Vivascaping
This is the fun part. To get started, I filled the land area with a mixture of 75% coconut fiber and 25% organic terrarium soil. Keeping this organic is important, because whatever is in the soil is going to end up in the water at some point. The question still up in the air is whether this mixture will mold too quickly, requiring an obnoxious soil change. Below the soil is a three inch layer of gravel.

I then planted various 'terrarium' plants that Petco had (I think most of them are just generic houseplants). I'm going to hold off on the exotic terrarium plants like orchids and venus flytraps until I know if the turtle is just going to see this as a glorified salad bar. I used a piece of drift wood to form somewhat of a divider wall between the basking area and where the rest of the plants are, but that's not going to stop him if he's determined.

The marsh section received the same mixture of soil and coconut fiber, but after planting some Acorus gramineus, I added a three inch layer of aquarium gravel to prevent the soil mixture from being stirred up. I then built up a layer of flat rocks to create a basking platform the ramps slightly to the primary land area. The cracks between these rocks are planted with frog moss, which is also used extensively on the dry portion as well to fill in between plants. This should do well with the saturated soil.

The cork bark on the acrylic divider was the finishing touch. I ordered it from herpsupplies.com, which carries a whole variety of useful terrarium decorative items you generally won't find in local pet stores. It also arrived a day early, which allowed me to complete this project over the weekend.

To attach the cork bark, I simply coated the back with silicone and pressed it against the plexiglas panels. It has a natural bow to it, so I used some bbq skewers bent into position against the opposite wall to hold it flat while it dried overnight.

The next morning I added a layer of aquarium gravel in the water area, broke down the old tank, and filled the new one. I forgot to clean the Fluval canister filter, and after hooking it up on the new tank, it pumped three weeks of turtle sludge into the new one. Oops. Anyway, here we are, all moved in:

So everything's looking great. The cork bark is leeching a natural, harmless color into the water, which looks great. I got two dozen guppies, and the smart ones have figure out that they can hid in the marsh region amongst the plants and moss. The no-so-smart ones have become someone's lunch. I'm hoping that once I get some floating plants, guppies will be able to live a full life and breed amongst the roots without being eaten too quickly. I'm also picking out aquatic plants that can grow while anchored to the cork bark. Planting in the gravel is out of the question since turtles like to dig, but embedded on the cork bark should work out well.