# Emersed tank set up / journal



## aquatic_clay (Aug 17, 2009)

I was inspired by Zapins to set up an emersed tank. I wanted to start a journal on this to try to help out any one that is wanting to try this so they can learn from my mistakes (i'm sure i will make plenty of them). The reasons i've decided to do this are to help keep the display tank cleaned up, to have a good place to grow out plants for propagation and for future aquascapes as the collection grows, and because i wanted to try something new.

I used an old 10 gallon tank that was sitting in a closet to set this up

1 sheet of plexi glass from lowes

Knife to cut plexi glass

100% silicon

1 door hinge

Some pots from various plant that i've gotten over time

A tupperware tub with lot's of holes in the bottom

And now..... We build!!!

Started off by measuring the plexi glass that i would need to cut.









Here's the plexi glass after it has been cut.









Attached the lid to the tank with a door hinge for easy access. I used silicon for this. Also in the lid i added a 1 inch x 1 inch hole on the front corners for vents. In hindsight i would have waited to add these since the tank didn't have enough humidity and one of the plants quickly dried up after everything was set up.









Note the easy access to the plants (i'm pretty proud of this one)









Here's the finished product, so i thought. Remember earlier when i said this "learn from my mistakes (i'm sure i will make plenty of them)."? Well here's one of them. I found out don't fill the tank too fast or the pots will float then fall over and then you'll have ugly water . Also remember when i said this too "In hindsight i would have waited to add these since the tank didn't have enough humidity and on of the plants quickly dried up after everything was set up."? Please note the poor little kleiner bar sword in the left hand corner the leaves dried up in less than a day. Also if you notice there is not much condensation on the glass this is a good indication that there is not enough humidity in the tank (hence why the sword dried up). My plan is that after the plants switch over to emersed growth to get rid of the plastic wrap since they should be able to handle less humidity by then. Am i right in thinking this?









What if i don't have enough humidity in the tank? Well... Here's the easiest fix i could come up with! plastic wrap! Nice and foggy now 









And here's one more picture just for good measure. If you can't tell i'm pretty excited about this !


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## kshitij (Dec 23, 2009)

Thankyou ....i learnt some things frm that Journal.....I have one question :
Why dont you leave a small hole instead of covering the both ? I think that more the ventilation , more will be the gas exchange and the growth speed will increase...


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## aquatic_clay (Aug 17, 2009)

k****ij said:


> Thankyou ....i learnt some things frm that Journal.....I have one question :
> Why dont you leave a small hole instead of covering the both ? I think that more the ventilation , more will be the gas exchange and the growth speed will increase...


I think that you are 100% right about gas exchange and speed of growth. The biggest reason i decided to cover both holes was because i didn't want to shock the plants too much from beign pulled up and out of the water. I'm planning on opening one up today after work and the other one about 6 days from now.


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## kshitij (Dec 23, 2009)

Ok so you are trying to slowly adapt the plants to the atmosphere....cool another thing learned.


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

Nice setup! I especially like the clear plastic hinge lid. Makes getting those plants out easy!!


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## aquatic_clay (Aug 17, 2009)

Update...

so far everything seems to be going pretty well with this. I just opened the tank up for the 1st time since the initial set up and have start to see some new groth in the rotala, kleiner bars, and the lileopsis. I'm still waiting to see some new growth in the ludwigia it seems to still be shedding it's old leaves I think I might see a small hint of a new stem growing from one of the old leave nodes.

I added a huge sword that i've been dying to get out of the display tank since it's taken over about 1/4 of a 29 gallon. While trimming the old leave off I found a runner that is about an inch long. I'm pretty excited to see what happens with the runner. Does any one know if swords will continue to send out runners even emmersed or will the flower instead? So far i've gotten about 30 baby plants from this one and would like to have them keep coming. If I have to pollinate flowers to keep propagating that would be fine too.

I've been keeping the humidity at 85% and the temp is between 75 and 80.

I'll post some crappy camera phone pictures as soon as I can.


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## aquatic_clay (Aug 17, 2009)




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## MaD_Sci (Aug 14, 2009)

Great setup, what's the humidity level in there?


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## aquatic_clay (Aug 17, 2009)

Thank you! The humidity stays at 85% during lights on and it drops down to about 80% at night. In about a week or 2 i'm going to start trying to get it down to about 75 day and 70 night.


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