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New Beginnings (Aaron's Riparium)

aaronnorth

Member
Joined
19 Feb 2008
Messages
3,941
Location
worksop, nottinghamshire
It was hard to scape this, bearing in mind it will only be half full and the petrified wood is pretty flat, not the best option for a first time iwagumi style.


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lighting will be 2 x 11w PCT5
Fluval U3 internal (I can see me swapping this for external pretty quickly :rolleyes: )


Thanks for looking.

A big thankyou to Devin (Hydrophyte) for kindly sending over some riparium equipment to help get this style up and running in the UK. :thumbup: :thumbup:
 
:lol: looks like in the blue pic your tanks cracked!

whats the dimensions?

im interested massively by the ripariums. however, i have always wanted a vivarium with small colourful frogs!

watchin' this! nice one!
 
Krish's Bettas said:
I like the petrified wood. It is placed well.
I cant wait till its all planted and set up :D

cheers :thumbup:
looks like in the blue pic your tanks cracked!

whats the dimensions?

im interested massively by the ripariums. however, i have always wanted a vivarium with small colourful frogs!

watchin' this! nice one!
:lol: looks like in the blue pic your tanks cracked!

whats the dimensions?

im interested massively by the ripariums. however, i have always wanted a vivarium with small colourful frogs!

watchin' this! nice one!

lol, it does. I had to remove the braces on it and that scared me a lot!
60 x 30 x 40(H)

There is no reason why you cant have a frog & riparium, you would just need to make sure a rock provides some dry land, (unless that makes it a vivarium :crazy: )

thanks, Aaron
 
You've done a cracking job with that petrified wood, Aaron. I played with some for an hour or so at TGM, but in the end I just couldn't make anything of such severe straight lines. You've obviously chosen your pieces well and placed them even better - nice one!
 
I too like the idea of a riparium, it's nice to see people trying their hand at it. What are your plans for planting?

(Jheez, I dunno if it's my screen or dodgy eyesight but that blue photo blinded me! :lol:)
 
rawr said:
I too like the idea of a riparium, it's nice to see people trying their hand at it. What are your plans for planting?

(Jheez, I dunno if it's my screen or dodgy eyesight but that blue photo blinded me! :lol:)

yes they are very bright!
Anubias, Echinodorus, and maybe Bacopa. Some other species too but I have to see whats available etc.

paul.in.kendal said:
You've done a cracking job with that petrified wood, Aaron. I played with some for an hour or so at TGM, but in the end I just couldn't make anything of such severe straight lines. You've obviously chosen your pieces well and placed them even better - nice one!

Thanks, that was my biggest problem too, the style I have opted for above is the easiest way to go with them, so for anyone how does differently they are very talented :thumbup:

AdAndrews said:
very intrested to see how this develops, good luck with it mate :thumbup:

Thanks, :thumbup:
 
Hey that's looking great Aaron. I also like your rock selection and scaping. You will find it preferable to apply a dark background to the tank, as this will help to hide the hanging and floating planters from view.

Have you begun to accumulate any plants yet? I just ran into one of my lists of varieties among common houseplants that are good choices for growing in ripariums. The wild progenitors of some of these plants are found in swampy places with wet soil.

  • Spathiphyllum, "peace lilies"--almost any kind will grow well in water
  • Pilea--including "aluminum plant", 'Silver Tree' and others
  • Alocasia amazonica 'Polly'--"African mask"
  • Diffenbachia--especially 'Camilla', a small variety
  • Syngonium
  • Cyperus, umbrella sedge

I have additional ideas too. You will also find it useful to shop at stores that carry plants for garden ponds, although I imagine it is still early in the season in your area for this.
 
hydrophyte said:
Spathiphyllum, "peace lilies"--almost any kind will grow well in water

These are really common in garden centres in the UK (well in the South of England at any rate).
Beautiful plants IMO, so I would vote +1 for including one of these in your setup :thumbup:
 
Thanks Devin, I have no plants yet because my lighting is stuck in HK. I am also running my filter alongside my other in my big tank to get it cycled, so I am not to fussed ATM.

Thanks for the plants list, i presume any pond plants will be fine to use if I just go down and take a look at what they have?


I have a structured internal background, but will probably use it externally to save on space, and depending on how it looks, I might just use it to cover the planters, or the full height of the tank. It will help to cover the ugly internal too :sick: Havent had one of these since my first setup years ago!

Thanks, Aaron
 
If that background that you currently have proves difficult to accommodate you could also just paint that rear pane of glass. Basic black is just about the best color you can use.

Yes, there are many good choices for riparium plants among the offerings at pond shops. I would be interested to know what you observe for sale and I can offer a few ideas too. One important thing to keep in mind while shopping for plants is the possibility of hitchhiking plant pests making it into your setup with new plants. Aphids, scale, mealybugs and mites can make a mess, but it is fairly easy to remove them by drowning from new plants. I quote myself below with an explanation of the procedure that I use to de-bug plants.

