Orchidarium to Paludarium

[PlumCrazy]

Hello everyone! Haven’t posted on here as much as before – sorry! I’ve been working on a big build that I want to show you.

TLDR: Earlier this year, I ended up making a 12x12x24 paludarium with shrimp living in the water portion, and divisions from the orchidarium and mosses from my yard in the top portion. This had actually started when I tried to turn a piece of cork bark into a tabletop waterfall, but you know how these projects go… Then somewhere along the line I saw a vampire crab…. My husband said 100% no to another enclosure – fair enough since I do take up a lot of space in the house with my tanks and plants, etc. Since my orchidarium was starting to get some water damage on top, we compromised by me replacing my orchidarium with a paludarium.

The old orchidarium. So loved it!! Some cons: the large branch in the middle blocked the view. I loved the purple cabinet, but your eye went more to that than to the inside. I accidently had cut the wire of my Inkbird shortly before going on vacation last December. The sensor for the replacement I bought was bad. When I got back, I requested a replacement, which they sent, but that took another couple of weeks. Hand spraying and turning the fans on and off manually just didn’t cut it, which lead to several of my plants taking a steep decline or - can I even type it – dying … Also, some of the wood on the top of the enclosure was starting to rot. Also, the doors were not 100% perfect, so over the years, the countertop underneath had started to rot out as well, but I didn’t realize to what extent until the case was down. The cabinet base fit everything perfectly and was still in good shape, so my husband helped me swap add a new countertop and add some wheels to the base. I was able to reuse the Spiderfarmer light, MistKing and 4 double nozzles plus a single nozzle, three fans, plus move over 47 orchids.

@ kcpi3141 – I saw your setup as I was designing mine. Amazing!!! Definitely gave me lots of good inspiration😊

I also posted this on Dendroboard as I got a lot of helpful technical info from the frog people.

The general plan:
-Fill the paludarium area with water.
-Build large dirt areas elevated above the water.
-Make cork mosaic background for 2 sides to mount my orchid on.

Planned inhabitants: vampire crabs, shrimp, fish and possibly some snails.

I purchased a RepiZoo 36x18x36” paludarium. The water area holds 20 gallons. I recommend purchasing directly from them. It was much cheaper than buying on Amazon, and in theory they will send you replacement parts for a year if there are issues.

	Mistking Looking for a misting system? Look no further. Automated misting systems from MistKing are used by multitude of plant enthusiasts and are perfect for Orchids. Systems feature run dry pumps, ZipDrip valve, adjustable black nozzles, per second control! Automatically mist one growing shelf or a greenhouse full of Orchids. See MistKing testimonials

[PlumCrazy]

Was planning on building a waterfall out of lava rock, but found these at my local fish store.

[PlumCrazy]

The back wall is covered by one large cork mosaic background. I make mine by building them on top of a piece of eggcrate, which I then silicone to the glass. I’m not sure why, but I just can’t bring myself to do it directly on the glass. It seems a lot harder to do, and I didn’t think this tank would support being laid on its back then flipped up again since the back is made of two pieces of glass. I also figure in the future I can hopefully remove it if I want to for some reason. On the right-hand wall, I built a small box using the same method to cover all of the cables for the mechanicals and to hide the tubing for the waterfall and covered it with cork mosaic, trying to make it not look like a sharp 90-degree angle. I used an inexpensive flat sheet of cork to cover the rest of the wall since I didn’t want it to stick out, and I had in mind which orchids would go there – well, one of them ended up there anyway 😊 Below the cork mosaic, I siliconed black filter foam around the back and right side of the tank.

[PlumCrazy]

Since vampire crabs need a large amount of land area with actual dirt, I decided to use PVC pipes to hold the two land areas up above the water by at least a couple of inches. I used eggcrate as the base. I built retaining walls out of lava rock using the tissue paper and super glue method, then attached them to the eggcrate using aquarium safe black silicone, which I also used to cover the white edges up.

I used the stainless steel that was originally for the lid as a layer of extra support over the eggcrate so the weed cloth wouldn’t bulge through the holes. For some reason I just couldn’t bring myself to pour dirt straight on top of the weed barrier, so put a very thin layer of orchid bark mix on the bottom, and used just plain organic soil about three inches deep to fill it up, as recommended on Indoor Ecosystem. I added in some springtails and small isopods to get things going.

[PlumCrazy]

I had planned on making a little bridge to connect the two land masses from the beginning, but my daughter suggested I make more of a cave instead. Great idea! I had also planned the little surprise for the background from the beginning. I left a gap in the cork mosaic background so I could add an aquarium background to make it look like the entire thing goes back into the distance.

I also built a little rock wall to go from the sand up to the base of the waterfall to cover up the support pipe closest to the front of the tank, and to give the crabs another way to get out of the water in addition to some branches. The support pipes bothered me less and less the more I built, and I plan to hide most of them with plants as time goes on.

[PlumCrazy]

I used Black Diamond blasting sand for the water portion substrate. I ended up using 15 gallons of RO water to fill it up. That left at least an inch to the max fill line marked on the tank – not taking any chances there!! Threw in the filter media from my fish tank and started cycling the tank. Planted some aquatic plants. Before I added the soil, I had zip tied two submersible aquarium lights under the land platforms. I also added a small submersible filter, and an aquarium water heater.

Then the scariest part yet. I connected up the waterfall which I had done ZERO testing on. And IT WORKED!!!!!!! Ok, not immediately. I had planned on using the aquarium filter outflow, but it was too strong. I was able to use a small pump that I had on hand. The flow is perfect. When the doors are open, there is a slight dripping sound, but when I close them – nothing. Amazing!!!!!! I can reduce the flow to make it completely silent, but aesthetically it looks much better a little stronger.

