Aquarium projects: planted and bare

The majority of the projects I have done over the past year and a half have been terrestrially-focused planted terraria.  Some years ago, back when I was living in North Carolina, I became interested in keeping some wild type guppies in a planted aquarium.  I enjoyed them for some time and then began playing more with growing plants in aquariums.  The previous post has some images of those first aquariums.

I had a 20 gallon long aquarium sitting around the 'man cave' that deserved to serve a higher purpose.  After watching a short clip from the Aquarium Design Group of their hardscape-only aquarium, I got motivated to work on this new project. 

I thought about what may be fun to put in this aquarium and as I often do, I started thinking about Apistogramma.  The inspiration for this aquarium came from the natural habitat of these South American dwarf cichlids.

Because of the flooding of the Mississippi River, all my normal driftwood locations were covered by 10 feet of water or more.  I always maintain a small supply in my back yard though, just for a rainy day occasion such as this.  What I wanted to create was the look of a heavily oxidized clay river bank with a sandy bottom.  I sprayed the back of the aquarium with spray foam and placed the driftwood pieces together to create some depth and dimension. 

It was a bit of a struggle as the positioning the wood in a non resting position but I liked the way it sat after several permutations.  The background I made out of a concrete patch kit and some concrete dye.  I sculpted the foam to make some overhangs and texture to it and smoothed on the concrete. 

 The background is much more dynamic in person than in the photographs and I'm happy with the result.  It was a quick, cheap and fun project to work on for the weekend.  I didn't anticipate the concrete raising the pH quite as much as it did, but after several water changes (including just before these photos...) it is back to neutral.

I then added a few Magnolia leaves from the yard and a few stones.  When the water lowers more I'll collect a few more stones and maybe some more leaves, but overall the layout is complete.  

I didn't think with all my planted projects I'd keep an aquarium so bare, but I think it's an interesting and fun concept and take on an aquarium.

Just to keep with my theme and the name of the blog, I've also been developing this 'high tech' planted aquarium for the past month or so.  I had some severe battles with diatoms, and some brushes with algae, but it's coming along.  I just gave the plants a haircut in an attempt to last and not be too leggy while I'm gone, so it's a little less lush than normal.

I also lost many of the ground cover plants with the diatom issue, but I'll keep plugging away at it and get this baby sorted out.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I'll be back in Panama next week doing research. 

I'll leave you with an in situ photo of Dendrobates pumilio that I took last summer.

ASM 2011/Upcoming posts and news

As I ready to depart for Panama next week I just wanted to give a few quick updates.  First off, our first commercial project was shown this past week at ASM 2011 in the New Orleans Convention Center, many thanks to Pall Life Science for allowing us to scape the terrarium.  I hope this is just the beginning of this type of work.

In further aquarium news, I'll be posting in the coming days a fairly simple, yet effective hardscape design I did for a 20 gallon long aquarium.  It features some dyed concrete work to simulate an Amazonian river bank.  I'll also be posting the update to the 'Micro Mega Terrarium' which will bring it up to date.

The next updates after that will take place in Panama where I'll be posting some inspirational shots.  Upon my return in August expect bigger and better things.  I'll be ramping up designs for terraria and aquaria and gearing up for some art exhibitions.

Here I leave you with some old aquariums, my first trials into planted aquaria.

10 gallon desk aquarium to grow out plants, and house some beautiful Boraras brigittae

And here my first iteration of the 75 gallon Peru/Colombia themed aquarium, soon after setting it up.  This housed several species of Apistogramma, Nannostomus and various tetras.

The rising waters/where the driftwood comes from

I didn't live in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.  It was a few years later that I moved here and ever since I've very much considered it my home.  I'm sure you've heard of the rising waters and flooding in the news.

The funny thing about all the flooding is that we haven't really had any significant rain in weeks and weeks.  It's one thing to think about your house potentially flooding when it's raining heavy and frequently, but here it's not the case.

A few weeks ago I was going for a 'driftwood walk' around the levee to see if there was any nice pieces there.  You can never have enough nice driftwood, even if it just sits in a pile in the back of your house.  I noticed the water was significantly higher than normal and many of my favorite spots were inundated.  

