For almost 40 years, I kept tropical fish. The tank still is a feature in the corner of our lounge/dining room, and when lit and stocked full of community fish, it looked fab.
As time passed by, despite little maintenance, I forgot to feed the fish. I know .. terrible. So I knew it was time for a change, but I still wanted to do something with the corner tank to continue its place in the room as a feature.
I considered removing the tank altogether as it sits on top of a corner unit and has a corner wall unit above, but my criteria had to be low maintenance and low running costs.
What you see here is my creation using moss to create a moss terrarium, using substrate, rocks and mist.
I installed a tiny pump in the rear corner of the tank and surrounded it with a filtered-covered model board.
In a chamber above the pump, I installed a small mister unit so that the water pumped up into the top chamber would run over the mister and produce the fog that would come down the slope created in the tank to look like a mountain scene.
Finally, a variety of moss was added, which I bought from the helpful and friendly Moss Clerk company in Scotland.
The tank required air movement and lighting for at least 8 hours daily with at least 1100 lux. So I added a small fan I found on Amazon and an LED unit that can also produce a variety of coloured lighting scenes.
Building up to the final design was trial and error. I knew that the water needed to be pumped up and over the mister, and the mister, for effect, required height for it to look like a waterfall.
So after trial and error, I ended up with a tank worth looking at .. but is it finished?
