Badger's Tea Garden

[Back in the fold]

Change your handle to Rube Goldberg.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

OK, this shows the other side. As you can see, I build a little platform for the mister to live on, and glued a small piece of PVC into the back wall for the pump tube to fit into. This way I can take it apart for maintenance when the pump gets clogged up. I did a ton of trial and error with this part before I got it to work the way I wanted.

This picture is a bit hard to see. You're looking into the mister shelf from the back. Gorilla tape holds things in place while the glue cures. Note the wire mesh fish fence, which I ended up tearing out and replacing with a solid foam wall.

 

[Back in the fold]

I’m curious about the stainless steel coming into contact with the water. Is that cool ? I know there are stainless thermometers that hang in the water but you have raw edges you’ve cut. Inquiring minds want to know.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Gotta say, I'm getting sick of posting these pictures. I hope you know how much I care about all of you. Badgers must persevere, so onward I slog...

This shows the mister shelf from the waterfall side. I tore out the mesh because it was complicating the flow of the mist, and it really isn't needed anyway: It won't hurt anything if a fish gets in there, and when the ultrasonic mister clicks on, it will beat a very hasty retreat anyway.

I think the rock work looks rather effective, and even more so once I get some plants on it. I painted a base coat of dark gray-brown, then dry brushed over it with a lighter shade to bring out the texture.

Mister installed. As I said, I ended up pulling out the fish fence and installing various little foam "rock" baffles and bits to get the water and mist flowing the way I wanted. This was probably the most annoying part of the build, but the result is worth it. I'll try to get a video up later today so you all can see the result.

OK. More than enough for now.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

I’m curious about the stainless steel coming into contact with the water. Is that cool ? I know there are stainless thermometers that hang in the water but you have raw edges you’ve cut. Inquiring minds want to know.

Good question. I cut the mesh twice as wide as necessary and folded it over, gluing down the raw edges down so the critters won't get scraped and/or impaled. I think regular hardware cloth would rust, so I spent the extra bucks for stainless steel. Shouldn't be a problem.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

OK, enough boring stuff. How about a little video of my glorious waterfall?

 

[WhistlingBadger]

A week or two ago, the Badgerling and I harvested some terrestrial mosses from boulders along the creek. The were frozen and dried out, looking like fibrous dirt. It's fun watching them green up. At risk of anthropomorphising them, I think they are enjoying their new home.

Also, I think the dwarf rushes look like miniature bamboo. Fits the mood. Still waiting for more mosses (terrestrial and aquatic), peacock fern, and tea plants to arrive. Also thinking about what inverts I want to add. Probably springtails, copepods, and scuds...

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Got some peacock fern and put it in. I like it. It's going to look cool when it grows in.

Still waiting for tea plants and mosses to ship, despite promises that they were shipping yesterday. Grrrrrr. Scuds all arrived dead; supposedly reshipping monday. Saving up money for fishies.

 

[Boundava]

Wow Tom, this looks amazing!

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Exciting things happening.

Plants! All are growing well, lots of algae growing. This is a good thing in this tank. More terrestrial mosses coming in tomorrow; tea plants are supposed to be shipping today or tomorrow. (I'll believe that when I see it--the seller keeps stringing me along with annoyingly perky "We'll be shipping today!" messages, then not shipping)

Inverts! There is at least one bladder snail in this tank, also a good thing. Hopefully there are more of them. I haven't seen any copepods, daphnia, etc., but I think they're in there and just staying in the rocks out of the current. Scuds should be shipping tomorrow, and the weather has finally warmed up enough that I can trap some springtails, which will be important for maintaining the land area. I discovered a rather large ramshorn snail this morning! I hope we have more of those, too. I like ramshorns.

Most exciting: I just ordered hillstream loaches and choprae danios! This is going to be beautiful.

Next month, if all is well, I'll be adding some Nemacheilus corica stone loaches and a small school of odessa barbs, and perhaps a firebelly toad to occupy the land area. Then I'll sit back and hoist a good mug of tea in honor of an amazing natural habitat.

 

[otterblue]

OK, enough boring stuff. How about a little video of my glorious waterfall?

That's excellent. Waterfalls are always a popular feature in poison dart frog vivs, but many people have problems & the equipment is usually inaccesible or hard to access. Basically, plenty of dart frog vivs have waterfall features that don't work, but you've solved that problem!

 

[jaylach]

Awesome!

 

[WhistlingBadger]

That's excellent. Waterfalls are always a popular feature in poison dart frog vivs, but many people have problems & the equipment is usually inaccesible or hard to access. Basically, plenty of dart frog vivs have waterfall features that don't work, but you've solved that problem!

I guess having an aquarium downstairs is sort of cheating. ha ha Hopefully the frog will enjoy it. Firebellies seem hard to find lately. If that proves to be the case, I might go up the mountain this summer and catch a couple chorus frogs. That would be fun.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

I have officially reached the stage where I almost think that checking the tracking several times a day will make my fish get here faster.

I finally got the rest of my plants, though! These are tea seedlings. This is real tea, not "herbal tea," Camellia sinensis, the plant from which we get black and green and oolong tea. I don't have great hopes for this, as this species generally doesn't like having its roots wet, and normally gets quite large. I'm going to try growing them as sort of aquaponic bonsai plants, which might not go well. If they do OK, it will be a nice surprise. If they don't, I plan to replace them with jade pothos, which looks similar and should thrive in this setup (and keep my water extremely clean).

The final shipment of terrestrial moss finally came. Way more than I need; looks like @TheLavenderBadger will have some for the flower garden, too.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

All the plants put in. I am quite pleased with how this is coming along! (@Slaphppy7 I reset the vid to public; see if it works now)