That was well before the news started reporting it.  I blew it off and just figured it would go back down shortly.  Frankly, when ever the water is high I usually get excited about new wood depositions.  

In the photo above is traditionally a good spot for wood.  Now the trees, around which I walk to get pieces, are submerged by perhaps 10 feet plus of water.  These photos are a day after the Morganza Spillway was partially opened and the water is lower than days before.  The peak of the flooding won't be for several days.  

By all accounts, New Orleans will be alright in this flooding.  All measures have been taken to ensure it. It makes me very uncomfortable though that this safety has come with enormous costs to people in the paths of the spillways.  Even though we're not assured safety of our homes and belongings, others have been assured that their houses will be lost.  

When I first moved here I wasn't really sure what a levee even was, aside from raised ground.  It was a word that prior to Katrina, I never really heard used much.  These photos are all from an area called 'The Fly' a park area on the levee where people often have parties and grill.  

The people here are among the friendliest and most diverse and fun in the world.  Just walking around with a big camera gets you lots of shouts and invites to share some food and drink with the parties on the levee.   

I thought a few photos would make this a little more personal for those not in the area.

A few terrarium orchids that seem happy.

I don't recall when my interest in orchids started, though for the longest time I viewed them as unapproachable, something best left to others.  I had mild success growing an orchid or two as a child, though nothing bloomed.  One turning point was when Mike Shrom took me to an orchid show at Parkside  Orchids.  

Scaphosepalum rapax (please feel free to zoom in on this one, I'm quite fond of the flower)

Their impressive selection and the likes of orchid growers like Lynn O'Shaughnessy helped solidify my interest.  I still didn't think I was ready to attempt growing them, but I knew at some point in the future I would like to try.  

I'm very pleased with how orchids have been doing in my terraria (I've been corrected from previously using 'terrariums')-- and I attribute some success to the combination of misting and high air flow.  I've been playing with different misting strategies to maximize evaporative cooling and drying between sprayings, and I think it's helping.  If anyone wants more detail to the closed circuit air circulation (computer fans) or misting, comment below.

Platystele sp.

The other day I was working at home and I stopped for a minute to see how things were doing in the 'Micro Mega Terrarium' and I noticed a few buds and blooms.  One thing I love about miniature orchids is that you have to look to see them, so surprises are frequent.  

Some Lepanthes coming soon:...

In other news, I have a 20 gallon long aquarium that I've been breeding some Rivulus ornatus that were kindly given to me by Ian Hiler.  I believe I'll be doing a bit of a biotope project on that rescape this weekend.  Stay tuned.

Any help spreading the word to others who may enjoy this blog would be appreciated.  I'm not doing any active advertising so I hope word-of-mouth will work.

The Prototype (Kym's terrarium)

As a child I had set up several terrariums, the majority inspired by my herpetological mentor, Mike Shrom. Back in those days Mike's terrariums were a little more stark than his current, mainly comprised of gravel sloping into a pool, covered in a soil mixture and with simple cork bark/coconut huts.  On occasion they were lit by artificial lighting.

Years later I was more interested in plants and the diversity of plants easily accessible increased.  Then came a number of years with no terrariums, mainly when I was traveling the most and living abroad often.  When I started my masters I set up a small planted fish tank, replete with wild strain guppies from Venezuela (known in the aquarium trade as 'Endler's live bearers', after a scientific idol of mine John Endler).  The next year I moved into a new house and set up a larger planted fish tank, next came some salt water aquaria.  Upon moving to New Orleans I had to start over.  I started another salt water tank, but the cost of stocking the tank here was far higher than North Carolina and I decided to sell off what I had and start a terrarium instead.

I had a little wire rack in my room that seemed to be a decent size to hold the terrarium, so I contacted glasscages.com with the dimensions and design ideas.  The one thing I neglected to do was measure my car to double-check that the terrarium would fit through the door openings, rather I measured inside only and figured I was fine.  Luckily the glass was resilient (as was my car) to the rocking and shoving, and I was on my way to starting a new terrarium.  

