How to Build a Paludarium

[sphelps]

What's a Paludarium? I'm not really sure but this thread will outline methods I used to construct one.

Step one, shut down your reef tank. Nothing in there will be useful for the remaining steps. This concludes step one.

[straightrazorguy]

...in my living room? I think I'll stick to reefing.

[Aquattro]

There was a thread a few years back, poster named Raf. Or his wife. Think it had pics.

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by straightrazorguy

...in my living room? I think I'll stick to reefing.

You haven't even seen step two yet

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

There was a thread a few years back, poster named Raf. Or his wife. Think it had pics.

There's a few kicking around.

[Skimmer Juice]

should not have looked at this thread . Now I want to build one after googeling . Will follow see how it turns out

[sphelps]

Step Two: Background.

I wanted something 3 dimensional that would hold some plants and act as a water feature. Only option was to build one from scratch so I picked up some rigid foam and some spray foam and got to work.

Foam outline and pots all siliconed in place


Spray foam going on





After burning through 2 cans of the expensive black pond foam rather quickly I just decided to continue with the standard great stuff.



Then I curved out the exist to reveal a more rock like structure.



After one coat of Quickwall Cement with Acrylic Fortifier



Next layer had brown cement coloring added


Final Layer has charcoal coloring

[sphelps]

Apologies in advance for poor picture quality, just snapped a few rather quickly with my phone as I worked through the process.

[mark]

looks great so far but no concerns with the regular foam?

[sphelps]

Another method used:

Rigid foam rough cut


Followed buy some blow torch action


First coat


Finished product for the back wall