Matt Havens
Member
- Joined
- 22 Jun 2015
- Messages
- 260
Fingers crossed I can keep them going
Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk
About a week so far. A couple of Crypt leaves have died which I think was damage from planting but otherwise no problems.Very nice, how long have these been going so far?
Thanks for the advice Jordi and great work on the Vivaria, looks stunning!Hi
Congrats for you mini vivaria. They look great! I enjoy a lot mini set ups like these ones with plants leftovers (https://www.flickr.com/photos/119257234@N07/albums/72157645859849187). I even tried to go further with a dedicated moss setup (https://www.flickr.com/photos/119257234@N07/albums/72157646264396641) and the first lesson I learnt was that for this kind of setups there 2 very important things: passive ventilation and air movement. High humidity (one of the things you need for good growing) can be easily achieved with your enclosure but stagnant air will kill your plants, will rotten everything and will only feed mould. Passive ventilation (some openings in your enclosure) ensures renewed and fresh air, air movement (that's more tricky, see below) helps to distributing humidity, cooling the enclosure, evaporating water and avoiding stagnant areas.
The other thing I suggest improving is light. When going dry you can photobomb your tank... vivaria are a bit more "boring" in terms of growing than planted tanks. A low light vivarium is therefore extremely boring and not very beautiful (leggy plants do not look very well).
Due to a pretty packed agenda at work, I converted a few weeks ago two of my tanks into vivaria. Maintenance is wonderful. I have two timers, one for light and another for two little 40mmm PC fans (look a the corners) I wanted to show you. I mist them manually once a day, but you can even skip it for a 3-4 days if needed. You can use plenty of terrestrial plants as you can see (broms, orchids, climbers, etc.) but there are plenty of emerged aquatic plants that do very well (Crypts, H. Monte Carlo, aquatic mosses, Java ferns in all its forms, H. pinnatifida, liverworts, etc.).
PC fans are easy to install (even for me, completely dumb in terms of electric works). Another advantage: you will have no more a foggy setup. You can buy them for a 1-2 pounds and you can connect them to old phone chargers. This, and a bit more of light, will make a big difference in your setups
Jordi