The Celestial Swamp - A voyage through a flooded forest fringe (Shallow Riparium)

[hitmanx]

Hardscape details:

75 lbs of Okho stone, a big box of Manzanita wood, 40 lbs of ADA Malaya, 30 lbs of ADA Amazonia, 70 lbs of safe t sorb, 1 lb of ground peat moss, 1 lb of Mexican pottery clay and a egg crate base layer...

After laying down a layer of mulm on the substrate, i'm doing a dry start for a few weeks so the front area can grow in with crypts etc... that will give me enough time to work on the lights and finish off the sump.

 

[hitmanx]

Livestock waiting to go in:

This tank is loosely based on species from Myanmar (Burma) and possibly Thailand...

14 Celestichthys margaritatus (Celestial Pearl 'Danio')
18 Celestichthys choprae (Glowlight 'Danio')
18 Brachydanio tinwini (Gold ring 'Danio')

And possible some corydoras pygmaeus (Pygmy Cory), and some Ottocilus sp. that I have on hand... I am hoping get my hands on some Petruichthys sp. 'rosy' (Rosy Loach) and a shoal of Celestichthys erythromicron (Emerald 'Rasbora')

 

[hitmanx]

I thought I'd go over my substrate system...

The first layer under the hardscspe was eggcrate to protect the glass



This was followed by a base layer of safe t sorb
https://flic.kr/p/Pc4wpc


Then a layer of peat moss
https://flic.kr/p/P9ggJA


Then a layer of new and used ADA aquasoil Amazonia
https://flic.kr/p/QqAKYF


Then a filler layer of safe t sorb out front and 4 inches of it in the back... ADA Malaya was placed on the edges



Then ADA Malaya was added to the front sloped from front to back... notice the colour similarities between the safe t sorb and the Malaya and the dragon stone...
https://flic.kr/p/QqACbX

 

[hitmanx]

Now comes the planting...

This is only a small portion of what went into the soil



Mulm from other tanks and filters was mixed with water and added to just below the front level so I can do a dry start without the treat of bga etc...

The front area is then filled with various crypt species, mainly from the c. x willisii complex and filled out with e. tennelus (Helanthium tenellum) and lilaeopsis mauritiana... some c. parva was added to the front





I used saran wrap taped together to cover the top up and over the protruding wood to maitain humidity



I open the saran wrap daily for gas exhange and spray the plant every so often... maybe a month of this treatment to cycle the soil and get some good root development and I'm going to flood it...

You can see some of the riparium plants acclimating in the back... The overflow is half filled with a small pump circulating the water.

 

[mirv]

This is going to be an ultra journal,pretty sure about this man.
I made myself a riparium and its getting better and better, so far the best aquatic-related experience i've ever had.
Have you got some plants for adding some moss above the emergent sections of your manzanita branches? it should be really nice

regards mate, and keep us updated!

 

[hitmanx]

yes i have tried using aquatic mosses emersed before with varied success... this time im going to using terrestrial 'club moss'... the roots work great dipped in the water... the tops of the "stumps" will be covered in moss and various emergent plants and maybe a few orchids if they can handle the lights...

 

[Greenfinger2]

Hi Hitmanx, Wonderful scape

 

[hitmanx]

I also added Hydrocotyle sp."Japan" (Hydrocotyle tripartita) and its doing great in this dry start, trippling in size in just 2 weeks... Lets hope it does just as well flooded...



I want to flood it now, but I need to be patient... This project has been over a year in the making so I dont want to cut corners now... my intention is make this riparium as little maitenance as possible, including water changes... the soil needs time to cycle so I hopefully dont need to do much when I flood...

Once I add the second row of riparium plants that will hang off the overflow and right side of the tank, I will see how much light gets down to the soil behind the stumps and hopefully plant temporary nitrate sucking stems and sagitaria sublata... But long term I expect the riparium plants to overshadow that area too much for aquatic plants

 

[hitmanx]

I'm more concerned about how to physically get water to the tank... I've only ever had nanos so a single bucket worked well for the infrequent water changes... This thing is close to 100 gallons with the sump, so its a lot more overwhelming!

I'm mixing my super hard tap water 50/50 with RO water so I can't just use a tap and hose...

I'm very close to filling the tank now... I just finished priming the inside of the stand with KILZ and I need to caulk the corners etc so it can attemp to contain any spills... I also added a couple 2x4 supports to the front of the stand because I wasnt 100% confident in the open 4ft span using the double 2x4 headers... I should have used 2x6's...

