live plants and waterfall questions

[wayne89]

i want to make a terrarium with live plants and a water fall that is gecko friendly. i want to get the plants and everything set up and running for a few weeks to a few months beforehand so that i dont have to worry about the Tokay destroying it.


the first picture is a horrible mock up of what im thinking , i want the water from the waterfall to fall into moss and soak back into the soil and back to the pump


Eliminating Vivarium Pests - Geckos Unlimited

here is a link to a vivarium that has a water fall doing what i want. what do you think the risk of drowning is with the moss covering all water. the flow will be minimal so i don't flood everything.

any ideas to improve this please let me know and what soil do you use for your live plants. the tank will be 1'1/2 wide 2' 1/2 tall


p.s. noob to plants

 

[BonnieLorraine]

You're going to have to separate the area where the drip wall runs down from the rest of the soil, otherwise you're going to have constantly soggy soil and rotten plant roots. I'm currently building a 3' Exo Terra with a back drip wall, and my solution is to create a raised bottom using egg crate that will go under the area with soil, so that the soil is never touching the water, and dividing the soil area from the drainage area with a piece of acrylic, placing gravel into the area that will collect water from the drip wall. You're going to need to have a water level of close to 2" under the false bottom, to make sure the submersible pump is always submerged. If you didn't want the drainage layer to be at the same level as the soil, you could always just use rocks or some water resistant wood (mopani, manzita, malaysian drift wood) to section off the soil area, and have a lower gravel area. Kind of like the pond area here

but along the back wall instead of up in front.
For soil I use ABG mix: 1 part milled long fiber sphagnum, 1 part peat moss, 2 parts fine charcoal, 2 parts fine tree fern, 2 parts fine orchid bark. I usually top it with either a thin layer of peat, or in that picture eco earth, to make it look more finished while it's growing in.

 

[wayne89]

thank you that helps

 

[wayne89]

have any of you used this
HygroTherm