Epic Waterfall Paludarium Build!

I turned this empty terrarium into a bioactive moss wall polydarium. It even comes complete with its own fog machine, not to mention a series of water features that converge on a pond in the front of the tank. A combination of over 17 different mosses and micro ferns cover the backdrop of the polydarium. Here's how I did it. I started by hitting all the seams with clear aquarium safe silicone, and then I also laid out all of the hardscape items that I had bought. With a full assessment of my inventory done, I started to take some of the more prominent pieces and putting them where I think I might want them later on. I even ended up replacing the wooden bridge with a rock bridge. I also tested how the water would flow over this rock, since I already knew that was going to be a feature. Next, I built the housing for my pump. This was going to be with some aquarium safe silicone, the black version, as well as aquarium divider grid. I also used more of the aquarium divider grid to build the false bottom. The aquarium divider grid will allow the water to travel underneath without getting the substrate wet. Therefore, I will always have water flow to the pump, but my substrate won't rot out. Not only is the aquarium divider grid really easy to work with, but it's also really lightweight. Therefore, if you ever need to move your terrarium, it really won't be an issue. You can cut it easily with scissors, and you can stack it. Not to mention, you can easily attach it with aquarium safe silicone, and later on, it's great for spray foam. I also use aquarium filter foam because it's a very light product that's also easy to work with and helps me shape out the general structure of my Bavarian builds. Since expanding foam doesn't adhere to glass, I also went ahead and attached more aquarium divider grid with aquarium safe silicone to the backdrop. You don't really have to worry about being too precise with the silicone since all of this will be covered with expanding foam. This portion of the terrarium build is always one of my favorites because this is when the vision starts to come to life. You also start to really make improvements on the ideas that you had in your mind because you're always engaged in building the terrarium, and since it takes time, you come up with great ideas. Then, you just have to trust the process and trust in yourself that you can get it done. Now that my polydarium's land section's false bottom was fleshed out, I needed to add a substrate barrier. The perfect material for this is window screen. You just gotta make sure that it's not chemically treated, and I would try to stay away from metal since it will eventually rust. I used more aquarium divider grid as well as this little jar and some pieces of slate to start figuring out my water section. This was going to be the most labor-intensive part of my build. I wanted to make sure that my waterfall looked like stacked rocks, and I wanted to give the impression that they weren't being held together by anything. That meant that I was going to have to find a negative black space behind the rocks, which meant that I would have to figure out a way to get the water to flow over the front of the rocks while simultaneously directing the water downwards and away from the back where there's going to be negative space. I set to work trimming off the excess window screen since the silicone had cured, and I had to let the silicone cure on my first rock. It was going to be a several day affair building the waterfall since I'd have to do it one rock at a time. The process was simple, set a rock, test the water, put the next rock underneath, test the water again, set the silicone, let it cure, repeat, and do it over and over until I had a waterfall. This part was unavoidably very time consuming, but it paid off to be precise and to take my time. A combination of the aquarium divider grid and aquarium filter foam were key in making sure that these rocks stayed in place. The filter foam especially was awesome because I could trim it down later. I still needed to separate the water section from my false bottom and my land, and the perfect way to do that was to wedge in more, you guessed it, aquarium filter foam. This will allow water to flow underneath to the pump, but not allow any gunk to get into the pumps. As previously mentioned, the aquarium filter foam is perfect for trimming away so you can add new rock formations. I really can't stress enough how much time I spent tinkering, especially with the top portion of my waterfall feature. It was super important to get the water flow right here, as the larger rocks at the bottom would naturally collect and fan the water out more easily. Once the rock formation was finally figured out, I went ahead and sealed it together with more aquarium safe silicone. I was, however, very careful to keep it only under the ledges where natural shadowing would occur. It was also important to make sure that all of the seams underneath got touched up