Quick shots of my ten gallon paludarium

[mellowvision]

I threw this together last year and hardly pay it any attention. Weekly misting and monthly pruning are all it really takes. I change the water at least once a month, but remove the floaters every ten days or so for nutrient removal. This is a super low maintenance crab breeding experiment for some of my red devil geosesarma crabs.

I'm going to do a big pruning soon, hollar at me if you need trailing vines. I have tons and tons and most of it goes to waste.

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[AquaGreenThumb]

That looks great. What type of vine plant is that?

[Tiptop]

Woah awesome little paludarium! I wanna do something like that one of these days. How are the crabs liking it?

[octanejunkie]

Low maintenance = nice

[Empress]

+1 They look really nice. Will also like some except... you're not exactly local to me. ^^;;

That looks great. What type of vine plant is that?

[WeeNe858]

Looks like 2 types of creeping figs, one variegate,d the other is regular. Fast growing vines, medium light, and high humidity, great plant. nice tank

[Goldendragon]

Do you ever need to deal with flies problem? or no since you have a lid cover?

[mellowvision]

there are 4 or 5 different types of vines... yeah a couple of creeping fig types, that are really fast growers, and some other peperomias. I lost track of my list of actual species and need to dig it back up. There's also a few small orchids that aren't loving it, and some mosses and tiny ferns, and a couple anubias. The floating plants really do all the work, they are salvinia, and totally fill the water way every 10-14 days.

The crabs do well here, I started with a juvy pair that are now adults, and there are babies around pretty frequently. I've only seen a few juvies so far, it's a very shy tank, which I think is symptomatic of a small enclosure, and also of underfeeding. I have not been providing as much smaller food as I would like, having a hard time keeping fruit fly cultures here in the winter. At one time around christmas I had counted well over 10 tiny babies.

The only hard part about the tank, is that when I remove floating plants, the baby crabs look identical to the plant roots. I have to swish them carefully in clean water and sort through them one by one to not also throw away baby crabs. The last time I did this, I found 5.

I haven't had a fly problem. The lid is glass, but I have it propped up in the front by 1/8", using little rubber feet on the glass. It keeps the humidity high without going stale, lets out extra heat. Hasn't been enough to let too many flies in or out. I feed pinhead crickets too, very few seem to make it out.