Planting update:

everything is growing in great and secure with amazing root systems... nothing can be pulled easily... the Hydrocotyle sp."Japan" (Hydrocotyle tripartita) is trying to take over the tank... its already smothering the crypt undulata along the rocks...

Unfortunately BGA is starting to form on the substrate at the front of the tank... I'm slacking on airing the tank out each day... This probably won't be a problem when I flood...

 

[hitmanx]

Ideally this problem will be infrequent as i dont plan on doing many water changes once this tank gets settled... The sheer mass of riparium plants will take care of the filtering... 80 microfish in a 100 gallons is not what i call overstocked... In fact i will probably need to worry about deficiencies... All of my nanos have used the non CO2 method with little to no water changes... my other cube riparium has only had one water change in 2 years with stellar parameters. My betta is happy and healthy...

Topping it off with RO water is done semi daily because open top ripariums seem to lose crazy amounts of water due to evaporation... this new tank is 15 times bigger so hopefully it doesnt lose 15 times the water!

I will be keeping a large Brute trash can full of RO water in an adjacent closet with a pump for topping off the sump...

Once the tank is flooded and settled with the fish swimming around I will be taking many photos with my DSLR!

 

[criticalsolution]

Topping it off with RO water is done semi daily because open top ripariums seem to lose crazy amounts of water due to evaporation... this new tank is 15 times bigger so hopefully it doesnt lose 15 times the water!

I will be keeping a large Brute trash can full of RO water in an adjacent closet with a pump for topping off the sump...

get an osmolator

 

[hitmanx]

get an osmolator

Sounds tempting but what if it fails? I dont want all my RO water on the floor! Some things are better left to be done manually... Im gonna wire up a switch on the light fixture away from mischievous child hand to control the pump for the water storage... my mind change later 😉

 

[criticalsolution]

I understand, I had the same fear....,that my living room turns into a swimmig pool
but once the osmolator was in place ,I said myself why i did not install it before

I had calculated that even all my RO reserve went to my tank ;it could not overflow
but I had not the fitration systeme like yours

 

[hitmanx]

I understand, I had the same fear....,that my living room turns into a swimmig pool
but once the osmolator was in place ,I said myself why i did not install it before

I had calculated that even all my RO reserve went to my tank ;it could not overflow
but I had not the fitration systeme like yours

Yes it does sound super convientiant especially if i hookup an RO filter to fill up the reservoir... maybe later

 

[hitmanx]

I'm going to flood this tank today!!

But I have a confession to make... while I leak tested the tank itself, I did NOT test the overflow and bean animal system before I aquascaped... Here's hoping that it works!!

Heres the before picture today:

 

[alto]

Stand by with the water vacuum & towels 😉

 

[hitmanx]

Oh man!

Even with the best laid plans you always froget something... after soaking the manzinita for close to 8 months, the wood is now very mich dry now during the dry start...

Most of the bulk of the wood is way up high and out of the water, but I hope it doesnt float away and ruin my hard work!!

Half filled:



Update:

I've stopped filling the tank at 3/4 full... I slapped on a AC30 with seeded matrix and a heater to bring up the 13*C water temp from the tap.... I'm gonna let it sit there for awhile so the wood can start soaking up water... I also added Seachem Prime and Excel to help the aquatic plants transition to submersed living... I also dumped a half dozen ramshorn snails in too for good measure...

I imagine that I will have to do a bunch of water changes early on despite that fact that a dry start is supposed to cycle the soil already - there still could be high ammonia spikes from the aquasoil...

Like everything in this projects, I have to be patient!

 

[hitmanx]

The saran wrap has been removed!

Its still 3/4 full and has random floating wood pieces and a rock to hold down some wood, the heater in the tank, non fuctional overflow, and the riparium section hasn't been organized and finished, but it's got water!!!

No water changes yet... I dont see the harm in leaving it in there for a few days to try and draw out any pollutants or excess nutrients from the soil... the fish wont be moved in until the tanks stable...



This is the rough draft of the sump with diy poret foam hollow cube fikter with a matrix inner layer, and the bean animal plumbing going into a bucket to provide a constant water level and to provide silent laminar flow into the sump...

 

[Jakes]

Ill be interested in a more detailed post of your sump and your hollow cube filter if you have time


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Alexander Belchenko]

What a cool puddle pond you build! Very cool that your walls are wooden, great match to live corner or green and brown.