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Paludarium experiment

Iain Sutherland

Iain Sutherland

Administrator
UKAPS Team
Joined
7 Jul 2011
Messages
3,796
Location
Cambridge
Hey all, so after a fair bit of planning i have a vision for a paludarium for vampire crabs and a few rasporas.
Equipment-
25lt Qube with standard light and filter.
Ebay heater
Rocks
Moss mesh

I have a nice piece of wood growing moss on emmersed in a propagator. Hoping to have an HC 'lawn' with some emmersed crypts.
Not too sure how the crabs will treat the plants...?

Early days but here is the first pics.

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watch this space...
 
Sorry to disappoint but a trio of vampires needs a footprint at least 2x1 to really thrive. An interesting start though, certainly.
 
Nice start mate

What will you be filling the meshed off area with?
This could look really good even without crabs!
 
Garuf said:
Sorry to disappoint but a trio of vampires needs a footprint at least 2x1 to really thrive. An interesting start though, certainly.
Click to expand...

really, the information on vampires is so sparse i found it hard to find anything. The guy at my LFS who is usually quite informative said he had a trio in the same tank just with wood that do fine... i might have to try to find out some more info before populating.
nayr88 said:
Nice start mate

What will you be filling the meshed off area with?
This could look really good even without crabs!
Click to expand...

meshed area will be filled with rock gravel and coarse sand mix, i will be changing the rock at the front to broken slate then java moss on it ?????

Still evolving as i build it, trying to hide the heater is going to be the challenge......
 
So had a little progress today, managed to find a nice piece of slate so have added the gravel etc
Will be putting the plants and wood in next week and getting it wet.
I have the filter running in my 55g to cycle and will fill with my 55g tank water so hoping to add a few rasporas straight away to keep it cycled as the plants grow in before i add the crabs.
Does anyone have any idea if the crabs will damage the plants??
Any and all feedback welcome 🙂

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I think that's probably too small for rasbora's too. :/
From the link I posted it sounds like they'll eat plants, try it and see I suppose.
 
Garuf said:
I think that's probably too small for rasbora's too. :/
From the link I posted it sounds like they'll eat plants, try it and see I suppose.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, i feel pretty confident that three rasporas will do fine, just maybe not perfect. :?

So i had my java moss arrive today so started to add some plants... added the beginning of an emmersed HC carpet, java moss glued along slate front half emmersed half imersed, added my wood with the Flame moss attached i grew emmersed and it all looks pretty sweet 😀

Tomorrow i will be filling the tank now the heater has arrived, will plant crypts and hairgrass which will need to adapt to emmersed life then add Hydrocotyle verticillata which i already have emmersed.

Plan on leaving the plants to grow in/settle to emmersed life before adding the vampire crabs... hopefully they wont undo all my hard work but its possible!!

Will post fresh pics tomorrow after the planting....
 
I think it's wisest to have no live inhabitants for the immediate moment and then work from there, shoaling fish are almost always going to need more than the sub <1/2 a gallon realistically the water part of this can provide. I still maintain that this set-up is too small for the chosen inhabitants, it's a duty of care that can't really be ignored.
 
i filled a bag today with water to measure water space following your concern and it topped out at 8 litres, so 1.76 US gallon, now im guessing that as my LFS has a lovely 12 litre planted on the counter with 4 harlequins, 2 knifetail rainbows and 8+ shrimp i am within the acceptable level at 3 harlequins.
thanks anyway
 
Then you need to find a better LFS, one that doesn't mistreat it's fish. That's a totally unrealistic and unreasonable level of stocking! Harlequins are big fish, rainbows are big swimmers, needing 60cm and 90cm realistically, and both are shoallers and need a minimum of 6 co-specifics ideally more. I'm not going to start a flame war out of this I'm merely pointing out that just because one person has been irresponsible in their treatment it doesn't give anyone else free reign to do so as well.
 
Garuf said:
I'm not going to start a flame war out of this I'm merely pointing out that just because one person has been irresponsible in their treatment it doesn't give anyone else free reign to do so as well.
Click to expand...

Absolutely not,but..... 😀 the LFS is extremely good, all inhabitants are 1-2cm and are changed out regularly as will mine into my other tanks. You can be sure that if there are any signs of stress in the fauna things will change immediately as i have the space to move them around. Its not a case of ignorance is bliss :lol: as the title tells this is an experiment and the rasporas may end up being props for finished FTS then moved. Stress less ruf 🙂 your concerns are well received though and are the right attitude to encourage in a hobby that really doesnt encourage animal well being as much as it should, especially on the front lines at a lot of LFS.
 
So got hold of the plants i was missing and spent a bit of time figuring it all out,decided on Echinodorus Rosea and Dwarf Hairgrass to go with the HC, Java Moss,Whorled pennywart and Flame moss i already had. Also got 3 tiny Chilli Raspora as the smallest fauna they had 🙂

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Any suggestions on the layout...
 
Looking very Nice. And the Chilli's will be fine in there. The smallest size I have kept them in successfully is 1G.
You could also Try a palm, The ones they usually sell in tesco, sainsburys ect for a few quid. They look really nice in this type of setting.
 
Gill said:
As you have already used slate, Why not Glue gun a Slate cave together from smaller pieces and cover with Moss.
Click to expand...

I had been thinking along these lines and would love to see if i can grow fissidens emersed....? 😀
 
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