Zante
Member
I have to rebuild my crab habitat. I was going to house red claw crabs (persesarma bidens) but for various reasons i had to switch to vampire crabs instead (geosesarma sp.)
The tank has a base of 80x30cm and is 40cm high.
That means that the sand is coming out, and it is going to be replaced by a mix of sand and compost.
It also means that it will be planted and there will be leaf litter.
So, here come the questions:
I was planning to plant it with anubias, java fern, crypts and java moss. All emersed. The java moss in particular tied over a pile of stones where the return from the filter falls, so it would have even more humidity than the other plants.
Can you see any problem with that? Too many plants? I haven't grown any of these emersed, so I don't know what to expect in terms of growth and size. I'm looking at a forest floor on the edge of a pond effect, if you know what I mean.
Before I lay down the layer of soil, I was thinking of putting a layer of expanded clay pellets to the level of the water pool, so that the soil isn't soaked, but through capillarity of the clay it's always kept moist.
The pellets and soil would be kept separated by a plastic mesh.
The idea is to have it this way: a drywall of stones delimiting the water pool for the crabs. A layer of clay pellets behind this drywall, layer of mesh over the pellets and over the mesh a couple of inches of soil mix. In the water pool a layer of sand on the bottom.
I know I could just have a plastic tub containing the water, and I could probably mask it very well, and have it blend in, but I'm using the water to heat the whole thing, so I'd rather have an overall larger volume of water (some of it under the soil layer) that will heat up the whole tank. Also this means that the plants won't ever need watering, I'll just need to keep the water level steady.
What do you think? Any better ideas? Any extra suggestions?
The tank has a base of 80x30cm and is 40cm high.
That means that the sand is coming out, and it is going to be replaced by a mix of sand and compost.
It also means that it will be planted and there will be leaf litter.
So, here come the questions:
I was planning to plant it with anubias, java fern, crypts and java moss. All emersed. The java moss in particular tied over a pile of stones where the return from the filter falls, so it would have even more humidity than the other plants.
Can you see any problem with that? Too many plants? I haven't grown any of these emersed, so I don't know what to expect in terms of growth and size. I'm looking at a forest floor on the edge of a pond effect, if you know what I mean.
Before I lay down the layer of soil, I was thinking of putting a layer of expanded clay pellets to the level of the water pool, so that the soil isn't soaked, but through capillarity of the clay it's always kept moist.
The pellets and soil would be kept separated by a plastic mesh.
The idea is to have it this way: a drywall of stones delimiting the water pool for the crabs. A layer of clay pellets behind this drywall, layer of mesh over the pellets and over the mesh a couple of inches of soil mix. In the water pool a layer of sand on the bottom.
I know I could just have a plastic tub containing the water, and I could probably mask it very well, and have it blend in, but I'm using the water to heat the whole thing, so I'd rather have an overall larger volume of water (some of it under the soil layer) that will heat up the whole tank. Also this means that the plants won't ever need watering, I'll just need to keep the water level steady.
What do you think? Any better ideas? Any extra suggestions?