[PlumCrazy]

Heavily modified the lid by removing the screen and replacing it with plexiglass. The fans connect to the Inkbird and run when it’s above 92% humidity. The Mist King runs for 20 second in the morning and later afternoon to keep the mosses wet, plus for two minutes in the early afternoon for actual watering. There is also a fan that runs full time in the top right corner pointed across the tank to add airflow while trying to avoid blowing directly on anyone.

[PlumCrazy]

I knew the paludarium was a few inches in each dimension smaller than the old orchidarium. I also knew I didn’t have any plants in the bottom 12” of the old tank. But wow, it was a challenge to get everyone in there! As with every other step, took about 20 times longer than planned. I ended up remounting a lot of the orchids, ripping off chunks of cork mounts, and modifying other mounts. The only thing that couldn’t fit was a full-sized vanda that I bought right when I set up the old tank and didn’t know much about orchids – meaning how big it would get. It’s going into semi-hydro somewhere else.

I brought home lots of different mosses specifically for the tank when I went to visit my sister in Portland. I thought TSA would say something about an entire Blue Star Donuts box full of pretty wet mosses in gallon sized zip lock bags being in my carry on, but nothing. Anyway, got those in and hopefully some of them will live.

Tip: I used tooth picks to hold some of the mosses and orchids to the background. Saw it online somewhere and works well.

[PlumCrazy]

I do expect some initial orchid losses, definitely some moss losses. But I also hope some things will really thrive. Even though the new tank is smaller, most of the plants have better lighting now.

Initial orchid list:

Amesiella LOC Snow White (minor x monticola)
Bulb. grandiflora x Bulb. fritillariflorum “Natural Wonder”
Bulbophyllum frostii
Bulbophyllum levanae
Bulbophyllum ovalifolium (red)
Bulbophyllum stockeri
Cattleya Scarlet Imp
Cattleya schilleriana
Chiloschista luinifera
Chirstensonia vietnamica
Cirrhopetalum (Bulbophyllum) biflorum (Java)
Cirrhopetalum curtsii 'Purple Leaves' aka Bulbophyllum corolliferum aka Bulbophyllum pulchellum
Cischweinfia rostrata (one tiny section – it has never thrived, just held on for about 4 years)
Coelogyne fimbriata
Dendrobium aberrans
Dendrobium aggregatum aka dendrobium lindleyi
Dendrobium bigibbum
Dendrobium canalicalatum
Dendrobium jenkinsii
Dendrobium lichenastrum (small form)
Dendrobium moniliforme (varigatec)
Dendrobium unicum
Dendrochilum wenzelii (red)
Dendrophylax fawcettii aka Polyrrhiza fawcettii
Diplocaulobium tentaculatum (species mini)
Dryadella cristata
Epidendrum (Nanodes) porpax
Eria extinctorium
Leptotes bicolor
Masdevallia empusa
Masdevallia floribunda
Oncidium (Sigmatostalix) graminea
Ornithocephalus gladiatus
Ornithocephalus inflexus
Paphiopedlium spicerana "Lady Slipper"
Paraphalaenopsis laycockii
Phalaenopsis Cornu-Cervi "Yellow" x sib
Prosthechea fragrans Villaseca
Restrepia brachypus
Restrepia dodsonii
Tetramicra canaliculata
Tolumnia (Oncidium) calochila

---------- Post added at 03:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:46 PM ----------

Took a trip to Chicago and was hoping to get vampire crabs. Not the only reason for the trip (Hauserman's - obviously!!), but it was one of the goals. No luck. I did purchase six orchids, which I managed to squeeze into the tank. This included two terrestrial orchids, which I’ve never tried before.

Chytroglossa marileoniae
Goodyera hispida
Hintonella Mexicana
Lepanthopsis astrophora
Ludisia discolor
Oberonia rufilabris

---------- Post added at 03:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:47 PM ----------

FINALLY!! When I arrived home after the failed Chicago attempt, I found out that AquaticArts had restocked that day. I went to Indianapolis and picked them up shortly thereafter. I got four female and two male Geosesarma dennerle. I thought they might be small brown babies, but they were over an inch wide and had nice colors!

I also ordered 10 Red Rili Neocaridina shrimp. They threw 14 in the bag – some were teenie teenie tiny and some were quite large.

[PlumCrazy]

A few weeks later…

Crabs - The crabs are like a super hard game of Where’s Waldo. I assume they are all alive because I imagine if one died, I would smell it. I have seen at least one every single day. The most I have seen at a time is four. Often, they choose a location and stay there the whole day. Sometimes they sit in water. I can’t tell you how long they can stay under because I’ve never sat in front of the tank the entire day, but it seems like it could be hours. They seem to enjoy places that are wet but above water, such as clinging to the filter foam on the background. I am pleased to say that one has taken up the waterfall as it’s territory 😊There are literally thousands of hiding spots, and I don’t know where they have or haven’t been, but so far I have not seen one up high on the orchids. One day one of them dangling upside down using two legs to hold on to the bottom of one of the land platform while holding two legs in the water.

Orchids - I’ve also seen no damage to any plants, and have had five orchids bloom since the transition. The plants all seem to be doing very well. I think the new layout is better because they all get better light and water, plus I’ve had a lot of the orchids for awhile so have a better idea of what conditions they like and placed them accordingly.

Shrimp – they seem happy! It turned out that two of them were berried (meaning carrying fertilized eggs) and one set of eggs has hatched already! I am worried they are too happy, because a few others have eggs now too.