# Freshwater community paludarium-any critique?



## Godzillaalienfan1979 (Mar 10, 2018)

Hi, all

So, I got down to designing a large-scale freshwater community paludarium. I've picked out an aquarium, plants, and animals-but haven't bought them yet. Before I do, I need some help, advice, and critique on my desired setup and animal selection. The paludarium is around 85% water, with land areas here and there. They are all connected (the land areas) by those neat little fluker's bendy vines which will intertwine in a huge "spider-web'' like structure, so the amphibious crab won't drown and will have plenty of access routes. The land areas are each large and supported on stilts, attached to a brick-WARNING: THIS POST IS VERY LENGTHY!

Aquarium size: 80 gallons (oh yeah-it's huge. I'm surprised I have enough room for such a huge tank).

Temperament: freshwater

Introduction method: drip acclimation (used for acclimating everyone except for the vampire crab)

Filtration: sponge filter (8x-I know it sounds weird, just look at the drawing and it'll make sense).

Habitat: amphibious

Substrate: fake grass carpet (i'm a little iffy on purchasing live aquarium plants, knowing me i'd probably kill them accidentally).

SPECIES:


Bamboo Shrimp (2x)
Cherry/amino shrimp (3x)
Vampire (panther) Crab (1x)
Malaysian Giant Prawn (1x)
Medicinal Leech (10x) (I did some research, and H.Medicinalis CAN survive in tropical conditions-they're extremely adaptable)
freshwater amphipods (10x)
tadpole shrimp (10x)
clam shrimp (10x)
Crayfish (neon red), (1x)
Assassin snails (3x)
In case none of that made sense (which it probably didn't), I drew a basic floorplan-warning, my handwriting is awful, and my drawing skills are even worse lmao.

Plenty of natural cover will be provided with a huge forest of fake plants, plenty of those adorable little shrimp tubes, driftwood (parasite-free!), and other rock caves.

Also-before you ask, yes I know, the giant prawns have a reputation for gobbling up tankmates. However, I selected my tankmates so that they would be either:

too small for the prawn to even notice-amphipods and clam shrimp would just pass by.
too fast for it to catch-tadpole shrimp are incredibly quick on their many feet, and crayfish and shrimp can quickly jet away from an attacker
have some serious fight to them or other natural defense mechanism-I.E., Leeches dispel a cloud of goo that temporarily clogs up an attacker's pincers, and what small crustacean would want to try to eat a thrashing, clawing crayfish? Not to mention Assassin Snail shells are too thick for any probing claws or antennae, and would blendin well with the scenery.
Spend 50% of their lives out of reach of the prawn (vampire crab)
Not to mention I will be feeding it myself with earthworms/fish from time to time

The overall cost is in the thousands, but am I surprised? Heck no.

Any critique, feedback, critter suggestions, etc would be appreciated!

Also, while we're at it, where dos one buy freshwater amphipods and what do they eat?

Thanks!


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## Marvinxox (Mar 10, 2018)

Godzillaalienfan1979 said:


> Hi, all
> 
> So, I got down to designing a large-scale freshwater community paludarium. I've picked out an aquarium, plants, and animals-but haven't bought them yet. Before I do, I need some help, advice, and critique on my desired setup and animal selection. The paludarium is around 85% water, with land areas here and there. They are all connected (the land areas) by those neat little fluker's bendy vines which will intertwine in a huge "spider-web'' like structure, so the amphibious crab won't drown and will have plenty of access routes. The land areas are each large and supported on stilts, attached to a brick-WARNING: THIS POST IS VERY LENGTHY!
> 
> ...


Why would you want to keep leeches that need to be fed on blood as pets?
And why so few shrimp? At least ten of each species would do way better, as they like to be in groups.

How does this cost thousands of dollars?
I tried to calculate this myself, but I couldn´t manage to reach a price this high.

The amphipods feed on floating algae, bacteria and dying plant matter.
10 propably wouldn´t be enough. You should look to get a few hundert if you want to be able to spot them and them to reproduce within the tank.

Even if you think that you´d kill the plants, I´d recommend you to get live plants and a cheap CO2-System instead of the fake ones.
Live just look better and the microfauna on and around them adds as a great food addition for the shrimp.


