Trial Carnivorous Plants

Got these from World Farm when I went down yesterday. Temporarily housing them in the Ikea "greenhouse" and sharing my 2ft T5HO light with my 1 feet cube tank.



A Drosera spp.

Another Drosera spp.

A pinguicula spp.


not too sure what is this weed/algae/moss?


Interesting moss. thinking of using this to cover parts of the paludarium.

Planting materials

Managed to gather most of my planting materials yesterday:


Got the dried spagnum moss from World Farm.

This looks like coco-fibre to me but World Farm labeled it as coco-peat. Oh well... so long as the texture is the same. I intends to stick this as a layer via silicone over part of the background I am creating.


Perlite which I bought sometime back from World Farm as well but did not get to use it till now. Going to add a little to the substrate to help improve drainage.


This Horti Moss is peat moss according to the package description. Not too sure how I am going to use this but probably going to add alittle to to spagnum moss with the perlite.


Various grades of inert sand and pebbles for the underwater portion.

MH Rack II: intricacies of the design...

For this second design, I have doubled the reinforcement joints...ie. previously I was using only 1 L-bracket for each joint. Now I have doubled the it for each joint (ie doubled my joints cost):


As mentioned, I try to stabilize the whole structure by shifting the center of gravity to the middle of the structure.

MH Rack Version II

I decided to modify my MH Rack to unblock the view from the sides of the terrarium tank. So, today I went down to TC Aluminum again to get more joints and parts for the modification.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover a new kind of internal bracket joint which allow even more flexibility in the structural design. Now I have the option to have 2 L-bracket at the corners to strengthen such joints for heavier load bearing.



Notice that the top hanging horizontal beam is about midway between the base support. With the heavy MH pendant handing from there, the CG will be right smack in the middle of the structure.


The MH Rack II over the Terrarium. I am pretty happy with the amount of viewing space it liberated along the side of the tank! :D


Someone over at the Aquatic Quotient Forum was asking about the part I intended for hanging the MH. Is actually meant to hang glass panes but I am thinking it may just hold the pendant too....not 100% confirmed on using them yet...subject to my trial on it's load bearing capacity.

Water circulation and waterfall

Passed by Clementi afterwork and decided to drop into Clementi Florist to have a look around..... grabbed some more equipments for the water circulation and waterfall.

Got those black Co2 tubes to create drip lines to make sure most of the background will be moist all the time.

I was standing at the huge stack of water pumps in the shop for 1/2 an hour at least trying to decide which size and brand to get. Finally it was narrowed down to Eheim,Eden and this SICCE piece. Being the most powerful with a vertically oriented design made the SICCE the final choice. Being made in Italy helps too ;)

I decided that I should get the submersible pump early to help me allocate space for it in the overall design. Having the pump inside the tank really gives me a spatial visualization of the equipment size and field of operation to design my backdrop and waterfall.

The Materials

I'm slowly gathering all the materials required to construct the background, false bottom and the planned waterfall (although I have yet to sit down with pen and paper to draw up the scheme yet..:P )

so far, these are the materials I gathered:

• Expanda Foam
• Concrete
• "Egg Crate" or Light diffuser gratings
• Bamboo charcoal
• Sculpting tools/ penknife
  
• Face mask

I have yet to decide if I am making the background using the expanda foam with cocofibre siliconed up or concrete method.

A close up of the Expanda foam...took me a while to find these at Homely Hardware at No.1 Ubi Crescent.

I will probably need some other stuff like:

• LECA clay pellats
• Substrate for the water portion
• mini pump for the water circulation and waterfall
• peat, perlite and spagnum moss
• plants (thinking of getting carnivorous plants like pitcher and venus fly traps)
• faunas (will prob settle for hardy small ones like endlers)

The Equipments (Part 3) ~ MH Rack DIY

After deciding on the MH lighting, I started to look around for mounting options. Ceiling mounting is a definite no go due to standing order from CO. So I have to look for alternatives. Looked at the whole Ikea catalog and played around some ideas involving some of their customizable racking solutions, in the end gave up as non fit my bill in terms of aesthetics and fittings.

After failing to find a suitable rack to hold my planned MH pendant, I decided to go the DIY route. Found some inspiration from the forums on the internet and decided to go for aluminum structure for strength and aesthetic. I was mentally prepared to do some drilling, cutting and riveting. So today I went down to:
Teck Cheong Aluminium Pte. Ltd. Address is Blk 803 King George's Ave #01-246/248/250.Tel: 62949650 / 62989936. (not to advertise for them but to prevent my PM from being flooded!;) )

To my pleasant surprise, I discovered a very customizable and easy system that takes away all the mess of drilling or riveting. You only need Allen keys to tighten the structure. These are the stuff I bought:


You have to buy the aluminum bars at 5 metres length (~$40+) but they are willing to cut to lengths for you. They have external and internal brackets (I went for the internal brackets~ neater), plastic end covers, a lot of other customizable add-ons to suit your needs.


