation of the land part.
I have to open the lid every time for taking a good look inside.
I feed isopods with tree bark, slices of potatoes, yams, carrots and such.
I add a new slice once a month and check on it weekly to remove any spoiled food.
My isopods really enjoy tree bark and potatoes.
Potatoes sprouts make nice addition for Isopods diet too.
I let sprouts grow as much as it can.
I keep white and silver springtails in this tank.
Silver springtails are much larger than White springtails.
They all coexist peacefully with Isopods.
Isopods and plants produce plenty of waste for springtails to feed on.
So, I don't have to add any food specifically for feeding springtails.
I also have some very small snails you can see one here.
Isopods often climb on plants growing above the water for snacks they may find there.
And they go under the rocks and under the moss hanging above the water.
Isopods even climb on the glass walls of the tank!
That's how Isopods fall in water.
Terrestrial isopods can stay alive underwater for about 5-15 minutes.
It gives plenty of time for Newts to find and eat isopods in water.
I don't use filters or any kind of water/air pumps and I don't change water.
It's a very efficient self sustaining aquarium or paludarium with minimum care on my part.
Here you can see it thriving after my 10 days vacation with no body looking after it.
It took me months to setup and to prepare for it and the results are amazingly great :)
Isopods and Springtails make sustainability achievable in aquariums.
Have fun and happy aquariums :)
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