so that the water wouldn't flow in behind, but flow over the top of the rocks. The flow of the water over the rocks was now figured out, but I needed to make sure that the water was actually directed towards the rocks. I used some of the scrap pieces of aquarium filter foam I had left to fill in some of the dead spaces before taking some Great Stuff Expanding Foam and filling in all of the backdrop. Keeping in mind that it's expanding foam, you don't want to go too crazy when you're doing precision work like this, but you can always trim back pieces that are going to need to be inevitably moved. I used the Pond and Stone Expanding Foam since it's animal and plant safe once it's cured. If you've never used this stuff, pro tip, don't get it on your hands because it's extremely sticky and you're going to be wearing it for at least a week. I gave it 24 hours to cure and as you can see, true to its name, it expanded quite a bit. I took a razor blade to shave down some of the pieces that were in the way of the water flow. I also carved out the landing from where my water is going to be coming out of the water housing tower where the pump is going to be sitting. Took her for a quick test run of course. I pressed a hole through the expanding foam so I could feed the tubing through it from the pump. Once the pump was in place, I filled the polydarium false bottom with distilled water so I could go ahead and test the whole system in action. I filled it all the way to the top of the water line so I could get a good idea of how the water flows at maximum capacity. Seeing how the water flowed gave me some ideas and it was at this point that I actually committed to ditching my wood bridge and building a water bridge made out of rocks. First I had to address some of the water escaping underneath but luckily expanding foam is literally made for this. I had a little bit more touch up work to do on the redirection of the water flow so I had to make a little bit of trim adjustments. Then I added more expanding foam. At this point I would say I had 90% of my terrarium mapped out in my mind and I also committed to adding a second pump since I wanted water to flow over this big rock and I wasn't sure if I could get enough water across my water bridge. I also planted this dead tree made of spider wood. I fed the tube across the backdrop which would eventually be covered with expanding foam. I used another small glass jar as placement for where my fog machine would go. I used more aquarium divider grid to finish setting up the skeletal portion of my terrarium. I had tested a piece of flat rock that was perfect for transferring the water from one side to the other. When placed at a slightly downward angle it was perfect and had the right shape to grab the water and use the water tension to direct the water across. I needed to make sure that the substrate wouldn't get into my water tower so I added more aquarium filter foam to make sure that didn't happen. Then I also tested my water bridge or the beginnings of it I should say. It took me forever but I finally found my keystone. The perfect rock that would sit and wedge between both of my rock formations and create the perfect water bridge. I opted not to attach it with silicone because I think it's just a really cool hidden flex to know that that rock is sitting there balanced perfectly. I'm definitely digging the way that the water looks over these rocks. The more shimmering effect of the water going across the rocks the better and this one was perfect because of the little ridges. If I flipped it the way that I did the water would flow across it ideally. It gives the perfect amount of action and movement to the center of the tank creating an awesome focal point. At this point the hard part was pretty much complete. I added the fog machine and of course I went ahead and took that for a little test run. It was important to make sure that some of the water backsplash of the waterfall would drip its way into this jar otherwise the fog machine will burn itself out. I had pretty much all of the terrarium design fleshed out in my mind at this point and so it was time to go ahead and finish filling in the hardscape using more aquarium filter foam to fill in those dead spaces. I repeated the process all over the tank adding in scrap pieces of aquarium filter foam as necessary. I also added this little landing spot for where the water would flow from my other pump. The reason that I used the aquarium filter foam to fill in dead space is because it's lightweight it allows moisture to flow through and it also allows for any plants to potentially root their way through it as well. Not to mention it's much cheaper than the expanding foam and it gives great volume to areas where the expanding foam might not be able to bunch up. The final step was going to be to add a perimeter of cork bark around the top. This will help retain in some of the moisture. Not to mention it's also great for growing moss and a great base for the bioactive life to take