# Paludarium ?



## Raccoon (Mar 11, 2013)

im thinking of making my terrarium to a paludarium, with frogs and fishes
my question is do i need to clean the water since the fish poops so much? or what? can i like buy many cleaning fishes instead of cleaning. 
becouse i will not clean


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## ndame88 (Sep 24, 2010)

It does not matter how many "cleaning" fish you have, you will still have to clean and do water changes, all fish crap even the "cleaning" ones. The other factor is your bio load and the amount of water in a paludarium is generally much less then an aquarium, so depending on the bio load, high levels of nitrates will kill the fish.


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## Raccoon (Mar 11, 2013)

ndame88 said:


> It does not matter how many "cleaning" fish you have, you will still have to clean and do water changes, all fish crap even the "cleaning" ones. The other factor is your bio load and the amount of water in a paludarium is generally much less then an aquarium, so depending on the bio load, high levels of nitrates will kill the fish.


seems like to much work ill just buy 1 male and 1 female betta and just not clean its easier. they wont die will they?


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## mollbern (Feb 10, 2013)

I have an idea, that's not as ideal as regular water changes or getting a filter, but it's something.

Maybe get a small water pump, and pump water from the water feature to some area of your tank that's dense with plants. The plants may be able to act as a natural filter for the water before it trickles back down to your water feature.


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## Pumilo (Sep 4, 2010)

Yes, they will die. Or rather, you will kill them. If you can't take proper care of a pet, please don't get one.
Fish produce waste products. They produce ammonia, which is toxic. A bacterial filter can convert the ammonia to nitrate, and then convert the nitrate to nitrite. The nitrite will eventually get high enough to kill your fish, if the ammonia spikes have not killed them already.
To sum it up, how long do you think you could live in a toilet?


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## ndame88 (Sep 24, 2010)

Pumilo said:


> Yes, they will die. Or rather, you will kill them. If you can't take proper care of a pet, please don't get one.
> Fish produce waste products. They produce ammonia, which is toxic. A bacterial filter can convert the ammonia to nitrate, and then convert the nitrate to nitrite. The nitrite will eventually get high enough to kill your fish, if the ammonia spikes have not killed them already.
> To sum it up, how long do you think you could live in a toilet?


Thanks Pumilo, thats what I was getting at but your version is much better, to add to the filter comment, you still have to do water changes with a filter, my Paludarium(37 gallons of water area) has an internal and external filter, a sponge filter, and I still do two 5 gallon water changes a week, thats what it takes to keep my ammonia and nitrites near zero. Now you can get away with not having a filter IF you do water changes and have some type of plant that the is growing emersed from the water area to use up the nitrites. Pothos is a great plant for that but does not look good in a viv in my opinion, Anubias would work as well.


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## Pubfiction (Feb 3, 2013)

You will need to do water changes every so often, depends on the fish you choose. The best case is you want to essentially have everything setup just like an aquarium. Fish need the water changes to replenish minerals they have exhausted, and dilute minerals that may be building up due to evaporation or other influxes of nutrients. If you want to reduce how often you do changes then the best thing to do is have a lot of plants in the water and a low amount of fish. 

As pumilio said the fish throw the nitrogen cycle one way and it needs to be balanced by bacteria, however water changes hedge you against fluxes or problems that bacteria are not keeping up on. The balance to fish waste is not cleaning fish, because they are all respiration organisms it is plants and microbial populations. I think if you have enough plants and enough surface area for microbes you might get away with it then pick a very hardy fish like betas. Still its not really advisable. 

If you are dead set on trying to pull this off,
If you have an overflow drain then your misting could be counted as water changes. And if you use something like rocks or hydroton that the water can flow into it will create a large amount of surface area. Get some plants in the water and mosses etc... You could probably pull it off.


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## Sammie (Oct 12, 2009)

Just to clarify, the "cleaning fish" doesn't really clean the way you think. They eat algae of the glass and interior of the tank. They don't eat feces or filter the water from harmful bacteria.

It's a common misconception though, so don't beat yourself up about it.


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