The bog area is finally beginning to come together. We used cut stone to seal up the sides, and a bead of silicone along where the underlay and the aquarium come together.
Working with natural broken stone has proven to be a challenge, and we've been through several iterations. What you see in the photos should be the final configuration, with the exception of whatever shunts we need to correct to guide the water flow.
We had originally planned to use one of the return pumps as the water source, but we needed both returns to keep up water flow in the tank, so we've gotten two smaller pumps, and split the flow on both to control volume.
The right hand side has a small lake at the top, with an overflow into a small stream that empties into a larger lake that in turn drains into the tank.
The left side is meant to be more of a natural cliff fall. Water will come from the topmost opening, as well as the 'cavern' to the left, and will hopefully follow the water course out onto the center glass support, and then into the tank. Once we have established the water flow, the final flow will be routed so that it keeps the marginals wet, and flows back into the tank. We'll place a terrestrial Ivy on both the left and right side of the lattice and allow it to fill in, as well as attaching mosses and epiphytes to the bog area and the base.
Since the marginals will be planted in a mixture of vermiculite and perlite, there should be little danger of fertilzer or chemical leaching from the plant soil wreaking havoc in the tank, and the terrestrial plants will be watered from, and drain on a separate channel.
We are waiting to build out the center until we pick out plants and containers.
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