hold. Now it was time to go ahead and tie it all together with more expanding foam. I think all in all it took me two and a half cans of this stuff to get it done but this is a pretty big build. Make sure you shake it well and remember this stuff is expanding foam so it's going to expand but don't be afraid to really lather it on thick because you're going to inevitably be able to trim it all down once it's cured. Not permanently attaching my keystone ended up being clutch because it allowed me to get in there and really spray foam it out without worrying about getting it on my rocks. It's actually pretty crazy how quickly the terrarium transforms in a matter of about 10 minutes of spray foam after literally days of tinkering with it with little progress at a time. If you give it about 10 minutes the foam will start to set a little bit but will be real nice and sticky and you can add solid items to it. I opted for this hobbit home. Just remember that foam is going to expand so make sure you have a way of holding it down or else it's not going to be the way you put it in there. When you give it 24 hours it cures and you can easily cut off the shiny outer bits with a razor blade. This is a time consuming, tedious, but very necessary part of the build process as you will not be able to adhere anything to the expanding foam with the shiny outer bits attached. At this point I would go back and forth between cutting expanding foam and doing little bits of finish work like this. Another cool benefit of the expanding foam is you can actually press wires into it. All you have to do is cut in a little groove and press it right in. Then you can lather over it with aquarium safe silicone on a later step. This is when the terrarium really was coming to life and I had a really good idea of what it would look like finished. I opted to use more expanding foam to build a last barrier between the water and land section. I also covered up that tubing with some more expanding foam. I somehow forgot to get it on video but I also carved out a trench where I would have a meandering stream on the left side of the terrarium. I wanted it to have the same shimmer as the rock formations so I used the same type of slate, just smaller pieces. I set down a thick coating of aquarium safe silicone and then I pressed the rocks directly into it. And it turned out pretty good. Admittedly a tiny bit of the water does escape the river but it's not really enough to notice so I decided to just roll with it. Especially later when my moss wall is taking over, you're probably not going to even see it. I just had one final touch to make on my water feature and that part of the build process would finally be complete. That's exciting news because this took me well over a month of tinkering with it a little bit each morning. Most of the time was really spent just staring at and examining different rocks, hours and hours of it, trying to figure out the perfect formation to get that perfect shimmer. As far as my moss wall was concerned, I had to get the substrate for that prepared. It would be a combination of sphagnum moss and coco peat. The way to apply it is to lather on a thick base layer of aquarium safe silicone. The best strategy is to do it one little section at a time. That way the silicone doesn't cure too much and it really allows that coco peat and sphagnum moss to stick to it. Don't be afraid to really lather this ---- on thick. I'm talking like 10 tubes of silicone went into this entire build from beginning to end. More likely than not, once this is complete, your terrarium will look like a disaster zone. But all you gotta do is vacuum off the excess. Just make sure that silicone cures first and don't be too thorough with it. You don't want to strip it back off the silicone. All that was left to do now was some very basic touch up work, mainly just shadowing and adding little slate rocks. I have some activated aquarium carbon that looks really cool but will also multi-function in helping to keep this aquarium kind of clean. When water evaporates over the top, it'll help disinfect it as it runs down. I added it to my water section as well. Please note, you don't want to cover all of your aquarium divider grid with that silicone though. I left spaces, especially under the rock formation, open to allow water to flow underneath. Just like the coco peat and sphagnum moss, once the silicone cured, I vacuumed off the excess. My hardscape was complete but I was obviously missing plants and I think I needed a little bit of animal life. I gave it all a solid week before adding any more water so that way all the silicone could cure and the expanding foam could properly gas off. I didn't want to poison any potential animals or plants that would go in here. After that month had passed, I finally got my order from frogdaddy.net, which I highly recommend if you're in the United States. However, I also got some flightless fruit flies. These guys are actually for feeding my poison dart frogs, but I was running