Exo Terra saltwater paludarium

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Just a little update.
I had to change the "jungle vines" because I made them out of natural rope. And because the branch hangs on a small twig, via the rope. It wouldn't be vise to let the rope rot away and then redo it when the salt water is in the tank. so I made a new one out of synthetic rope.
Also, I added more plants
Utricularia Livida
Utricularia Bisqumata
And swapped the polka dot plant with 2 types of Fittonia. 'white' and 'green'.
I like those so much better.
Also, I think I will have to take out the mister and buy an external one because the mist, that comes out from it is quite dirty, and I don't want to get the tank water to get even dirtier, later on.

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And my Hydrocotyle started blooming :D so nice
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Metalreefer

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Very cool. How's the saltwater part coming along?
Thanks! Still waiting for the plants to settle down. I just keep adding them but I think I have planted anything I wanted. I don't want to rush with it. The longer the "test run" the better. Maybe in a month's time If I feel like it's ready, I will fuse the two.
 

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Thanks! Still waiting for the plants to settle down. I just keep adding them but I think I have planted anything I wanted. I don't want to rush with it. The longer the "test run" the better. Maybe in a month's time If I feel like it's ready, I will fuse the two.
I'm wondering if there's an update on this somewhere? I've stumbled across this thread quite by accident but i'm invested now! I'd love to see how it worked out.
 
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I'm wondering if there's an update on this somewhere? I've stumbled across this thread quite by accident but i'm invested now! I'd love to see how it worked out.
Hya.
No major updates yet. Just more plants I need to plant, I can't help myself it's like the saltwater hobby. You just always crave that extra frag to put inside. Also, my fittonias need replacement because the ones I put in, rotted away, it was too wet for them in the bottom pot, so I have to put a Drosera there and my last pieces of Fittonia in the middle pot, also Some pieces of Utricularia just died off, what I placed just on the top of the soil, still have some more, I will approach a different method next time. Making a small "bed" from sphagnum moss and plant them inside looks like works the best, so I need to do that. Also, I was able to buy two ficus quercifolia cuttings finally, after the Brexit it's so hard now to buy all the rare plants, that people usually use in vivariums. they look awesome, I have gotta plant those in too. A couple of planting to do when I will have some days off from work. Then, more waiting to come, just wanna make sure all plants will make it for the long run, so I don't have to get messy after the saltwater will be at the bottom. It is not a quick to put together project at all for sure :D But slowly slowly getting where I want to.
 
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well hello again. Just a small update here. Things are not going as expected. Looks like it's pretty crucial to choose the right plants for the right conditions, and put them in the right place. I lost plants, had to order other ones to replace the dead ones. The moss on the branch looks pretty yellow. no idea what's going on with it. so next weekend I will do some replanting. Also, I want to plant more utricularia into the moss on the branch. I got a small PC fan installed as well for the air circulation. it will run 10min every 3hours. So the merging still not going to happen until I'm satisfied with the plant's condition.

And some bonus at the end: I had 2 Trochus snails for some time. Then one of them died. (it was a couple of months ago) And now look at that. Tiny Trochus snails appeared from nowhere. They are adorable. This tiny tank always gives me surprises.

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Here are some changes I did, getting close now.
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I cut plexy glass to cover the screen, to keep the moisture in.
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The tube from the fogger has been installed. going to run 2min every 2 hours.
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A small PC fan has been added for air circulation. But it's off at the moment because it dries out the moss on the branch too much. I'm going to go on a small holiday. And when I come back I will install an EXO Terra Monsoon multi 2. To spray the branch probably 5sec every 6 hours. But I will have to observe how the humidity cycle goes, just to make sure that I will not be going to dilute the saltwater tank with all the spraying and fogging. The main reason for all this is that my living room is very cold now, and the winter is quite cold and long here in the UK. And when I turn on the water heating at the bottom of the tank, the condensation on the glass became insane, not just I don't see a thing but it adds too much moisture on the glass, creating water "bridges" and creating a potential threat to leaks from the freshwater reservoir into the saltwater part.
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I put some vinyl on the back wall and sides to hide the ugly parts.

