dpoltsdsu
Community Member
Hello everyone and welcome to the thread!
I'm going to be attempting to do something that I have wanted to do for a very long time, a fully fledged saltwater Paludarium. I have had my 120 gallon SPS reef running for a few years but a pipe burst in the wall behind the tank and I had to take it down. I figured this would be a great opportunity to create this Paludarium.
Concept -
This idea came to me while I was on a vacation in Hawaii. I was sitting on the beach on some lava rocks where I could see Yellow Tangs, coral, and a bunch of other fish swimming in the shallows. As I looked to my right, I could see a bunch of plant life growing out of the rock. Suddenly a beautiful Gold Dust Day Gecko came out a crevice to get some sun. I was in awe of the contrast between the lush land and the beautiful reef below me.
I want this Paludarium to have a beautiful coral reef on the bottom that slowly transitions to a tropical rainforest on top. I think this concept will be a challenging and unique setup. The goal would be to showcase all kinds of life, on both land and water. I would focus mainly on hardy soft corals and inverts on the bottom and then the setup would transition to a land portion with tropical plants and likely a couple of small geckos.
The goal is for this type of environment
Tank - 36" long by 36" tall by 18" wide. The tank will have a 7" water height for the saltwater section. My hope is that the extra height of the tank will allow enough room where salt creep is minimized. Within the tank, I will form a watertight barrier so there is no chance any saltwater can get into the land area. The land area will be quite a ways up from the saltwater section to try and minimize the salt creep which I assume is going to be the biggest challenge with this. The "transition" will be a wall that's foamed over with rock and sand to try and give it a cliff like feel to lead to the tropical land area. The land section's back wall will also incorporate a custom background with Bromeliads and other Epiphytes. I will likely incorporate the ATO into the saltwater section with some kind of small waterfall as well. The tank will also be setup with automatic misters which should hopefully aid with the salt creep as well.
Lighting - Lighting for this tank is going to be a bit of a challenge as I'm going to need to find a middle ground in the spectrums that will hopefully work . I'm still researching some options for this
More to come!
I'm going to be attempting to do something that I have wanted to do for a very long time, a fully fledged saltwater Paludarium. I have had my 120 gallon SPS reef running for a few years but a pipe burst in the wall behind the tank and I had to take it down. I figured this would be a great opportunity to create this Paludarium.
Concept -
This idea came to me while I was on a vacation in Hawaii. I was sitting on the beach on some lava rocks where I could see Yellow Tangs, coral, and a bunch of other fish swimming in the shallows. As I looked to my right, I could see a bunch of plant life growing out of the rock. Suddenly a beautiful Gold Dust Day Gecko came out a crevice to get some sun. I was in awe of the contrast between the lush land and the beautiful reef below me.
I want this Paludarium to have a beautiful coral reef on the bottom that slowly transitions to a tropical rainforest on top. I think this concept will be a challenging and unique setup. The goal would be to showcase all kinds of life, on both land and water. I would focus mainly on hardy soft corals and inverts on the bottom and then the setup would transition to a land portion with tropical plants and likely a couple of small geckos.
The goal is for this type of environment
Tank - 36" long by 36" tall by 18" wide. The tank will have a 7" water height for the saltwater section. My hope is that the extra height of the tank will allow enough room where salt creep is minimized. Within the tank, I will form a watertight barrier so there is no chance any saltwater can get into the land area. The land area will be quite a ways up from the saltwater section to try and minimize the salt creep which I assume is going to be the biggest challenge with this. The "transition" will be a wall that's foamed over with rock and sand to try and give it a cliff like feel to lead to the tropical land area. The land section's back wall will also incorporate a custom background with Bromeliads and other Epiphytes. I will likely incorporate the ATO into the saltwater section with some kind of small waterfall as well. The tank will also be setup with automatic misters which should hopefully aid with the salt creep as well.
Lighting - Lighting for this tank is going to be a bit of a challenge as I'm going to need to find a middle ground in the spectrums that will hopefully work . I'm still researching some options for this
More to come!
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