My Paludarium Experience

I had heard that duckweeds were in some paludariums, but I had no idea of the extreme usefulness of it. I found out today that duckweed is an excellent way to suck up extra nutrients from the water! This sounds like a bad thing at first, but sometimes there are things in the water that simply shouldn’t be — and duckweed will cure that problem!

If there are fish in the tank, you will probably need to change the water, since fish can be messy animals. But wait! Duckweed will clean the water for you! In fact, everything that a goldfish puts out, duckweed will absorb, and then, in turn, the goldfish will eat the duckweed! Having too many goldfish might be a bad thing, since all the duckweed will soon disappear, but one goldfish should probably be able to peacefully exist in a pond covered with duckweed!

Now I’ve solved two problems — animals making a mess of the water and having to feed the fish. So I can’t say for sure what else will be in the paludarium yet, but a goldfish and duckweed will definitely be part of it.

Your duckweed-eating herbivore,
Jared

Well you better believe I was thinking about possible designs today. That’s really all I did. I was cruising the Internet and I think I found some designs that I like. Looks like I’ll be going with the “emerging rocks and driftwood” idea — but instead of having them “emerge,” I’m probably going to have it more like the driftwood is floating in the tank, rather than anchored to the tank.

Based on my findings today, I’m probably going to search for a few pieces of driftwood down at the local lake, wash them really good (as our lake is disgusting), and then glue them together with aquarium-safe glue. Having this as a template, I’m going to grow moss all over the wood to make a sort of “ground,” since there won’t technically be a solid ground.

Once the moss grows, I’ll put some other plants on it and add some rocks and places for bugs to live. Once this is complete, I’ll move the whole contraption to my tank, add the water, add the animals, and add the water plants — not necessarily in that order — then I’ll be sitting pretty!

But don’t let me fool you. It won’t be that simple. I still have a lot of planning to do! I think I’m going to start thinking about what animals and plants to actually put in it…

Your floating-wood inhabitant,
Jared

So first of all, I will be building my paludarium in a glass aquarium. They say you can build them out of other things, such as treated wood and glass, but I think that a traditional aquarium would suit me better. Now I have to worry about the design. There has be a section of land and a section of water, but how do I keep them separate? There are four different ways I can do this:

• Shelf or Slope
  • The dry portion rises up out of the water. The typical way to accomplish this is to glue rocks together to make a slope or to carve a styrofoam block and glue sand to the surface. This method looks very natural, but can be difficult to build and maintain.
• Rock and Land Wall
  • This design largely emphasizes the aquatic over the terrestrial. You can either buy or build an aquarium backing that looks like — or is made of — rocks. Place plants into the crevices created by the backing.
• Divided Land and Water
  • You seal off a portion of the tank using glass or wood and sealant of some kind. This method lacks the “true mixing” of land and water, and is often not recommended.
• Emergent Rocks or Driftwood
  • This is probably the easiest method to build and is arguably the most natural looking. Stack and glue rocks or place driftwood so that they rise above the surface of the water. Usually, in this layout, the roots of the plants that grow on the surface of the land should be allowed to grow down into the water.

After reading and considering all four of these ideas, I’m not sure which I prefer. I would probably vote the latter, emergent rocks and driftwood, but I’m not decided yet. I guess I will have to wait and see what I’m planning on growing in here before I can know how to design it. More on this later!

Your emerging driftwood fan,
Jared

Hello, all! My name is Jared, I’m twenty years old, and I’m in college. I’m still living with my parents and not working at the moment, so I have limited space and money. I’ve always thought that having a mini-ecosystem on my desk would be really cool, so today I finally decided, despite the face that I have zero experience, to make one.

First and foremost, I wanted to create a vivarium — an enclosed area for growing plants and animals. Once I learned that there were more than one type of vivarium, I decided I wanted to have my own paludarium — a vivarium consisting of both aquatic area and a shore of land. This way I could grow aquatic life, like fish and frogs, land life, like lizards and worms, flying insects, like flies, and both air and water plants, like spider plants and duckweed.

So, just like that, I decided today that I’m going to build my own paludarium. What I plan to do is journal all of my research, steps, and findings here. I have no idea how long it will take, or how many attempts it will take to get a working ecosystem. But if you follow my journey, or read and learn from my journey, you should be able to create your own paludarium as well!

But now I must be off to bed! It’s late here! So I will see you all tomorrow with (hopefully) some new findings!

Your duckweed-loving friend,
Jared