Living Self-Watering Jungle Arc (EASY Moss Drip Planter)

One of the things I enjoy doing most on this channel is taking mundane objects such as this storage container I found at Ikea and transforming them into something awesome. I don't know if your brain works how mine does but as soon as I saw this container I immediately thought one thing. Pumperizer floor. This container has a lot of things going for it that will make it perfect for this style of build. The first thing that I took notice of is that the lid here is indented downward into the container. Now the nice thing about this is that it could act like a tray or we could build up a landscape and it will retain everything in it. Another thing that may go overlooked is that it's opaque. Meaning that we can't see anything through it. Which will be nice because when we have a pump or other hardware down in the bottom area we won't need to hide it and this will make it look very clean. Another key feature is that this bottom area here has some good depth to it. And trust me when you're working on a small project like this that involves running water there's nothing worse than an inadequate reservoir. The thing's always running dry, the pump's chugging and it just becomes an annoyance. The final thing is that this was pretty inexpensive. I want to say it was only four or five dollars for the entire thing. Even with an appropriate container the only way that I can make what I have in mind work is with a proper pump setup. What I've done is I rigged up a little pump to a few airline tubes. I used the T and a few elbows to split it off into two directions. That way it could have multiple flows of water. But I'll probably split these off further as we get through the build. Anyway I wanted to get this situated before I did anything. To ensure I could get the water to flow as I need it to. To get it plumbed is going to be pretty simple. I'm just going to drill two holes through the bottom of this that I can run the tubing through. I actually drew the holes in a little bit closer than how I have them on this. And I'll adjust it later. The way that I created these holes is so that the elbows fit perfectly into them. Now you notice here that the elbows are actually slightly thinner than the airline itself. And I did it this way so that way once I connect them together the airline actually holds itself above the tray. Anyway this T area is going to go on the bottom as well. And I have to make a few adjustments because this was too long. After that everything's nice and tight on the bottom here. When we flip it over we've got the two tubes coming up out of the top. With these mods we'll be able to have water exit this system. But I have to drill a few additional holes around these. So that it can drain back down into the reservoir and create a recirculating loop. I'll probably have to add more later. But for now I kept them situated around the airlines. That way I could easily hide all of this with the hard scape. While still having that drain out effect. Now for the scape itself I decided to do things a little bit differently. And I'm going to use some red lava rock. I've probably only used this for two projects in the past. And I like the look of it so I'm not really sure why I haven't used it much. But I got this entire bag for just under five dollars. So it's very inexpensive as well. So not only does it look cool and is inexpensive. But lava rock is also one of the easiest stones to link together. To create a single structure. What I mean by this is that if you use the technique I've shown before. With super glue and rock dust. You can link these together and create a really unique structure that looks cohesive. I may or may not need more stones than this. But I went and sorted them by size. So that way it can quickly work through what I'm doing here. I'll try to use as many of the large ones as I can. Just so that I can work quicker. But I'll definitely need a few small ones in between pieces. Since I have this all plumbed already. I can hide the airline as I build up these pieces. I didn't get more than three rocks placed. Before I came up with something that I believe is a lot cooler than what I originally had in mind. My first idea was to have two islands of sorts. You know one here, one here. And the water just kind of dripped off the sides of them. But I thought wouldn't it be cooler if I connected the two. Kind of like this. And created an arch. And I'll have the one tube get the top of the arch. And the other one will kind of drip off the bottom. So I'll connect the two. And then I'll have little vines and different things hanging off of the bottom of them. I think that'd be a much cooler idea. With a new direction to follow I continued onward. I gradually built up the stones one by one. To create a proper arch between the two airlines. As I did I wove the tubes within the rocks. So they'll be completely invisible later on. You'll also notice that I'm using a brush to distribute the dust. This makes things a little bit easier. But I periodically have to trim the bristles in between. Because they get gummed up. After all of that I ended up with this arch. That's going to work perfectly for what I have in mind. If you look on top here though. You'll notice that all the tubing is exposed. Now I did this because I'm actually going to have a lot of plants on top here. And I'm not actually going to cover them with rocks. But I have to make some modifications to the tubing here. Before I can do that though. I have to hook up the pump. I got it all hooked up and it's looking good. To get it to run properly though. I had to drill a hole in the base container. So I could run the cord out without it being pinched by the top tray. You'll see that a little bit of water is pulling in the middle. While the rest is draining out underneath of the formation itself. Even though that's working as expected. I want water to drip out of the middle here. And actually bleed out onto the rest of the structure as well. To make that happen. I'll simply poke a few holes in this airline. I got it to look how I wanted. But it was a little bit more involved than I expected. I had to cap off the one end of this airline with the airline flow valve. And I have it just slightly open. So that it's slowly dripping. As for the airlines. I put a slit down the entire length of them. As opposed to individual holes. It looks pretty good as is. But a little bit of sphagnum moss is going to take it even further. I rehydrated it ahead of time. So that it pulls as little water from the system as possible. I'm just going to build it up on top here. After adding the moss. It dispersed the flow a little bit. And you'll notice that it's a very subtle drip now. Which is what I wanted. Before it was kind of just raining down. And it looked kind of unnatural per se. This is just kind of a nice drip. Cavey type of effect. And I really like the look of it. If you recall earlier on. I mentioned about vines. And that's exactly what I have here. Well they're not actually vines. They're hemp cord that I turned into vines. And it's similar to what you've seen me do before. First I broke up some aqua soil until it was nice and fine. Then I coated these hemp ropes in some black silicone. I dragged these through the aqua soil. And pressed it firmly in. After letting them sit for 24 hours. I was left with these cool little vines. As I'm sure you could imagine. I'll secure these all along the structure with a little bit of glue. I've got the vines all installed. And I think they really add to this. That said you'll notice a few glue spots and other unsightly things. But I'll hide all of that later on. There is something I need to address though. This tray. I kind of like the way that it contrasts and creates a cool look with this. But it's a little bit too stark. It should be an easy fix though. I felt that it made the most sense. And would be pretty easy to just build up some sphagnum moss around the formation. That way this will wick up water to create a growing surface for plants. While also retaining this path in the middle. Since this is supposed to look like a little landscape. Utilizing a lot of moss for the plants is really going to help tie everything together. I have a few varieties here. But I'll probably primarily use this fern moss. Since this moss looks like little ferns. It will really go with the scale. I'll add thread moss for a little bit of textural contrast as well. Moss isn't enough though. A build like this demands oak leaf creeping fig. Introducing the self-watering jungle arc. It's composed of a few elements. And was really easy to build as you saw in this demonstration. I think it's a cool and unique piece that gives me a lot of inspiration for future builds. I can imagine having several arcs and various features like this. In a vivarium for example. As is though. I really like the piece. Plus it's basically maintenance free. Other than occasionally adding more water and trimming plants as needed. That said adjusting the plants won't be required very often. Until then I'll enjoy it as is. I want to know what you think though. Let me know down in the comments. Anyway that's all for now. Until next time surfer squad. Take care and peace.