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And finally my DIY super ghetto-looking pump container. It will go behind the rockwork inside the tank. So the pump won't get clogged up, and I will not have to take out everything for cleaning very often.
That's it for now. I will be back next week. I will order the mister to set the humidity cycle and also a Radion G5, because it turned out, that my Hipargero light cannot put out enough PAR, on full setting. My measures were like 25uMOL at the bottom of the tank without water. What is not so much, because I wanna keep LPS and softies. I did order an AI Prime 16HD but it wasn't enough either on max setting plus it made an awful lot of noise. like 70dB at 50W... 230 quid for a hoover. not so nice trade, so I sent it back right away. I will run the full setup for 2 weeks. Just to make sure nothing dries out, the salinity of the saltwater will stay or drop, and the plants won't burn up in those high PAR levels. If everything is perfect after 2 weeks (fingers crossed) I will start to cycle the background rock and re-cycle my sand(it's full of gunk so I will need to wash it really through). This whole thing goes so slow, what a challenge!

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UPGRADE!
Radion XR15 PRO G5 added to the paludarium. I already set the moonlight, sunrise, sunset, daylight, and the Radiant Colour scene in the middle. And guys, let me tell you something. This led got some potential. I will try to attach the ZIP with my current mobius settings. Feel free to check it out.
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Also added an Exo Terra Monsoon Multi 2 misting system, and swapped the fan to a weaker one because the other was overkilling. I set the misting, fogging, and fan timing. Seems good for the moment, but I'm going to work on fine-tuning them so everything will be moist enough. I will give 2 weeks, to see everything is fine. also checking the water salinity in the bottom.
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And here it is! The water cleared up overnight. I transferred the sand and some chunks of live rock to help the cycle. Also cleaned my sand, it was full of muck, now it's nice and clean again. Thinking about replacing the moss on the branch later on, because it's dry all the time, I will order some Hygrolon sheet, and a different type of moss, rip all this yellow thing down and replace it because I just hate to look at it. But this part will take some time, to grow the moss out nicely. (this is my morning color temperature, it will change later on the day) :D
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A few shots. Still has some work to do. I need to do the final touch of the aquascape on the weekend. Also, I am growing out a different species of moss on a hygrolon sheet, because the moss on the top left corner just looks dreadful, all dry and yellow. I cannot put my mister to more intense because it will flood the whole branch so I want to change the moss, at least half of it. Let's see how that one will do. I swapped the light again, I started with AI hydra 16, but it was noisy plus not powerful enough. Then I got the radion xr15, it made a popping sound when the fan started. They wanted to give me a new one but it wasn't powerful enough anyway, so I went with the 64 Hydra instead. So far so good. I miss the warm white led from the mix but it's alright. If I finished with the aquascape I will add more corals and cuc as well. I only have one lonely hermit crab at the moment.

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Hello Hello. Haven't posted for quite some time here. Usually, I upload on my insta page #fromreeftojungle.
A couple of changes have been made, aquascaping with new corals and macro. Light intensity tuning, spraying, and misting system tuning. I changed some plants and changed the branch as water was leaking through it, draining water from the freshwater reservoir. Been going fine. There is still one mistake I have to fix but I want to do it very last minute as I have to take all the sand out to fix it. For now, I will have everything settle down...

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What an awesome tank. Happy to follow along on this one.

What spectrum are you running the lights at? Have you been able to find a “middle ground” for the terrestrial plants and Corals?
 
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What an awesome tank. Happy to follow along on this one.

What spectrum are you running the lights at? Have you been able to find a “middle ground” for the terrestrial plants and Corals?
Thanks! I use all apparently. Mostly for colours. It looks so good when it gives out a real sunset,sunrise vibe, and not just the regular boring dimming. Corals and plants doing good now. Took some time to get the strenght of the light right.

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Any updates on the stock (Plants, Coral and fish)?
Absolutely stunning tank and it’s a great way to merge two hobbies together!
 
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