low on one of my cultures. I thought maybe you guys might appreciate watching these guys eat some of them. Figured it would be a nice little intermission. Here you can also kind of see what some of these terrarium builds look like when they're finished. Okay, back to business. The goat of all terrarium products on frogdaddy.net is by far his wet moss mix. This stuff right here is the ideal thing to use when you're building terrarium backdrops, especially moss walls. I threw in some crushed coral to add carbon to the water so the pH would be a little bit higher since I'm adding sherry shrimp to this later. I took distilled water and misted down my backdrop of sphagnum moss and cocoa peat. This would allow me to then attach some Amazonia aqua soil. I crushed it down into pulver form so it would stick to the sphagnum moss. This will help fertilize and give my moss wall a perfect start. Once I had a nice coating of fertilizer, I applied the wet moss mix. I had two cups of this stuff and I applied it on thick. The benefit of using the wet moss mix is it's a combination of over 13 different mosses and a bunch of micro ferns and they will seek out the best micro environment in your terrarium. So you'll be ensured that the best suited plant is growing in the optimal spot in your terrarium. I also opted for this small terrarium plant package and even though I wasn't 100% sure where to plant them, you really can't go too wrong with it since they're all high humidity plants. So, I just kind of picked spots in my terrarium that I thought they would look cool. And admittedly, a couple of them didn't make it, but it shouldn't be a problem in the long run. I set down a nice base of ADA fertilizer anywhere that I put the plants, added the plants, and then threw in some more ADA as well as some horticultural charcoal. Then I topped it off with some Josh's Rocks ABG mix, which is perfect for bioactive terrariums. I threw down some more Slate Rock and then I headed to my Vampire Crab terrarium to do a little bit of plant raiding. First I opted to steal some Pogostemon Helferi. I really like this versatile plant because you can grow it outside of the water as long as it stays nice and wet, making it the perfect transitionary plant between land and water or you can even use it to fill in some of those dead spaces in a water feature. I also re-homed some of my Sherry Shrimp out of my Vampire Crab terrarium because I needed a cleanup crew. I wanted there to be life in my terrarium, but I wanted to keep it pretty minimal and the maintenance very low since this terrarium is actually not going to be staying in my house. Rather, it'll be going to my girlfriend's tattoo shop. I think it'll be a pretty good spot for it and I think, with any hope, it'll help people relax when they're getting their tattoos. However, this terrarium is going to need to get cleaned and for that I opted to steal some of my cleanup crew from one of my closed terrariums. This is a combination of orange and regular white tropical springtails that will eat all of the decaying plant matter, turning it into more fertilizer. I also decided to add a trio of assassin snails, mainly because they look cool and they will help control any potential breakouts of bladder snail infestations. I added some tourmaline balls to help with the snail and shrimp shell growth. A few weeks after the moss wall had been installed and started growing, I opted to go back to my Vampire Crab terrarium and steal a few more plants, mainly different patches of mosses, that I thought would work well in my terrarium, mainly because I was getting kind of impatient. I'm sure if I just left it alone for a few months, the whole thing would grow in inevitably anyway, but my girlfriend's been pressing me to get this into her tattoo shop and I've gotta just bite the bullet and get it done, so I went ahead and sacrificed a few big patches out of here and this stuff will grow back no problem. Since the terrarium is pretty vertical and the design was kept in mind to keep moisture in, maintenance is going to be pretty low. All you really gotta do is mist this thing down thoroughly once a day, and maybe once every other week, take a razor blade and scrape some of the algae off of the glass. But realistically, you won't even have to do that once the water cycles all the way and the shrimp and snails extract some of the nutrients from the water. Since the bioload in the water is being kept very low, and since the water that is being misted is distilled, no metals or any sort of contaminates are being added to the water, therefore water changes really are not necessary. I think it came out pretty good. Let me know in the comments if there's anything that you guys would change. Start to finish, this took about 4 months. Quick reminder, all product links are in the video description. Feel free to reach out to me via email or hit me in the comments with any questions, and please do hit that like and subscribe and check out my other videos. Thanks and have a great day.