What a beautiful display! Thank you for sharing with us before you tear it down and replant. Of course, now we'll want to see the next "version." :-)

Haha, the next version later will definitely have some kind of background, or the back wall draped with plants, moss, something. It's ugly how I left it. It'll be a while yet before I tear this one down so it'll grow on a while still.

Oh, so lovely! Do you use any extra lighting or is it all natural? The plants are compact & some are blooming so I know your light must be just right.

I have a double 48" T8 light strip on the aquarium that is on a 14 hour a day timer. The bulbs are also less than 3 months old so they are fairly new and bright, 6500 k.

Wow! Gorgeous....My Mr. has 2 tanks he doesn't use anymore, but where would I put it? That's the question.

Any kind of plants you want, Debra! My mini terrariums have mini or micro mini African violets in them, mini episcia, mini sinningia, petrocosmea, Deinostigma tamiana, alsobia, Phinaea Multiflora 'Tracery', miniature orchids, mosses, mini ferns and ivies, etc.

Oh! You asked where to put it, not what to put into it. Haha, my bad.

you're ok, the world is wrong.

Lovely setup and plants. As much as I like ferns, IME, they quickly become "thugs" in terraria. Keep an eye on them.

For the crowd at large, do keep in mind that in moist terrs, fungus is often an issue if there is no air movement. PC fans can help w/ that issue.

When you switch out the plants what do you do with the ones that were in the tank?

As it's only a temporary over winter set up, they'll soon be removed and potted up. Likely for hanging baskets or long planters like I did last year. They do well outside on my back deck beneath my hanging orchids. I've been removing stolens a bit here and there all along to pot up for spring plant sales. I haven't decided what I'll plant in there next. Probably a mix of gesneriads, maybe a few smaller orchids too.

oh, wow! what a beautiful sight! and so densely planted!

i am curious, do you have a pic of what it looked like when you just planted it?

so we can see how fast the plants grew over winter?

how are you going to untangle the roots - or are they in individual pots underneath?

Here is a photo when I first planted it. I meant to also build up a mossy back wall but I just haven't had time to deal with it. This was also before I added the variegated ficus to the back right corner.

All of the plants are put directly into the soil, which is over a thick layer of coarse, chunky perlite. So if I water too much I can check the water level in the lowest layer and decide if I needed to syphon any of it back out. I never did. I found if I watered about 1 gallon at a time that was perfect. Episcia roots are no particular problem to gently pull apart and if they break, it doesn't matter because they grow them back so fast.

I'll be removing them soon to pot up into hanging baskets or into large planters for the back deck now it's getting warm enough to move them outside - with some 'Slug Away' granules against snails and slugs, of course. They live in the shade of a big oak tree on my back deck from spring until autumn like this, though they're will be a lot more of them and bigger plants this year. They even get a little fun sun in the mornings and evenings but as long as they are damp, they will thrive even in 100 degree weather.

amazing that you can take care of so-o many plants!

Wicking helps! I have about 3,000 or more plants here in my art studio, and more outside right now. Cuttings and leaves are domed or bagged so they need little watering. Lighted shelving racks have timers. I do a little watering every day but mostly there is always repotting to be done. This is what I do for my full time job besides my artwork, jewelry and photography.

Here's a shot of my desk with two of my many shelving racks.

Here's a shot of my back deck with the coffee and cinnamon trees, and orchids from last summer. A little messy after a storm. There is also a large vegetable garden in the back yard, and flower beds, an orchard, horse pastures, etc. This is where my episcia get worked in, and the adeniums go on the end where there is full sun.

i added 60 small (just rooted) 8oz pots from my trip to miami, Fl over winter. and am having a somewhat hard time at the moment ;)...most of the stuff is tented and /or on wicks like yours. so i am managing, but it's a full time endeavor. that's in addition to my other 150 or so. the 'grown ups' take care of themselves, but 'the littles' require much more attention...

i have other things i'd like to do too, by my 'indoor garden' just took over the past sev years :).

it's simply amazing that you manage to do other things besides! AND you have a large area outside too. i just overstuff my balcony and put a lot there on wicks too so i can travel in summer and not be tied up to it...

It is definitely a time management issue. I'm always looking for ways to do things smarter but if it gets to be too much, I cut things out that aren't worth the time. We are also working on house repairs and house hunting to move, and my husband is in his final crunch for his PHD dissertation, trying to graduate by May. We don't always get a lot of sleep. ;)

h-mm..;)

i got to the point of giving big and medium gorgeous plants away just to free up some space at the windows , but babies stick to me like bees to honey :))))..

hyn,

i was looking at various plants in the pic again and am wondering - in the pic of the tank when it was just planted - to the bottom left of that log in the back, the plant with very large leaves with light green veins, what cultivar is that?

That is episcia 'Looking Glass'. Here's another photo of it before it went into the 75 gallon tank.

Gorgeous!

To the right of Looking Glass and down below in front is Cleopatra (Canadian clone) which as sort of sea-foam pale green leaves edged in pink. The smaller pink right in front of them is Pink Smoke. Are those the ones you mean?

Here is my Cleopatra at the Dixie AVSA Convention in Atlanta, March 2016. And here is a close up leaf detail. I love this plant but it gets big! I sell a lot of these but they take special care in packing for they are big and fragile in shipping, and relatively slow growing as leaf chimeras compared to plants with more green.

i like the 'slow growing' part a lot :))). cleo is quite breathtaking, no doubt!

i am a total sucker ;) for multi pink-cream-green variegation, so i buy up all caladiums in sight that can fit on my balcony :)...and i have Stromanthe and Crotons 'Petra' indoors and a few others and even found a dwarf Hibiscus cooperi with that sort of coloring too. They are a riot - but very hard to mix with other variegated foliage plants for grouped arrangements.

your tank arrangement is very successful in that respect - drifts of smaller plants with quieter colors hold it together. I really love it!

i was into quilts a-ah... a few decades ago ;)..so love playing with color.

can't resist to boast about my balcony wards from last summer :)

sorry, to get sidetracked :)...drooling over cleo still...:)))

i was actually asking about the different plant - this one on the right.

Oh! That is episcia Karlyn. Just a baby tucked in there with the really near black leaves and silvery veining. To the right of it and above, mostly out of the photo is Pink Acajou II. The bright green one of course is Blue Heaven right in front of a Cleo.

If you like small, slow growing episcia for a tiny terrarium, I highly recommend Pink Smoke. It can go for months in a glass bowl without over whelming it if you feed only lightly. Silver Skies and some of the other harder to find mini episcia are also good choices to try in smaller plantings.

Here's 'Pink Smoke' with mosses and lichens in a tray. It's a great mini chimeric episcia. It can be grown out in the open or domed. I have high humidity though so if your humidity is low you might keep it happier domed or at least wicked. There's actually a baby Cleo on the far right, too.

i like the way you layer it with bark with lichen and some moss / sellaginella. looks very cool!

and the flower matches the leaves nicely (which is not true for all epi's).

i think 'pink smoke' and 'cleopatra' is a very nice combo - almost matching, but a slight variation in scale and pattern.

my humidity is good - never less then 65% (winter), rising to 70% soon as i untent all my tropicals on wicks. and then pretty much at 80 may thru sep.

so i only tent the rooting plants, after that they are ok.

Irina ID'ed my NOID epi as 'karlyn' - so it looked very familiar.

But 'Looking glass' is very close but with a rose-burgundy blush.

Yours would probably be Karlyn then as it's a fairly common hybrid. Looking Glass however is pretty rare and little known.

That looks amazing. And that is how we know Terreriums work. If you want to know more, you could go to the link https://goo.gl/3Y8Lsw