I Created a Giant Indoor Lagoon Beach

Imagine having your own beach at home. Sandy shores you can hear crashing into oncoming waves. Discovering chambers in the sand which are home for beach critters. Crystal waters where the moonlight glistens along the sandy floor as you swim below the surface. The bubbling salty water in tide pools along a rocky shoreline with mangro forests and mud flats acting as purification zones creating refreshing marine air you can smell. It would be like having your own personal slice of paradise in your home. Well, what was once called the Impossible Tank has been made. I am Ants Canada, creator of Worlds, building the ultimate lagoon ecosystem vavarium. And this is the story of my newly completed indoor beach. Please subscribe to my channel and hit the bell icon. Welcome to the AC family. Enjoy. I approached the unfinished Viv 5 with great anticipation. Even at this incompleted state, I could already see in my mind how cool this lagoon ecosystem vavarium would be once done. The mud flats, the beach caverns, the rocky tide pools, the shore, the oceanic floor, the mangroves, and the oceanic nursery. This vavarium was by far the most biologically complex habitat I've ever built. I've been trying to think of a name for this vavarium once it was completed. But for some reason, I've been stuck on name ideas, but little did I know, the vavarium would be naming herself when she was full of water. Scheduled the next day. The next day, we prepared the first section of the tank to receive water, the mud flats. This area would be the future home of crabs, some mangroves, other beach creatures, and one of the most anticipated animals for this lagoon vavarium, the mudskippers. In case you're new to mudskippers, mudskippers are amphibious fish that spend about 90% of their lives out of the water. Ever since the creation of Pandora, my first rainforest vavarium, you guys have been requesting for them non-stop, but I couldn't house them because they only live in brackish water environments, meaning part freshwater, part salty. In nature, such environments exist in intertital mud flats, estuaries, and mangrove swamps. And so, this section of the lagoon vavarium will offer this exact habitat for muds skippers. We began to add water to make it a muddy haven. You guys will love what our mud flats will look like when completed. This here is Billy of Aquarium Philippines, the team I chose to work with to help me build this lagoon vavarium. We discussed our future epic plans for this mud flats area, which would also act as an estuary for the mixing of fresh water from the neighboring wetlands Hydromeda with salty water from the oceanic section. Speaking of which, it was now time for the moment of truth. We began to add water to the main oceanic section, and this is where my heart began to race. With my past Vavaria, water leaks were my nemesis. But for this tank, Billy and his team with over 15 years of tank building experience were confident the tank would not leak. So I gave the go signal 3 weeks ago to begin the drycaping process where we added all the rocks, sand, soil, and wood. Viv 5 here had been given 3 weeks to cure its silicone of which a whopping five boxes of 30 canisters were used. But I was nervous because if the tank did leak, we would likely have to take the tank apart and seal everything all over again. Water began to sprawl across the sand and dribble all over the rocks, and I began to drift into a trance as our drycape of sand and rocks began to take on a life of its own. Watching the water as it began to fill Viv 5 was so

beautiful. And suddenly, I felt my body begin to relax as I began to forget all fears of leaks and trust in the integrity of the tank. I find there's something about water that just washes away stress, calms any worries, dissolves uncertainty, and suddenly it felt as though the new water rushing in to fill our lagoon beach was spirit cleansing. Heat. and before I knew it, our lagoon had hit the water level of low tide. This is the lowest water level our lagoon will achieve twice in a 24-hour cycle called low tide, just as would happen in nature. And I was thrilled to imagine the creatures which would be emerging to make use of the exposed areas of the beach during this low tide. Creatures that have evolved to incorporate this regular low tide period into their very biology and lifestyle. To our joy, there were no leaks so far. We proceeded to fill the tank up with more water up to the high tide level. And this is where things got super fun. With water filled to the top, our lagoon looked so cool. The look of the beach, the submerged full mangroves, the now submerged beach caverns. Imagine being a little crab or something calling this home. What a cozy spot. The tide poolool. Everything had suddenly taken on a new life. The main sump, VIP 5's primary filter, also began to fill up with water. Finally, we added one small piece of tech, the wave maker. And I didn't know it yet, but this was the final touch which would make the difference between escape tank with water and a dynamic lagoon beach. We turned on the wave maker and suddenly I witnessed our lagoon come to life. The new currents stirred up debris and dust all around as the waters began to rush past the roots of the mangroves. And at that point, Viv 5 was no longer the same. And the best part about it, Billy was right. No leaks, but nothing could have prepared me for what I would see later that night. I approached Viv 5 and my heart stood still from the sight. I couldn't believe my eyes. the mud flats, the tide pools, the mangroves, and the beach shore area, though still a bit cloudy, just looked so real. It was then that I realized that suddenly in the ant room, we had our own personal beach. All right, guys. Let's swim. This was super cool. I mean, I knew

