I just tore apart the tank the babies are in and pulled 54 fry out and STILL didn't get all of them out. It's insane haha plecopocalypse.
And gonna shame these guys for not eating them, no population control, even though they attempt to eat anything else that they can fit in their mouth (trumpet snails, rocks, plants, sticks, anything that hits the tank surface, etc)
Ahh, this is technically a riparium. Different than paludarium. Ripariums feature more emergent plants, maybe a little bit of hardscape, but most above the water is emergent plants. Paludariums are more land portions compared to ripariums, sometimes only having a small portion of water.
This type of set up you are looking at could work very well with a wild betta species or even some species of killifish who like peat and such. Or, since it's a larger setup, a school of gourami species that like these parameters.
I've grown some crypts emersed, they do fine with standard potting soil ime. You may find that the crypts do fine with this setup too. Humidity matters though, gotta keep them fairly humid too. But, I don't foresee any problem with emersed crypts or anubias. And hydrocolotyle is very emerse happy, you don't even need to plant it, drape it over the wood and it'll take off happily.
Look into growing bucephalandra, ludwigia, hygrophila, pogostemon octopus, and limnophila sessiliflora emersed too, all of these are super easy to convert to emersed and will add some nice variety. Pearlweed is another super easy emersed plant.
If you need moss, Java, Christmas, Taiwan, and Phoenix moss I know all grow emersed well as long as they have a damp base to grow on to not dry out. Can place these on your driftwood if you find it bare.
Java fern also grows emersed.
