Since I started keeping fish at age 9, I’ve been fascinated with how to combine my love of marginal plants, bogs, and swamps with my aquarium habit. I’ve always loved creating habitats as big as possible. I’ve built terrariums for semi-aquatic frogs and newts, created a large rainforest-esque planted habitat for a white’s tree frog, and built a large pond in my living room to house my turtles over the last 20 years. And that doesn’t even being to touch the 75 gallon display tank I had going for a few years right next to the 50 gallon saltwater reef tank. God I loved those. But now that I have less space and am also running my art studio out of my home (which also houses my partner’s wood working studio), I’ve taken to the idea of making the most of nano tanks. My first go at it will be a riparium I’m going to build in a 5 gallon Fluval Chi I picked up for a steal. I’m not all that fond of the big unit in the center that houses the filter and light, but I’m happy to not have to hide a HOB filter and be able to view this from all sides. Here’s the stock photo of the tank:
I’m thinking of creating a Walstad (this is a simple explanation if you’ve never heard of Diana Walstad) set up for the fully submerged plants, and then build a few small baskets for a series of marginal plants 4 or 5 inches from the top. I’ve found a really kick ass gnarly branch to include, and I’m going to java moss that baby up. The rest is TBD. I’m going to start this week, so I’ll update as I go!
tales of a plant geek 