A close up shot of the cross-section to illustrate my point about the structural strength compared to the usual hollow aluminum trunking used in other DIY.


A close up shot of the internal brackets (L-joints)


The bars are very strong with a solid core (different from the aluminum trunking that most DIY racks uses) and thus weight down the whole structure giving it some resistance to wind/gust..the internal brackets (L-joints) are cast iron..so pretty sturdy as well... the only problem I may have is the narrow base relative to the tall height...a quick hand pushing and pulling test shows that it's pretty steady as well.

The finished product over my new glass terrarium.
I gave the rack another 1.5 feet above my 1.5 feet tank to make sure I have enough head room to mount the MH light set higher. This will allow me to adjust the spread of the light via the hanging set as well as move the MH set higher to reduce the heat reaching the paludarium.

I like the neat, customizable and fuss free construction and with the end result that exceeds my expectation of a stable and sleek rack.

Hope the above will provide some ideas and option for people who are keen to DIY.

The Equipments (Part 2) ~ Lighting

I was thinking hard about the kind of lights a paludarium should need. In the planted aquarium world it's easy to just follow the guideline of 2-3WPG rule but in the vivarium/terrarium/paludarium world, it seem like it doesn't really work that way. The closest I can find to a guideline on the amount of light a paludarium need is ~0.5 to 1W per litre. So, for a tank my size (1X1X1.5 feet ~42.5L), a 20 to 40w light source should be sufficient (theoretically).

With a general idea of getting a light source of 20-40W output, I started to explore the current options in the market namely PL, T5HO and Metal Halides. I have been using T5HO for my planted tanks for a while and pretty much light the performance and low heat emission, to my dismay, I found out that they don't come in sizes smaller than 2 feet. For PL, the 1 feet light sets comes with 18W PL lamps and I can actually get 2 sets of these to make it up to 36W...to me this is an OK solution but something about the aesthetics and heat still irks me enough to want to explore further.

One day I happened to be looking at my work table lamp from Ikea and noticed that the height and the design can fit into my idea of the paludarium tank set. I was happy to find out that the lamp can take E27 base lamps that does not exceed 65W. It was using a pathetic Ikea energy-saving bulb of only 11W with an ugly yellow hue. So, I went out and bought the highest wattage E27 base bulb I can find and fitted it to the Ikea lamp. The result is as shown below:



Phillips Tornado 24W E27 6500K Cool Daylight

Bulb swapped in. Note the semi-gloss plainted inner surface of the lamp hood.

To me, the amount of light within the tank looks equivalent to a slightly overcast day and should be just sufficient for most shade loving plants. I think a large part is due to the stainless steel wire mesh filtering out at least 20-30% of the total light output from the lamp. The lack of a proper reflector within the lamp hood also did not help matters here.

I need something more powerful and can have penetrative capacity to reach the bottom of the tank through a stainless steel mesh cover!

So, Metal Halides comes to mind next. I really like the intensity of the MH but with the industry/marine hobby standard of 150/250/400W, the intensity and heat will probably scorch my land plants and boil all my aquatic fauna. I was delighted to find out that they actually have 70W MH sets. Due to the 1 feet width of my tank, I'm limited to looking at single pendant sets.

Giesemann Nova II is a beauty but their local distributor do not bring in the 70W version :P.

JBJ Viper comes in 70W but it's a clamp-on which I am not able to install due to the stainless steel mesh.

Considered Viclite's pendant options. I was initially thrilled to see that they have 70W options for all their MH light sets only to be disappointed by calling their office to be told they are no longer able to confirm any in-coming stock for their 70w options.

I was on the verge of going the DIY route when I decided to email DeLightings if they have 70W options for their MH sets (their website only advertised the 150/250W sets) and to my pleasant surprise, they do have that option. So, I'm more or less set on getting the set from Delightings and will be ordering my 70W 8000K Double-end MH bulb from ebay.

The Equipments (Part 1) ~ Tank

Exo Terra Glass Terarrium 30x30x45cm. Chose this size as it fits perfectly in the window bay ledge that I have intended for it. Ideally I would have chosen some thing like a 45x45x60cm for maximum free play in the tank layout and scape but oh well...there is a challenge in making a small tank look great too:)

the front of the box

the rear view of the box


the opening...

comes with a realistic Styrofoam rock background which I have yet to decide if I will be using.

very stealth air vents incorporated into the plastic structure just beneath the glass doors...nice

Back of the Styrofoam background which have gaps in the lower edge and 2 shallow tunnels at the rear to allow for wires and tubes to pass through... thoughtful!

Stainless steel mesh top that allow ventilation and light to filter into the tank... I may be adding some acrylic panels to increase the humidity level of the tank later on..

I love the well fitted seams with neat silicone work as well as very closely gaped glass doors. Overall, a good quality product well worth the $$!

First time trying out a paludarium

Just decommissioned my 6 ft planted and now starting my very 1st paludarium.
I have always loved the half land and half water look that encompasses the totality of the ecosystem.
The following will document my journey into this unfamiliar but strangely enticing path...