Penn-Plax AquaTerrium Hydroponic Aquarium Tank – 1.85 Gallons

La urna de cristal y la decoración están muy bien, sin embargo los enchufes no sirven par españa, por lo cual no se pueden colocar en la corriente eléctrica hubo que comprar adaptadores., y también la bomba de circulación de agua no funciona.por lo cual no se puede instalar la cascada. deberían enviar una de recambio.
Tuve que comprar una bomba nueva para instalarla

So far I’m impressed with this thing. I’ll update as I get it more set up, but there were so many complaints about it I thought I should review it just as I got it. The pump is tiny but more than adequate for a waterfall that size. It has a dial to increase the flow which some people may overlook. The planters are also tiny, but not smaller than advertised. They will work for many small houseplants and semi aquatic plants- and the bottom 2 need to be semi aquatic as they will be below the water line. The rock work is not exactly pretty in places but it is rough and it seems to me it’s meant to have terrestrial or semi aquatic moss grafted to it, which was my plan. Everywhere it’s the more polished brownish surface, which is all that would be visible if moss was growing on it, it looks great. And let’s talk about filtration even though I haven’t started using it- all it comes with IS a sponge filter to cover the intake holes and the top of the waterfall. But the filtration is supposed to come from live plants. I have a large aquaponics system and it definitely works. We’ll see how this number of plants and moss works for it. But your biofilter (beneficial nitrifying bacteria, not a mechanical filter) is essential, if ammonia isn’t being properly processed into nitrites and then nitrates your water will still get toxic. I do not know why they say this would work with all artificial plants, because then it IS a joke of a filtration system. If you wanted to do that you would need to find a way to hide a mechanical filter in the cavity of the rock work and there is very little room for more than a heater and the tiny pump. I’m going to try to fit an ultrasonic fogger and air pump down there and I’m not sure it will fit. Now let’s talk about picking the right life for a nano tank with rough decorations. You should have more inverts than fish to help process the waste, and you shouldn’t pick fish with flowy delicate fins like bettas. They will hurt themselves on the rough edges. A betta may be ok if you have enough live plants to cushion the rockwork but his fins will inevitably get knicked. This is a great tank for dwarf shrimp and snails. Cory catfish and platies would probably be content in it, but only a few. Anything that needs a school of 6 would probably be cramped. Tetras and danios included. Goldfish are an ok choice and don’t need a heater, but be aware they are huge waste producers for their size. It might be hard for the aquaponics to keep up, with just a few small house plants.

Anyway I would call this thing a great value- a waterfall feature for a reptile enclosure or vivarium that size would easily cost what this whole tank sells for unless you built it yourself. It’s going to take some work and know how to set it up the way I want, but duh. It’s a ####ing fish tank. No one should buy an item like this expecting it to be truly “plug and play” no matter what the manufacturer says.

Edit 1/27/19

So this little thing does in fact work fine and keep up with the waste from some platies. I have a mystery snail, 2 nerites, a breeding colony of dwarf shrimp (neocardina davidi), a cordydora catfish, and a few breeding platies and all have done fine. I decided to set it up like an Amazon dark water setup, so some soil and sediment with gravel, which gives the water sort of an iced tea look. When setting it up I decided this made more sense for the slow “current” created by the little baby pump and trickling waterfall than, say for instance, a temperate river. For my plants I’ve had English ivy (not exactly amazonian but it looks cool), a bromeliad, a fern and a miniature palm up top, with some Christmas tree moss in the water and a few kinds of terrestrial moss everywhere you see yellow. The palm just recently sort of gave up, not sure why, maybe it was just the end of its natural life or maybe it got damaged in my recent move, but it was great until very recently. The ivy and bromeliad have gone CRAZY and continue to thrive. The terrestrial moss and the ferns both seem to struggle, I think they get too much water. So I’m still working on getting the perfect plants.

My fish and shrimp have always been great though, and the water quality is always constant. My other aquaponics system is like that, too, just so incredibly un-fussy and reliable, so I’m not really surprised but it’s interesting that it works so well even on this scale. My picture doesnt look great, but I just moved so my plants and moss got all jostled, so I have some work to do there- the important part is that the filtration works and has kept the fishies and, even more significantly, the shrimpies happy and healthy.

One note, the tubing from the pump to the waterfall is held in place with a little pin bisecting the tube- sometimes this gets clogged. So if your pump suddenly or gradually loses power, try taking a skewer or a cut clothes hanger and messing with the tube. I have to do this every few months and it always has fixed it for me. Aside from that the only maintenance I’ve had to do is on the plants- no water changes or vacuuming or any of that with the setup I’ve chosen.

I am not going to lie… this little paludarium has given me so much delight and joy since February when it was gifted to me on my birthday. I ordered all the little necessities with my gift card. I got substraight, sand, seeds for plants, filter media, and live moss and tiny water-loving plants for the topside. I set it up, added the seeds, sprouted them and let the tank cycle.

I wedged the plants into the little receptacles, where the water is designed to run through. I surrounded them with moss. The little ecosystem cycled for a bit. I did two water changes to remove the really dark tannins from the wood, leaves & litter. And after three weeks, my ground cover had come in. I added a couple of ottos first. Then some ghost shrimp. Finally I got 5 strawberry rasbora. Chili and strawberry rasbora are the perfect size and this tank is ideal for them. The duckweed needs to be culled almost every day because it’s a small surface and they propagate fast.

You *could* keep a single Betta in this tank. A few guppies maybe. Nothing larger than a nano-fish otherwise. Tiny Rasbora are ideal. About 8-10 max. Neocardina shrimp might be able to jump out or get into the filter section and die. So larger shrimp like ghost shrimp are better. I made a short cover out of craft plexi to keep them from leaping to their deaths.

I got a timed sunrise and sunset lamp. And even with the constant nutritious water pouring over the plant roots, they need to be misted too. But this little paludarium fits on a little end table by my desk and I spend a lot of home delighting on the baby ghost shrimp, the rotifers and edible things hatching in the duckweed. It’s so fun. Recommend 100%.

Downsides: tube in the pump is transparent, so it needs to me de-algaed with a pipe cleaner now and again to keep the water flowing. The light that comes with it is OK. An extra $15 for an automatic one with sunrise and sunset is worth it. The plastic plants are just landfill fodder. No point of having them in there if you’re using it as it was designed for real plants. I do wish the filter-side was smaller and designed less clumsily. The fish and water-life seem to enjoy the cave overhang though. Also, you need to get the smallest, flat heater for this nano-tank to economize your space.

Because of the vegetation i have, it’s easy to buy rotifer or daphnia eggs that you can sprinkle in the growth at the water’s edge. Then your fish have real food to hunt. I also added Thai micro-crabs, who live on the substraight and keep it clean. Some stowaway pest snails came with a Monte Carlo plant, and they stay mostly in the filter half of the tank. So they’re manageable. Anyway… if you love plants and fish and tiny ecosystems, get this. It is a lot of work to get the ideal setup for a natural riverbank-scape. But it really is a delightful little tank. Really different from the usual freshwater setup.