# New 120 gallon Paludarium



## bob21115 (Feb 23, 2008)

Well just like my Saltwater reef hobby I can't have a single small tank.

My new 30 gallon Viv doesn't even have frogs in it yet and I started a 120 Paludarium.

TimsViv's Paludarium was my inspiration for my tank.

Started last Monday March 17 2008.


Here is a picture of my 120 I still need to do a ton of planting.

*Tank:* 120 gallon Clarity Plus Acrylic










*Lighting:* 3 70w 6500k HQI Metal Halide in the 300w Halogen Walmart reflectors









*Air Circulation:* Fan from Radio Shack put in a PVC box and piped into the tank



















*Fogging:* Ultrasonic Humidifier from WalMart if you look hard you can see the outlet of the fogger in the top center of the picture.









*Misting:* 2 MistKing Deluxe heads and 5 heads I made myself. Hooked to a garden sprayer and release manually.

You can see a few of them in pictures above. The heads I made are identical to the mistking nozzles. I did get the spray nozzles from Mistking but the other parts I found on the internet.


Here are a few misc picture of the tank


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## NickBoudin (Nov 3, 2007)

Looks great, what's the filtration set up like?


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## NickBoudin (Nov 3, 2007)

Also, I have the same exact pressure sprayer, from home depot, for my misting system. I love your ventalation set up. Tim's paludarium inspired me as well. Do you feel that there will be enough light on the water side, to keep the plants going strong? Are they low light plants? Do you have any type of heater in the water side? Keep me posted!


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## bob21115 (Feb 23, 2008)

NickBoudin said:


> Looks great, what's the filtration set up like?



I have a 55 gallon tank and a tidepool sump below the tank. The water drains from the water side into the Tidepool.









The Tidepool provides complete wet/dry biological filtration, plus mechanical and chemical filtration. Comes with large BIO-Wheel, carbon pillow pad, and 3 poly pads. Each of the 3 slide-out media trays provides easy access for media replacement and cleaning.

I could have just used the Tidepool but i wanted a place to grow additional plants so the Tidepool empties in to a long 55 gallon tank. This tank has 2 heater and the return pump for the water features. I need to setup the substrate and lighting for that soon.


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## bob21115 (Feb 23, 2008)

NickBoudin said:


> Also, I have the same exact pressure sprayer, from home depot, for my misting system.


It works fine until I can get a pump. I had a sprinkler timer on it but I found that after the pressure released I was pumping the sprayer back up. So I'm misting manually for now. I close the a ball valve and charge the sprayer then open the ball valve. The sprayer doesn't seem to provide enough pressure to the nozzles so they mist and drip while its active.



NickBoudin said:


> I love your ventalation set up.


I had seen those offset drains in the sewer section at Lowes a number of times. My thought was if I put a 3"(80mm) fan in a hosing large enough and drop it to 1" I would get air to travel into the pipe into the tank but also some would come back into the canopy and cool the lights. Inside the tank the pipe goes from 1" and splits to 2 3/4" pipes which blows on both sides of the front glass.




NickBoudin said:


> Do you feel that there will be enough light on the water side, to keep the plants going strong?


It will have a total of 140w of 6500k light over the water side 70w over the planted side. I'm waiting for the other bulb to come in. Thats why the center light isn't on. Having said that I have no idea. I'm still very new to the hobby and from what I've read people say at least 2 time the gallons of the tank for the light. I do have plenty of room on either side to add additional lights if its needed.



NickBoudin said:


> Are they low light plants?


1 is a Amazon Sword and the other is a Argentinean Sword.
I have a friend that works at Petco. I stopped in to get some other stuff and I telling her about the new tank. She said she had 2 tubes of the Petco aquatic plants the were next to death that she was throwing them away and gave them to me. 



NickBoudin said:


> Do you have any type of heater in the water side? Keep me posted!


Yes I have 2 normal aquarium heater in there now. 2 300w heater both set to 80. I have 2 incase one stops working the other one should keep the water high enough not to do any damage. I will be replacing those with titanium heater with temp probes in the near future.


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## NickBoudin (Nov 3, 2007)

Awesome man. Just awesome. I wish I had that much play room under my tank. My stand is just tall enough to fix my XP3 underneath it. I know what you mean about the pressure sprayer. Ugh, I was so excited when i had mine work on the sprinkler selenoid, and then to come home from work, and see it had not sprayed a single time was horrible. I dont know why the pressure released from the pressure bottle. It's very weird. But I agree. This will do until I can get a pump, and a 3-5 gallon bucket under there. 

I havent touched my tank in a while. I really need to finish it. My darts are in a 10 gallon right now. They're placed right next to the 55 gallon, crying to go in that one instead! 


I still need 2 more light bulbs, glass for the canopy, gravel/sand for the aquatic side, plants, plants, and plants.


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## Julio (Oct 8, 2007)

great job, love the sand bottom, what kind of forgs are you gonna put in there?


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## bob21115 (Feb 23, 2008)

Julio said:


> great job, love the sand bottom, what kind of forgs are you gonna put in there?



Thanks, Its dried live sand from my salt water tanks. I don't know yet. I think I want to do Red vents in my 30. I've been talking to someone on the forum about a breeding Trio of Citronellas. I really like the Blue and Yellow color of them. I still have some planting to do and I have to get flies and crickets going. Once I do that I'll look into some frogs.

I want to get the back wall planted. I don't know with what yet. I think I need to add some structure to it to accept plants.

I have a dwarf ficus, goldfish plant, a ivy, and a jade plant that I'm currently misting outside of the tank to get rid of any pesticides. I will remove all soil before planting also.

