How to Build a Paludarium

[straightrazorguy]

...in my living room? I think I'll stick to reefing.

[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

[mark]

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

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by mark

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

Not really, at first I thought it would be worth while using the black for the price difference but $50 worth went rather quickly, the regular foam is a quarter of the price and actually goes further and works better. It's not as rigid but after being covered in concrete it makes no difference. Also pretty much all spray foam will be above the water level so no real concerns, but either way the regular is more commonly used.

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by straightrazorguy

...in my living room? I think I'll stick to reefing.

You haven't even seen step two yet