  1. Pull plant from pot and shake potting media away from roots. Trim long roots and rinse off remaining potting media.
  2. Dunk plants in water in a container such as an unoccupied aquarium or large pail. Sink plants all the way to bottom and keep down with small terra cotta pot or similar weight.
  3. Be mindful of bugs that might float to top alive. Remove any floating leaves or other bits of debris. Rinse or wipe down rim of container in order to wash away and squash bugs.
  4. Keep plants underwater for ~12 hours.
  5. Certain kinds of plants will soften underwater and become susceptible to drying with re-exposure to non-humid air. Keep treated plants in covered, high-humidity enclosure for a few days, gradually expose to increased air circulation.
  6. Some plants might also sustain some leaf damage while underwater. Trim away dead or badly-damaged leaves.
 
Here's another real good place to shop...

The Planted Box--Aquatic Plants: http://www.plantedbox.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=65

I see a number of good variety selections there. The important thing for your open top setup will be to choose plants that can handle moderate household humidities and don't require very moist conditions. I mean to review their list more carefully and pick out some of the plants with best riparium potential.

Most of those plants are produced in emersed conditions at the nursery, so it should be a simple matter to just pot them up in the riparium planter and get them going.
 
hydrophyte said:
Here's another real good place to shop...

The Planted Box--Aquatic Plants: http://www.plantedbox.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=65

I see a number of good variety selections there. The important thing for your open top setup will be to choose plants that can handle moderate household humidities and don't require very moist conditions. I mean to review their list more carefully and pick out some of the plants with best riparium potential.

Most of those plants are produced in emersed conditions at the nursery, so it should be a simple matter to just pot them up in the riparium planter and get them going.

James is going to email me the plant list and I may get some motherplants as I can buy them singularly. 6 pots of each is a bit much for this style. :thumbup: The emmersed production is also something that attracts me with AF (for once!)

Thanks for the acclimatising tips, never thought about bugs. :thumbup:

Aaron
 
Still looking good Aaron.

I wonder if you are able to situate those lights so that they are shining mainly into the front of the tank(?). I have found it generally preferable to mount lighting front of center to ensure that the underwater area is well-illuminated, because it tends to be shaded by the emersed foliage.

I would be interested to see what you might acquire among those Aquafleur plants from PlantedBox.com. If you can, you ought to try and get some of the shorter-statured Echinodorus swords. It seems we don't have a very good selection of Echinodorus here on our side of the Atlantic Ocean. The only one that I have found that performs very well in riparium is E. cordifolius, but this one becomes too large for smaller tanks.
 
hydrophyte said:
Still looking good Aaron.

I wonder if you are able to situate those lights so that they are shining mainly into the front of the tank(?). I have found it generally preferable to mount lighting front of center to ensure that the underwater area is well-illuminated, because it tends to be shaded by the emersed foliage.

I would be interested to see what you might acquire among those Aquafleur plants from PlantedBox.com. If you can, you ought to try and get some of the shorter-statured Echinodorus swords. It seems we don't have a very good selection of Echinodorus here on our side of the Atlantic Ocean. The only one that I have found that performs very well in riparium is E. cordifolius, but this one becomes too large for smaller tanks.

There arent really many small echinodorus sp, but out of the motherplants list I recieved I would probably choose these:
Anubias barteri nana, Echinodorus Ozelot "green" & Echinodorus Rose.
For the rest of the plants I will probably keep going down to LFS every week when the plant order comes in and get first dibs :D

Thanks, Aaron
 
If you don't mind shopping a bit more I would actually recommend against both the Echinodorus 'Ozelot Green' and the Anubias barteri var. nana. The Anubias would do best in a high-humidity setup with a closed top, so it would be less suitable for your riparium, unless you were to use it underwater. I have tried the regular red Echinodorus 'Ozelot' a couple of times and I found that it resists growing emersed. Even up in the air in a well-lit tank it insisted on growing the flimsy underwater-form leaves, which dried up in the air. A real good safe bet among those Platedbox.com offerings is E. cordifolius 'Marble Queen', which happily grows emersed as a very attractive specimen.

22-i-10-echinodorus-cordifolius-tropica-marble-queen-i-m.jpg


I also suggest Echinodorus radicans. That one will eventually grow large, but it will probably bloom for you and you can restart smaller new plants with the adventitious plantlets that form on the flower stalk.

Remember that Echinodorus swords are heavy root feeders. It's a good idea to add a tablet or capsule fertilizer (such as this one: http://www.fluidsensoronline.com/2009/12/tropica-aquacare-plant-nutrition-capsules/) to the planter cup during or after planting.
 
aaronnorth said:
My lights come from HK today, and I am pleased with them :)
Shouldnt be much longer before I get some plants in
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Thanks, Aaron


hey Aaron, have you got a link for those lights. Would be ideal for a setup i am working on at the moment?
Looking forward to seeing this journal, as Devins tanks have motivated me also!
Cheers :thumbup:
 
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