building Viv 5 would be reconstructing a lagoon habitat, but for some reason, it never kicked into me ever during this whole process that we'd have a literal beach in the ant room. It was the most beautiful thing as I suddenly caught sight of the dancing moonlight through the oceanic water. But guys, if you think this looks cool, wait until you see how cool things looked by morning when the sun comes streaming in through the windows. — The next day, I checked Viv 5. The sun came streaming in from the second floor through the net floor above, and the beauty of our beach lagoon took my breath away. Have a look. The tide poolool area was so cool. The mangroves. Even our mud flats look totally awesome. If I were a crab or mud skipper, these mud flats would definitely look like Disneyland. But the most beautiful part was below the water, the oceanic area. The water was still a bit cloudy, but even now it looked exactly like a mangrove beach lagoon. It was stunning. I could imagine all the unique aquatic life that would be making use of this incredible habitat. muds skippers and crabs in the mud flats, the jungle area, and also the emerging mangroves. The live mangroves would be planted back here. Starfish and urchin may crawl into the tide pools. The barnacles and oysters would love this area. Gobies would love hiding in those rocks. I wonder what would be living in the sand caverns. A variety of schooling fish and archer fish would be swimming through these mangrove roots. Feather dusters, garden eels, sea cucumbers, and even baby banded bamboo sharks would love the oceanic floor. These are just some of the living things of which I couldn't wait to document the lives. The thing that I loved the most about our lagoon beach was how the sunlight danced in the water. All this sun would be great for keeping phytolanton alive, which will be bred in a refugeum in a special chamber under the tank to be dripfed into the system to feed other creatures. It was so calming watching the beams of sunlight dance with the waves, taking me back to the countless times I've snorkeled in such habitats. It was then that it came to me. Viv 5 had sent me a message. Aha. I know. Now — in Latin, the words dancing lights is luminina salantia. Two words which roll off the tongue beautifully and even more so a contraction of the two words luminantia or even shorter lumantia. This could be a name for viv 5. So here's where I need your help. If we're following the recurring theme of the other names, Pantoora, Verdantia, Panchia, which has the word ant in it. What do you guys think of naming our Viv 5 Luminantia or Luantia? They have the word ant in it. In fact, the word Sultantia, which means dancing, has both the word salt and ant in it. AC family, let me know if you like any of these names, i. e. Luminantia, Lumantia, or Sultantia for the official name of Viv 5 by voting with a thumbs up on the post with your name choice under the pinned comment of this video. Or let me know if you have other cool names in mind, and I will announce my official name choice for our lagoon ecosystem vavarium in next week's episode. There's still some final work ahead for Viv 5, which we will complete this week. Namely, the triggering of the rising and falling tides, the increasing of the waves so they splash into the mud flats, landscaping our jungle area, the planting of our live mangroves and seaweed, creation of another deeper tide poolool and chambers we can see into against the glass, installation of the doors, subtank covers, and glass top, as well as the installation of other very technical gear and plumbing, which I'll be getting into in next week's episode For all you hobbyists curious about all the cool technical aspects, for now, our aim is to allow this current freshwater to wash the entire system of trace chemicals from the construction process.

All of this water will be drained tomorrow and replaced with our official brackish water containing marine salt. Over the next few days, the water cleared up wonderfully, and the sights were simply stunning. I could feel in my bones and spirit that this would be an incredible learning experience together as we watch this currently unoccupied beach evolve into our new lagoon ecosystem vavarium with all its living things. I was certain that once these waters and land area were populated with its array of unique creatures, together we will embark on the most incredible biological journey of discovery unlike any other on this channel before. And yes, in case any of you were wondering, there are ant species that can actually live in Viv 5, but I'll be getting into all of that in a future episode. But meanwhile, guys, do remember to subscribe to be part of this new lagoon journey. We're actually so close to the 7 million subs mark now, and it would be amazing for us to hit that 7M milestone during this season 7 of the ecosystem vavarium series. And guys, it's now time for the best part about having this new beach in the ant room. Every night after hours of admiring the beauty of the dancing lights of our beach, I go to the top floor which has a stunning view of the beach below and I crawl onto the net to watch the beauty of our beach. It's the most relaxing and satisfying experience as if I was on a dock hammock or the net of a catamaran looking down onto a moonlit lagoon. It's here where I love falling asleep to the sounds of the crashing waves onto the shores of what was once an impossible tank made possible with a dream. Our lagoon ecosystem barium will be fully completed next week. So, I'll see you all at the finish line in the season 7 finale next week. — Godzilla. Are you excited? Just a little while longer until you move into your brand new kingdom. Vote in my community tab to affect this story. Heat.