# Aquatic plant terrarium



## Matt Havens (27 Sep 2017)

Fingers crossed I can keep them going 













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## chinwag (27 Sep 2017)

Very nice, how long have these been going so far?


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## Matt Havens (28 Sep 2017)

chinwag said:


> Very nice, how long have these been going so far?


About a week so far. A couple of Crypt leaves have died which I think was damage from planting but otherwise no problems. 

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## chinwag (2 Oct 2017)

Cool, look forward to seeing them grow!


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## Matt Havens (5 Oct 2017)

1 week update,

Nothing has changed too much as far as I can tell, a little mould on the wood in the smaller of the two.










There's not too much condensation and I have not misted either of them in over a week. I think the plants have adapted easily to the conditions mainly because of how they were kept and displayed in store.

The larger terrarium however has a lot of condensation but no mould. 







I have 2 more pots of Crypts and 1 S.repens. 
Going to plant them up shortly so will add some more rubbish phone pictures later .

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## parotet (6 Oct 2017)

Hi

Congrats for you mini vivaria. They look great! I enjoy a lot mini set ups like these ones with plants leftovers (https://www.flickr.com/photos/119257234@N07/albums/72157645859849187). I even tried to go further with a dedicated moss setup (https://www.flickr.com/photos/119257234@N07/albums/72157646264396641) and the first lesson I learnt was that for this kind of setups there 2 very important things: passive ventilation and air movement. High humidity (one of the things you need for good growing) can be easily achieved with your enclosure but stagnant air will kill your plants, will rotten everything and will only feed mould. Passive ventilation (some openings in your enclosure) ensures renewed and fresh air, air movement (that's more tricky, see below) helps to distributing humidity, cooling the enclosure, evaporating water and avoiding stagnant areas.

The other thing I suggest improving is light. When going dry you can photobomb your tank... vivaria are a bit more "boring" in terms of growing than planted tanks. A low light vivarium is therefore extremely boring and not very beautiful (leggy plants do not look very well).

Due to a pretty packed agenda at work, I converted a few weeks ago two of my tanks into vivaria. Maintenance is wonderful. I have two timers, one for light and another for two little 40mmm PC fans (look a the corners) I wanted to show you. I mist them manually once a day, but you can even skip it for a 3-4 days if needed. You can use plenty of terrestrial plants as you can see (broms, orchids, climbers, etc.) but there are plenty of emerged aquatic plants that do very well (Crypts, H. Monte Carlo, aquatic mosses, Java ferns in all its forms, H. pinnatifida, liverworts, etc.).





PC fans are easy to install (even for me, completely dumb in terms of electric works). Another advantage: you will have no more a foggy setup. You can buy them for a 1-2 pounds and you can connect them to old phone chargers. This, and a bit more of light, will make a big difference in your setups

Jordi


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## Matt Havens (8 Oct 2017)

parotet said:


> Hi
> 
> Congrats for you mini vivaria. They look great! I enjoy a lot mini set ups like these ones with plants leftovers (https://www.flickr.com/photos/119257234@N07/albums/72157645859849187). I even tried to go further with a dedicated moss setup (https://www.flickr.com/photos/119257234@N07/albums/72157646264396641) and the first lesson I learnt was that for this kind of setups there 2 very important things: passive ventilation and air movement. High humidity (one of the things you need for good growing) can be easily achieved with your enclosure but stagnant air will kill your plants, will rotten everything and will only feed mould. Passive ventilation (some openings in your enclosure) ensures renewed and fresh air, air movement (that's more tricky, see below) helps to distributing humidity, cooling the enclosure, evaporating water and avoiding stagnant areas.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the advice Jordi and great work on the Vivaria,  looks stunning!

Now I am hooked and I will probably start a journal for the next projects. 

I have been in Antwerp, Belgium this weekend and visited possibly the best shop on earth called NADA Nature Aquarium design Antwerp. I will be doing a small thread seperately on that but wow. Everything from air plants, terrariums and aquascapes. Unfortunately I was 1 week too early as there huge 8ft plus tank was empty and being prepared for a complete re-scape.

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