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## MrTwister (Mar 10, 2018)

No need for co2. Stick with hardy low light plants. Java fern, Anubis, Java moss. The Java moss can also be grown on land areas that stay moist. I would be careful with crayfish, crabs, and the prawn. They are all scavengers that can, and will eat anything they can get a claw on.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Godzillaalienfan1979 (Mar 10, 2018)

Marvinxox said:


> Why would you want to keep leeches that need to be fed on blood as pets?
> And why so few shrimp? At least ten of each species would do way better, as they like to be in groups.
> 
> How does this cost thousands of dollars?
> ...


1: thanks for the advice. I chose so few because I feared overcrowding, but now that ya mention it I'll definitely get more. After all it IS 80 gallons lol. And yeah live plants do look better.
2: I like Leeches because, for me, they are a living fossil and are so cool looking. Very inexpensive, very low maintainable and, depending on the species, H. Medicinalis wont lay a finger on fish or inverts. They make great tankmates.


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## Godzillaalienfan1979 (Mar 10, 2018)

MrTwister said:


> No need for co2. Stick with hardy low light plants. Java fern, Anubis, Java moss. The Java moss can also be grown on land areas that stay moist. I would be careful with crayfish, crabs, and the prawn. They are all scavengers that can, and will eat anything they can get a claw on.


Ok, thanks man!


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## Marvinxox (Mar 11, 2018)

Godzillaalienfan1979 said:


> 1: thanks for the advice. I chose so few because I feared overcrowding, but now that ya mention it I'll definitely get more. After all it IS 80 gallons lol. And yeah live plants do look better.
> 2: I like Leeches because, for me, they are a living fossil and are so cool looking. Very inexpensive, very low maintainable and, depending on the species, H. Medicinalis wont lay a finger on fish or inverts. They make great tankmates.


Overcrowding on these tiny animals is not really going to happen.
Especially in a tank this big.

But they tend to escape if you don´t have a secure lid.
Also they need to feed on blood from live animals, so either you feed them rodents which would lead to extreme water pollution (-> problematic with the sponge filters) or you let them feed on your blood, which can work, but maybe isn´t the most enjoyable of things.

And still I wonder how you managed to calculate a price for this which is in the thousands.
If the prices in the US are similar the the ones here this should be a few hundert dollars at max.


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## Godzillaalienfan1979 (Mar 11, 2018)

Marvinxox said:


> Overcrowding on these tiny animals is not really going to happen.
> Especially in a tank this big.
> 
> But they tend to escape if you don´t have a secure lid.
> ...


It's in the thousands because the 80-gal tanks where I live are criminally overpriced-1,000 bucks a pop. Any suggestions where I could find cheaper?

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Marvinxox (Mar 11, 2018)

Godzillaalienfan1979 said:


> It's in the thousands because the 80-gal tanks where I live are criminally overpriced-1,000 bucks a pop. Any suggestions where I could find cheaper?


Oh, thats very overpriced
Here you can get them for 135€ per piece.

Maybe have a look at second-hand tanks or even making it yourself?
Maybe check for glass-shops that could cut and glue them for you.
Or from a shop in another state and have it shipped to you?


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## Godzillaalienfan1979 (Mar 11, 2018)

Marvinxox said:


> Oh, thats very overpriced
> Here you can get them for 135€ per piece.
> 
> Maybe have a look at second-hand tanks or even making it yourself?
> ...


Yeah, I did some digging. a PetCo in NH can ship it to me for 135 USD lmao.

Aside from animals, do you have any critique on my setup?

EDIT: I chose a 100-gal. one instead, which was much cheaper (for some reason-funny how that works). I figured the more space, the less-likely the crayfish or spider prawn would kill stuff for entering its little territory thingy.


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## Marvinxox (Mar 12, 2018)

Godzillaalienfan1979 said:


> Yeah, I did some digging. a PetCo in NH can ship it to me for 135 USD lmao.
> 
> Aside from animals, do you have any critique on my setup?
> 
> EDIT: I chose a 100-gal. one instead, which was much cheaper (for some reason-funny how that works). I figured the more space, the less-likely the crayfish or spider prawn would kill stuff for entering its little territory thingy.


Thats a huge saving
nice

As I saw in your drawing, the sponge-filters were evenly spaced throughout the tank.
This might of course work, but if you don´t have the ones in the front your view won´t be disturbed by the bubbles.
And maybe you could have some moss or floating plants next to the "bubbly-areas" above the filters. This might silence them a bit

Besides that it seemed very nice, although you might want to keep the water a bit lower so that escaping isn´t as easy for the leeches and the crabs.
And you could use a trim around the edges (just one or two inches of acrylic might do well and keep all the inhabitants inside


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## Godzillaalienfan1979 (Mar 12, 2018)

Marvinxox said:


> Oh, thats very overpriced
> Here you can get them for 135€ per piece.
> 
> Maybe have a look at second-hand tanks or even making it yourself?
> ...





