Paludarium starting up.

Hello People,

i am Leo, from Austria, Europe. Just startet up a 60X45X60 (cm) Palu. Ok so far, i am very pleased with the setup. The only problem that occurs is the water. It is unusable for submerged plants and animals. I made the back and one side wall with xaxim. The xaxim is watered with a little pump. There is a piece of wood (root) as well in there. I am filling up the water part with normal water, medium hard. after about a couple of hours the water turns very soft. I can manage the conductivity and the pH. the carbonate hardness is still about zero and after giving hardening salt or fresh water it only helps for a couple of hours then the same story again (trying for about one week now).

Does anyone know if the xaxim turns the water soft? I guess so, does ist settle after a while?

Here a Picture of the setup.

Greetings

xaxim is a product of tree ferns. It will get green (ferns, moss grows out of it) of its own when it stays wet/humid.

To look for fish that suit the water is logic, my idea. I wantet to have soft water for the plants (bromelias, orchids and so on) and for the fish ( the killifish are up high on my wishlist) but the aquarium plants died in less than 4 days, they look like the leafes vanished. The woman from the Aquarium shop told me that no fish would live in this non carbonated water (i asked for a cleaner fish today, she wouldnt give me one). I dont understand realy because the pH stays about 6,3 and the conductivity is about 280uS/cm, the carbonate harness is about 1 degree (german scale).

It is little difficult for me to explain in english because the terms an also carbonate degrees and so are shown in different scales in Europe. I hope it is clear what i mean.

There is a filter in it, also the water gets filtered over the xaxim plates and the land part that is constructed with zeolit, filterpads and iseland lava stones, on top of it is a layer of terrarium substrate. The roots of the plants and the javamoss will filter as well in the futere. I took the dead plants out immediatly. Think you are right that there are no nutrients for the plants and the light might be a reason to. There is 49watt in it and it is 60 cm high. I will try with a special nutrient medium for nano aquaria when i change the water next time.

So you mean that the very low carbonate hardness is not bad for plants and some selected fish? I thougt some fish would be happy with it but the lady at the shop made me think everything would die in this water. have no ammonia tests at home yet:headshake2: but i could look at NO2 NO3 and Fe tomorrow. for about 3 hours i made a water change. pH is 7,4 now and carbonate hardness about 2. I want to have a pH of about 5,5 to 6 for the plants.

Thx:thm: