How to build a paludarium

Much of my pandemic free time was spent building a number of aquariums, terrariums, and paludariums (I can hear my high school Latin teacher now – “it’s aquaria, terraria, and paludaria!”). This 26-gallon tank was my second paludarium build and has turned out to be a great home for Oliver Winslow, our juvenile Central American wood turtle. While some of the steps took some time to complete, it was really an easy project overall.

What is a paludarium?

For those not familiar, a paludarium is an enclosure that includes both terrestrial and aquatic sections. I remember constructing them as a kid many years ago, in the early days of my reptile obsession, before I had ever heard the word “paludarium.” At the time I used a 20 gallon aquarium and a simple piece of wood to create a rather uninteresting but serviceable, half-land, half-water tank. Luckily during my current return to reptile keeping I have more options and lots of inspiration on the web and YouTube.

Getting started

I started with a 26 gallon bow-front aquarium that I found on Facebook Marketplace. I knew I wanted to incorporate a waterfall but rather than build it myself, I chose to use a pre-made ReptoFilter which worked out very well and provides filtration for the tank as well.

Constructing land and water sections

I placed the ReptoFilter waterfall on the left-hand side of the tank and ran the power cord up the corner. I then cut two pieces of 1″ packing foam to cover the back of the tank. Next I created a false bottom for the land portion using egg crate light diffuser and zip ties. I used a sheet of egg crate from Home Depot, but I’m intrigued by these and may try them next time. I used garden snips to cut the light crate to size.

Once the skeleton of the land section was constructed, I covered it in weed control fabric and secured it with zip ties to keep the substrate from falling through. With the land section frame complete,

I used Great Stuff Pond & Stone expanding foam to build up the edges to enclose it and also to form a shoreline where the land meets the water. After the foam had dried, I used a steak knife to cut and shape it to look like stone. I added a piece of Mopani wood on the opposite side from the waterfall.

Creating the background

Next I turned the tank on its back and placed several small flower pots down for future planting before applying Great Stuff foam to cover the back (slide 5). In this case I just used the Gaps and Cracks version of Great Stuff because I ran out of Pond & Stone. Gaps & Cracks is actually quite a bit cheaper and works the same, the only downside is it is light colored, so more likely to show through your final background. When the foam had dried, I used the steak knife again to carve it for shape, and made sure to remove all of the shiny surfaces. This is important for the next step, which is to cover the entire background in silicone (I used GE Silicone 1 as it is non-toxic).

After covering the background with silicone, I pressed coconut fiber over the entire surface. You can buy sheets of coconut fiber, but I bought a couple plant liners like these and cut them to size. I used small pieces of fiber along the shoreline to conceal portions of the egg crate between the foam sections.

Plants and decoration

After the background was finished it was time to decorate. I added white sand and stones to the water and plants and artificial vines to the background.

Oliver Winslow the wood turtle sure likes it, but it won’t be long before he outgrows the space and will be looking to move up.

If you enjoyed this post and/or would like to learn more about terrarium and paludarium building, check out SerpaDesign on YouTube. Tanner is the master and demonstrates many of the techniques described above in detail.

Thanks for reading!