How to Build a Paludarium

[Aquattro]

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

[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.

[sphelps]

Another method used:

Rigid foam rough cut


Followed buy some blow torch action


First coat


Finished product for the back wall

[kien]

you shut your reef down Steve ??

[Ryanerickson]

After looking up that word, [Paludariumcan] had to paste it can't spell it lol or not trying. Amazing tanks from what you have started with this should be a show piece, maybe look into making statues lol looks amazing I'm very impressed.

[Delphinus]

Looks great.

Do the "pot holes" themselves have drainage, or does the water just sort of overflow the edges?

I came pretty close to turning my 280g into a terrarium when I had my crash last summer. In the end didn't, for various reasons, or maybe the more accurate depiction is "In the end, haven't yet." Anyhow seeing the Radions here ... well, let's just say it's good to see.

[mark]

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