Paludarium

Do you want to know what a paludarium is and what is it used for?

Palus is translated from Latin as "swamp". Paludarium - a kind of "home swamp", enclosed in the glass walls of the aquarium. Used to accommodate water animals, which require special living conditions: water, plants, and land.

What is needed for the paludarium?

The basis for the paludarium is a glass aquarium. It houses plants suitable for a pet, installs structures with decorative elements, creates miniature waterfalls and streams.

So, to create a paludarium with your own hands you will need:

How to make paludarium?

Immediately it is worth mentioning that not all of the above list is mandatory for the Paludarium. But first things first.

  1. Aquarium. In fact, for the paludarium, you can find specialized glass boxes, with built-in shelves for floating plants. The size is chosen with a reference to the size of the animal and the necessary habitat for it. Built-in shelves for surface plants will greatly facilitate all the work on the design of the paludarium, so it is worthwhile to take a closer look at the model with such shelves.
  2. Plants for paludarium. The main rule: no poisonous plants! In the rest, it is necessary to focus exclusively on the preferences (if any) of a domestic pet and on the ability of attracted plants to good neighborly relations. For the paludarium, the plants of the middle belt, which can be found in an ordinary forest, are also suitable. Preference for tropical plants is caused not so much by their greater viability (this is a mistaken opinion), but rather by Russian love for exotics. Therefore, those who want to design palyudarium native mosses and driftwood, do not be afraid of the vagaries of representatives of the Russian flora - boldly decorate your pet's house with the plants extracted in the forest!
  3. Decorative background. You can buy a ready-made background in the store. You can make it yourself. One of the simplest ways involves the location of the background behind the back wall of the aquarium. The best option is to get or glue the cardboard box yourself, paint it in the right colors, decorate the inner walls with dry branches and other natural elements, and arrange the whole structure behind a glass aquarium. You can set the background and inside the aquarium. It will take a sheet of styrofoam, non-toxic paints, moss, branches, sand and small pebbles. Polyfoam is painted, made with the help of silicate glue with stones and branches, and fastened with the same glue to the wall of the aquarium. I. Kireenko advises planting plants not directly into the ground, but into small pots. So it will be easier to move the plant, looking for the necessary place in the paludarium. After the location of the plants will be finally approved, and claims for unaesthetically sticking out leaves and stems do not remain, you can fall asleep between pots of expanded clay and cover it with moss (for aesthetics).
  4. Bulls and stones. In shops sell various decorative elements from plastic. Pros in this decor is a bit: clean and shorten the processing time before putting it in the paludarium. The best way to create a truly living paludarium is to use real snags and stones from the forest. True, before putting into the aquarium, you will have to spend a lot of time on their processing, but the spent efforts will justify themselves with an excellent result.
  5. So, the selected snags should be thoroughly washed from grass and earth , cleaned of rot and placed in boiling saline. The solution must be so salty that the newly added salt in it does not dissolve. To boil in this solution the future detail of a decor needs 12 hours, constantly adding water instead of evaporated. Then another 12 hours the snag is already boiling in clean water (the water needs to be completely changed every three hours). Important! If a snag emerges, it must be "drowned" by tethering a cobblestone. After cooking, the cooled snag once again cleaned of rot with a penknife. Well suited for registration tips, how to grow in a paludarium moss or plant moss to rocks and driftwood. To do this, the stone is tied with a fishing line, to which moss is fastened (usually Javanese). The procedure of growing moss to the stone will be long, but the result will please with its beauty.
  6. Equipment for heating, bottom filter and other equipment used in the paludarium is not necessary. It all depends on what plants and animals will live in it. Especially heat-loving additional heating is simply necessary. The same applies to the bottom filter: if the inhabitants of the paludarium are active metabolism, the bottom will often have to be cleaned of the products of their vital activity. In this case, installing the bottom filter will be justified.