Lush Jungle Paludarium for Tetra Fish Community

For the past two weeks I've been moving all of the animals into the new room, but I have a few left to address. One of which is the Blackwater riparium that I built in the IKEA tank. I set it up about three months ago. Unfortunately it took a beating during the moving process, so it doesn't look nearly as nice these days, but the fish are still doing really well. I already have the stand for it and the AirPockets riparium tank ready to go. However, even when drained, it's a little too heavy for me to comfortably move by myself. Since it needs to be fixed as it is to look its best, and I need to move it, I figured I might as well start over with something completely new for the same set of fish. First order of business is to get all of the fish, snails, and shrimp moved over into a holding tank. With the tank in the room, I have a much better idea of how this is all gonna look. And I have a very specific idea in mind. I planned for this design even before I built the stand, and made sure to leave adequate room between the top of the tank and the bottom of the window, so I can take things up and out of the enclosure to make a really dynamic design. I'll use the same cork bark as before, only this time I'll orient it in a vertical position to mimic the base of a tree. I have additional pieces of bark that I'll include as well, but I have even more. I also have a bundle of jungle wood vines, which have a really awesome gnarly look, and a handful of dragonwood segments. Don't worry, this is all well seasoned, so it's not going to cause issues like it did in the original Suriname Toad Aquarium. Plus, it's far less of an issue anyway when using small branches like these. You'll see that I left the substrate and anchoring rock down in the bottom of the tank. I also made sure to leave water in the bottom to keep it all wet, and retain as much of that bacteria as possible. I'll reuse both, but I need to get to scaping, so I can best understand how to utilize that anchoring stone. My idea here, or at least the foundation, was to cover up most of the back with bark. I had to break them up for a better fit. It took a lot of experimentation with different layouts to get something I felt could work for what I have in mind. Pretty much everything I'm doing in this step hinges off of the anchoring stone, but I also have to lock it all together. Easy enough. I drilled holes between the pieces of bark, and locked them together with zip ties. I also marked for a few spots on the stone that I used as a guide to create holes. I looped in some more zip ties, and used these as reference to create holes along the bottom of the bark. I secured the bark formation onto this, and dropped the ready-made scape into the tank. I also created a small hole on the left, so I could easily hide the filter behind the bark. This will all serve as the foundation for the rest of the design, and should be an effective backdrop for the finer elements. The idea I have with the jungle wood here, is for it to weave down into the water, and all throughout the enclosure. Like always, I took cues from the crooks and bends in the branches, to determine where to place everything. These would float as is, so I'll lock them in with epoxy. I mixed it up, and pressed it between the contact points. Within 30 minutes, these will be fully secured. It could probably be an effective scape with these alone, but I thought that the dragon roots would help add more interest with the finer textures. These also would float, so I locked them in with super glue gel as I went. I concealed the glue with cocoa fiber, which also helps the glue dry faster, so it's a win-win. I used this technique to hide a few of the zip ties as well. I hid the others with a few pieces of bark that I epoxied in. I know it can seem really excessive at times to lock everything together with glue, epoxy, or foam, but I have my reasons. Doing this allows me to create things that otherwise wouldn't be possible. It also makes it much easier to keep and maintain these setups without ruining anything. That's especially important when you keep as many setups going as I do. Anyway, I'm really pleased with how this all turned out, but it will look even better with the plants. Before I can add these though, I need to mix up some more substrate. I have more of the dark gravel from before and aqua soil. When combined, you can't even tell that the aqua soil is mixed in. Of course, this will provide additional nutrients for the plants, but it also helps buffer the water and thus create a more favorable environment for the fish. Now concerning the plants, I want a lot of riparian or emergent plant growth as before, and in fact, much more. That said, I need to take these plants down to the bare roots before I can use them. I'll leave them to soak to loosen things up while I address other aspects of this build. I think this will be the perfect setup to include a mist maker for additional ambience. I installed that right behind the bark. I also experimented with lighting, but I'll get that fully taken care of later on. By now, the plants were cleaned up and ready to go. I used the branches and vines as shelves to anchor them in the upper portion of the tank. As I did, I kept in mind where the water level will be and placed everything accordingly. I also used a net pot for a few of the plants in the back. And because of the way that everything sits, I didn't have to use threads or glue or anything like that to hold the plants in place. They more or less just sit in place, but as the roots establish in the tank, it will actually hold everything in even better. As I expected, the plants really brought this together and I absolutely love how they look. I gotta get this filled up with water immediately though so that roots don't dry out. As before, I want this to be a very natural looking and functioning setup with all of the botanicals. Everything from the original setup is already well seasoned, so it only made sense to put them back. I personally love the look of them, but the fish really enjoy them as well. I figured I might as well get a little green down in the bottom as well with a few anubias. I did a mock setup of the lights and everything is essentially done. I really like how it turned out, but I want to see it with the fish. I'll get them into their updated home and we'll take a closer look. There's always something about the setups with emergent plants and botanicals that really get me. Although the entire thing was done with a lot of intention, it all looks unintentional and thus more natural. That's largely due to the botanicals. As they leach tannins into the water and break down, the natural look becomes even stronger. An aspect of that are the fine particles and molm created during the decomposition cycle. I added some of these back in to jumpstart that look. This made the water a little cloudy, but as the debris settles, it will be crystal clear in no time. And don't get it twisted, even with heavily tinted water, the clarity can still be top notch. I cannot wait to see this full of tannins because it really brings out the colors in the fish. You can see what I'm talking about here in the clips from the beginning of the video. The blues, reds, and other colors just jump out of the tank and it allows you to appreciate just how colorful these fish are. Another natural aspect of it, of course, are the plants. With the way that I have their roots down in the water, they're essentially a giant filtration system that are going to make this more or less a no-maintenance tank. On top of that, they just look incredible. As much as I enjoy engineering wacky setups, showcasing the animals in something like this is always my favorite. I think that's because nature is where I get my inspiration for these things, and if I can even capture just a little bit of that essence, then that's good enough for me. And thus concludes another aquarium build. If you enjoyed the video, help support the channel with a like, and let me know what your thoughts are down in the comments. Also, I'll address the lighting situation and show you exactly what I do in a later video, so stay tuned for that if you're curious. Anyway, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed the video, and until next time SerpaSquad, take care and peace.