The background I had planned on doing in tree fern panels or epiweb, and I wanted to try to mount some wood coming from the panels like branches so I could plant them.  The downside of using the wire rack was the depth was restricted, so I was going to try to compensate for that.  I obtained plants from a number of generous friends and got my first orchids from Andy's and I was set.  The only problem was I was leaving for a European tour with a friend's band two weeks after it was set up, and between that and my field season I would be gone for around 4 months.  The goal was that if I was lucky and set things up properly, I would return to a nice and mature terrarium with no input from me, other than initial planting. While this was ended up being true, there were some orchid fatalities from over watering (6x a day misting was too much once the tank saturated). 

One success though was a prototype fan system I designed to allow high levels of air movement, yet by utilizing a closed-circuit design I didn't lose any humidity.  This design element I incorporated into all subsequent designs.

When I moved yet again, into my current "Casa Man Cave" I decided to do a little overhaul of the hard scape to fit in better with the newly built 'Mega terrarium'.  I pulled out all the old hardscape and built a 'tree' out of a number of pieces of driftwood, essentially woven together to mimic buttress roots coming from a central trunk (on the right side).  The result was more plantable space, which turned out to be a great look when covered in moss and bladderworts.  

The major challenge was how to make the background (tree fern) look dynamic with plants, rather than the big, flat open space that it was.  I layered various Begonia species with Selaginella and spaced throughout, Philodendron and Monstera provide further vertical structure with accents of Peperomia and Marcgravia.  I'm very happy with the design now, as is Kym (thankfully...) who is a close friend, neighbor and the current owner of the terrarium.

To date this is the most mature terrarium I've built, and it's always nice to check in on its progress, clip some cuttings and admire it.  For Kym it's been very little work to maintain, which is also a plus.  

If you know anyone who would enjoy this blog, please help spread the word.  If you know anyone who would like a Planted Glass Box, have them contact me.

Planted glass art

As I walk the hallways in the university I occasionally come across piles of old lab equipment with notes encouraging people to take items before they're thrown away.  It's hard to see really neat pieces of glass go to waste.  I've slowly been collecting some of these neat pieces with the intent to try to create some sort of art with them, involving plants.

"Ampules of Evolution"

 This piece of driftwood was a left-over from the 'Micro Mega Terrarium' build.  I liked it so much that it's been sitting against the wall, at the foot of my bed.  Yesterday when sweeping the floor I noticed how well it sat flat in this position against the wall.

 The glass vials I got when we moved a lab and created a shared lab space for shared lab equipment.  They held dried chlorophyll samples that were caked on.  I cleaned them the best I could using a wire brush.  The idea of the contents that they held inspired this piece.

 The first ampule contains some filamentous algae that has been plaguing an aquatic fern in my fish tank.  In this format the beauty of the algae stands out, rather than being a nuisance.

(Forgive the bubbles in these two shots, I needed the ambient light before the sun set)

The next glass piece has some aquatic plants, Cryptocoryne parva, also from my planted aquarium that I snatched out.

 The last ampule has some primitive land plants, a species of moss and some Selaginella from the 'Mega Terrarium'.




"Moss on a log"


Sometimes two things just go together.  This piece of driftwood I collected from what must have been the hottest day of late last summer.  It was something that I never intended to use in a terrarium but it was just too nice to not bring home for some purpose.  I thought about using it around the vegetable garden, that never materialized yet, but it's sat next to my shed for months.

 When I was digging through the glass vials to do a quick inventory of what I had in the shed I saw this large glass, rounded bottomed one.  It has a beautiful cork stopper that fits like a glove.  As soon as I pulled it out I thought of the driftwood piece propped next to the shed.  As luck would have it, these two pieces were made for each other.

 The wood is around 4' long and arcs elegantly, allowing you to put it in several different angles while still holding the glass.

 The moss I have been growing outside since the weather warmed.  It branches out nicely and looks great with the slight magnification provided by the rounded glass.

Those feet are size 13.  They should give you an idea of the size.


Both these pieces are available for sale.  Contact me for details.