u/One-Garage7995

Hello all. I've just noticed my shelf is sagging ever so slightly. I have heard the horror stories on aquarium reddit and I don't want this gorgeous piece to end up shattered on the floor.

After removing excess water and the neighboring books, I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions. I'm looking at bookshelves online and I can't find ones I love aesthetically that also have high per-shelf weight capacity.

I can't quite weigh the terrarium, but my math puts it at no more than 45 pounds.

I have thought about adding reinforcement in the form of two by fours below this shelf, but I worry that it will not only be ineffective but also ugly.

Any advice is appreciated

Hey I wanted to share some pictures and info from the process of building my paludarium in my milsbo!

As in videos online, I assembled the cabinet and used the shelves to act as a base and water catch. It took several tries for me to get it leak proof.

I built the scape using sheets of egg crate light diffuser as a sort of retaining wall and then put my substrate behind that.

For the waterfall, I used some pond liner draped downwards and broke up some shale, which I mostly attached with great stuff foam.

I actually only took videos of the build progress so they are linked here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZqsxjHnDtQs72dkP9

One mistake I made was using orchid bark in my substrate. It has leached tons of tannins into the water and continues to do so despite water changes. I was hoping to have a little planted tank in the front and some aquascape, but the water is prohibitively dark for this and I can't easily change out my substrate.

I think if I were to do it over, I would do without the substrate entirely, except for within small integrated pots and build the whole hardscape from spray foam, but keep the aquarium at the bottom

I've been collecting begonia propagations to work towards a waterfall paludarium with lots of pops of red from begonias. She's a few months old and many of the begonias are exploding!

I made this build back in December of 2025 and it has been absolutely thriving ever since.

Recently I added some mini Ram's Horn snails to help clean the creekbed.

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions about this build

Who else thinks this feller is super cute?

Anyways, I did my best on the videography, I'm sorry for the quality. What do y'all think?

Can anyone help me ID this coat? It's killer.