New project time! My aquariums are all doing well and I ran out of room for more. Well there is room in the house, but only in places that I'm seldom in. Not a place I want fish. So what does that leave? Plants. I like plants. I like getting a whole bunch to try out. One thing I've never done (well two) is emersed plants and terrariums.
With that in mind I started looking into terrariums a few months ago. Some really nice plants out there for them. Some really artistic people. That those is not me. I can plan and research like a crazy man. I can find lots of interesting plants and fish for good prices. Making a scape look pretty? Soooooo not me. Hate doing it, get frustrated, redo it, get really annoyed, redo it, give up and let it go. It's how all my tanks came about and usually shows. So making a terrarium might not work well for me.
I still kept looking up the plants though since they were interesting and I'm nerdy like that. That's when I stumbled onto the journal that made me not care if I could do it, I wanted to do something similar. Want to see? Borneo Stream Biotope Go ahead and look, I'll wait.
Back again? Most of my fish and plants are Southeast Asian. I'm obviously in love with the floral and fauna of that region, so a terrarium like that really inspired me. Thing is I can grow aquarium plants. I've never tried to go anything else though, let alone all those. Plus the artistic touch.
A plan started to form though as I researched. Start off slowly and just try emersed plants for now. This won't be a nice looking emersed setup like aokashi has. Nope! This will be plants in pot in an aquarium! If this goes well then look out!
I could do stems plants. I have lots from that area of the world. Not feeling it though. I'm anal I guess, just like restricting myself to one geographical region. The plants I have in mind are aroids, carnivorous plants, mosses, ferns, and orchids. The rarer the better, within reason since some costs hundreds of dollars or are poached. No way am I going to do either of those options. I do have a wishlist though that I'm working on if anyone wants to see.
First step after plenty of hardcore research was to pull the empty 55 gallon out of the cellar and clean it up. Yeah you read that right. 55 gallon, I'm going hardcore from the start. I'm laying 50/50 odds on this either being an epic failure of epic proportions or epically epic.
So now the 55 is clean and sitting on a dresser. I was making a long shopping list of things I thought I'd need. A fan, light, heater, eggcrate, pots. Research going like crazy. I even had the order of plants I wanted to try. Crypts, moss, and ferns first. Then jewel orchids and Nepenthes. Last Buces and Phals (if I made it that far).
It was a decent plan. Then I found a good deal on some plants and the whole plan went out the window. I couldn't resist the hard to find plants at a good price. I ordered some, quick threw together a ghetto tank in a 10 gallon. Those plants arrived today, but more on them later. For right now go look at some pictures of some Southeast Asian streams in nature. Corymad and Jungle Mike
I'll post some pictures and info on the new plants tonight. I would do it right now, I'm I'm frustrating a certian mod by not posting them. Something I think is massively fun.
PS-Follow along while I kill plants. No lurking. I will name names and place the blame.
With that in mind I started looking into terrariums a few months ago. Some really nice plants out there for them. Some really artistic people. That those is not me. I can plan and research like a crazy man. I can find lots of interesting plants and fish for good prices. Making a scape look pretty? Soooooo not me. Hate doing it, get frustrated, redo it, get really annoyed, redo it, give up and let it go. It's how all my tanks came about and usually shows. So making a terrarium might not work well for me.
I still kept looking up the plants though since they were interesting and I'm nerdy like that. That's when I stumbled onto the journal that made me not care if I could do it, I wanted to do something similar. Want to see? Borneo Stream Biotope Go ahead and look, I'll wait.
Back again? Most of my fish and plants are Southeast Asian. I'm obviously in love with the floral and fauna of that region, so a terrarium like that really inspired me. Thing is I can grow aquarium plants. I've never tried to go anything else though, let alone all those. Plus the artistic touch.
A plan started to form though as I researched. Start off slowly and just try emersed plants for now. This won't be a nice looking emersed setup like aokashi has. Nope! This will be plants in pot in an aquarium! If this goes well then look out!
I could do stems plants. I have lots from that area of the world. Not feeling it though. I'm anal I guess, just like restricting myself to one geographical region. The plants I have in mind are aroids, carnivorous plants, mosses, ferns, and orchids. The rarer the better, within reason since some costs hundreds of dollars or are poached. No way am I going to do either of those options. I do have a wishlist though that I'm working on if anyone wants to see.
First step after plenty of hardcore research was to pull the empty 55 gallon out of the cellar and clean it up. Yeah you read that right. 55 gallon, I'm going hardcore from the start. I'm laying 50/50 odds on this either being an epic failure of epic proportions or epically epic.
So now the 55 is clean and sitting on a dresser. I was making a long shopping list of things I thought I'd need. A fan, light, heater, eggcrate, pots. Research going like crazy. I even had the order of plants I wanted to try. Crypts, moss, and ferns first. Then jewel orchids and Nepenthes. Last Buces and Phals (if I made it that far).
It was a decent plan. Then I found a good deal on some plants and the whole plan went out the window. I couldn't resist the hard to find plants at a good price. I ordered some, quick threw together a ghetto tank in a 10 gallon. Those plants arrived today, but more on them later. For right now go look at some pictures of some Southeast Asian streams in nature. Corymad and Jungle Mike
I'll post some pictures and info on the new plants tonight. I would do it right now, I'm I'm frustrating a certian mod by not posting them. Something I think is massively fun.
PS-Follow along while I kill plants. No lurking. I will name names and place the blame.