Marvinxox said:


> Thats a huge saving
> nice
> 
> As I saw in your drawing, the sponge-filters were evenly spaced throughout the tank.
> ...


ok, dude. Thanks a ton! You would use just normal scissors/a razor blade to shear away the acrylic, right? And yeah good point, I feel like moss balls would do the "silence'' job rather nicely. Thanks once again!


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## Marvinxox (Mar 12, 2018)

Godzillaalienfan1979 said:


> ok, dude. Thanks a ton! You would use just normal scissors/a razor blade to shear away the acrylic, right? And yeah good point, I feel like moss balls would do the "silence'' job rather nicely. Thanks once again!


Depends on the thickness of the acrylic
A handsaw or even a electric one might also work.
Just ask at the hardware-store, sometimes they even offer to cut the acrylic for you

Maybe you could also get motor-driven sponge filters. They are just extemely silent and thats always nice.
Would spare you the use of moss to silence the filters.


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## Godzillaalienfan1979 (Mar 14, 2018)

Ok. Thanks dude. 

Oh yeah, I replaced the single neon red crayfish with 4 dwarf crayfish-I think Crayfish are amazing animals, and it would suck if the Malaysian Prawn snuffed out and killed it while molting, or vice verse. From what I heard, Dwarfs aren't as aggressive and much faster, and if the Prawn does kill one (it'll suck though, not throwing that aside). there's still 3 left to continue the coolness.


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## Dave Jay (Mar 14, 2018)

The one question I have is how much experience do you have keeping aquariums? Being that you think 80 gallons is huge I think not much, but you can always learn. The shrimp are very fussy about water quality, I would worry about the amount of ammonia being produced, you will have to keep up with water changes to keep nitrates in check. I think you are underestimating crayfish, and some of your other inhabitants too, I think you are going to lose quite a lot of your inhabitants, the shrimp will be the first to go, no such thing as something being too small to be eaten. Do you understand the nitrogen cycle and how to cycle an aquarium? If not there is plenty of information out there, and plenty of cycling methods, you're going to need a test kit to test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate to cycle the tank efficiently, although you can just use a nitrate test, once you have nitrate you know it's cycled, but I'm not going to go into that here.
I actually think you are trying to keep too many similar species, the crayfish alone will cover the niche that they, and most of your other inhabitants occupy. I wish you the best of luck, but I think you'll just end up with the dominant species in a month or two


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## Godzillaalienfan1979 (Mar 14, 2018)

Dave Jay said:


> The one question I have is how much experience do you have keeping aquariums? Being that you think 80 gallons is huge I think not much, but you can always learn. The shrimp are very fussy about water quality, I would worry about the amount of ammonia being produced, you will have to keep up with water changes to keep nitrates in check. I think you are underestimating crayfish, and some of your other inhabitants too, I think you are going to lose quite a lot of your inhabitants, the shrimp will be the first to go, no such thing as something being too small to be eaten. Do you understand the nitrogen cycle and how to cycle an aquarium? If not there is plenty of information out there, and plenty of cycling methods, you're going to need a test kit to test for ammonia, nitrite and nitrate to cycle the tank efficiently, although you can just use a nitrate test, once you have nitrate you know it's cycled, but I'm not going to go into that here.
> I actually think you are trying to keep too many similar species, the crayfish alone will cover the niche that they, and most of your other inhabitants occupy. I wish you the best of luck, but I think you'll just end up with the dominant species in a month or two


Thank you. And yes, I don't have a ton of experience. Sorry about that. I'm not going to try this thing anytime soon (probably should've said that earlier lol) when I have more experience. Thanks for the advice dude! I appreciate it. And also when you said "you might be underestimating the Crayfish", I came up with the funniest thing;

Me: "It's over, Crayfish! I have a guidebook about species tanks!"

Crayfish: "you underestimate my aggresiveness!"

*eats everyone else*

Speaking of Crayfish, I heard that Dwarf Crayfish aren't as aggressive, is that true? I'm guessing not, right?

Reactions: Like 1


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