Here are some pictures of the tank currently and the plants I'll be adding.
New Full Tank Shot








Closeup of planted side








Close Closeup of planted side









Jade, GoldFish plant, and Ivy









Dwarf Ficus


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## ZevR (Mar 26, 2008)

Your tank looks awesome..... not to rain on the parade but you want to be careful about the reef sand in the freshwater tank, it will have a tendency to raise the hardness and the ph of the water, the swords might have a problem with that but various anubias would be able to handle that pretty well. But I love the way you have set up the tank.... great job hiding all your pipes and things


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## bob21115 (Feb 23, 2008)

ZevR said:


> Your tank looks awesome..... not to rain on the parade but you want to be careful about the reef sand in the freshwater tank, it will have a tendency to raise the hardness and the ph of the water, the swords might have a problem with that but various anubias would be able to handle that pretty well. But I love the way you have set up the tank.... great job hiding all your pipes and things



I thought about it having a adverse effect. Once the water cycles I'll watch it.

I had to remove the piece of grapewood because it was covered with slime mold. It was in the water and on the land section so the frog can get out of the water.


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## bob21115 (Feb 23, 2008)

I got 6 of these the other day.

D. Tictorius Brazilian Yellow Heads Can you say GO BLUE

They are in Quarentine and can be viewed on the web cam by clicking this link http://www.wmiaquatics.com or the link in my signature.


















































































Here are some more pictures of the new frogs and the 120 gallon tank I setup.


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## Mywebbedtoes (Jul 2, 2007)

Those frogs are sweet! I got a pair for my mom to keep at her place, she really enjoys them.


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## bob21115 (Feb 23, 2008)

Here are a few new pictures.

I've added the frogs and a few more plants.


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## Quaz (Nov 13, 2005)

The tank looks like it's coming along really nicely. I love when the technical side of reef keeping branches over into vivariums. It always makes for some nice tanks. Two things though. You'll have problems if you plan on keeping the tincs. together through maturaty and the jade will get root rot in those conitions.


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## imitator83 (Jan 5, 2006)

Geez, this is going to look like I am being overly critical of all your tanks. Not what I mean to do, but I wanted to echo what Quaz said, as well as bring up the concern about full grown tincs in a setup like this. My understanding is that tincs are notoriously bad swimmers. I have heard a few stories about prize frogs falling in the water and drowning, just because they aren't good swimmers. If nothing else, I just wanted to bring this up just so you are aware of a possible issue.
As for the positives: Holy crap, dude, there is a lot packed into this tank. I really like the ventilation features, I have been redesigning my tanks over time and wanted to add this feature to a lot of them. Also, that second shot, is that an in-tank ventilation system you came up with? If it is, I like where you are going with that, I always feel it is important to make everything in the tank as naturalistic as possible. Sweet frogs, too. I LOVE Brazilians, they are really amazing. Overall, great tank. Amazing living room, btw. Reef tanks really are biological pieces of art (and vivs are too, come to think of it, on a more simplistic level). Thanks,
Scott


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## bob21115 (Feb 23, 2008)

Quaz said:


> The tank looks like it's coming along really nicely. I love when the technical side of reef keeping branches over into vivariums. It always makes for some nice tanks. Two things though. You'll have problems if you plan on keeping the tincs. together through maturaty and the jade will get root rot in those conitions.



The tincs will be split up soon I plan on keeping 2 males and a female in there. I don't think I like the jade in there its not doing what I want it to. I'll be removing it soon.


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## bob21115 (Feb 23, 2008)

imitator83 said:


> Geez, this is going to look like I am being overly critical of all your tanks. Not what I mean to do, but I wanted to echo what Quaz said, as well as bring up the concern about full grown tincs in a setup like this. My understanding is that tincs are notoriously bad swimmers. I have heard a few stories about prize frogs falling in the water and drowning, just because they aren't good swimmers. If nothing else, I just wanted to bring this up just so you are aware of a possible issue.
> As for the positives: Holy crap, dude, there is a lot packed into this tank. I really like the ventilation features, I have been redesigning my tanks over time and wanted to add this feature to a lot of them. Also, that second shot, is that an in-tank ventilation system you came up with? If it is, I like where you are going with that, I always feel it is important to make everything in the tank as naturalistic as possible. Sweet frogs, too. I LOVE Brazilians, they are really amazing. Overall, great tank. Amazing living room, btw. Reef tanks really are biological pieces of art (and vivs are too, come to think of it, on a more simplistic level). Thanks,
> Scott


Scott,

Don't worry about it thats why I post info on my tanks. I like to share what I've don't and take the good and the bad comments equally well. Read my other reply about the tincs and the jade. I'm still learning as is everyone else.

As far a Ventalation: The tank already had a hole in the top for a 1" bulk head. I put one in and created the U shaped pipe out of 3/4" PVC glued on screen so the frog cant get into it and covered it with coco fiber. If you want more detailed info PM me and I can take some more pictures.

As far as the water I was concerned about the Tincs not being able to swim that well. I watched them when they were first exploring the tank and a few of the missed their jumps and landed in the water. Within 2 second or less they all were out of the water. The more I look at the tank I think I should have made the water area smaller and had more land area.


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## tkromer (Dec 20, 2007)

Why not build a ledge out over the water 6-8", but make sure you keep a "ramp" up out of the water. That way you'll have the same volume of water but a lot more land to work with.


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## Quaz (Nov 13, 2005)

Just don't make a ledge that a frog can get stuck under and trapped in the water.


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## McBobs (Apr 26, 2007)

I love that dwarf ficus! May I inquire as to where you got that at?


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## bob21115 (Feb 23, 2008)

McBobs said:


> I love that dwarf ficus! May I inquire as to where you got that at?



I got that at a local nursery. I misted it for a week and cleaned all the soil of the root before I put it in the tank. It had a really cool exposed root structure in the pot and I was hoping to keep that in the tank but it didn't work out.


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