Hey! First let me say i am a begginer, in fact i only set-up my first terrarium this week! (i attached a photo for you to see).
My tank is also relatively small, 54 lt (~12 gallons?). I went for a "tropical rainforest" theme, you speak of fairy gardens (im not sure what exactly those are, will look it up though sounds interesting). I got most of my plants from my local garden centre from the tropical section (cost me a total of â¬20 for all of the plants - because their all small).

So i got three diffrenent ferns (adantium capillus-veneris [maidenhair fern]; polystichum tsus-simanse; and another unidentified fern), three different cultivars of fittonia (i just love the veined leave patterns on them); a peperomia; tradescantia zebrina; exacum affine [persian flower]; a sedum; an aloe zebrina; a monadenium ritchiei, a mini phaleonopsis; a ceropegia woodii (hanging in a pot inside the terrarium) and finally a sarracenia catesbei (which actually is more of a bog plant so i just placed the pot into the medium as can be seen, the pot is also covered in moss which is nice). Another unidentified plant and some type of small palm/bamboo.

Maybe that gives you some ideas :) initially i was going to make it a mini orchid terrarium, but due to the high costs of orchids (other than the phal i picked up for 2.50) i decided to go for what i got, and im loving it.

I used a layer of hydroballs on the bottom, then for medium i made a mixture of wood bark chips, coconut husk, ~cup of normall potting soil, and a little bit of peat moss. I didnt use any charcoal or anti-mold products. The terrarium is a second hand aqaurium i picked up (for 24â¬), it has 15W fluorescent light tube. Today i recieved and added two small 4cm computer fans (one that blows fresh air in and the other sucks air out). The set-up is only 5 days old but so far the plants all look happy still :)
But like i said im a complete begginer to this so take any advice/ideas with a good tablespoon of salt ;)
Please ask if you got any further questions.

Good luck!

Adrian,
That is beautiful!
Now I want one!
Good Job!

Adrian,

Wow!! That is AWESOME. I really like what you put together. A picture is worth a thousand words! TFS!!

This post was edited by teisa on Thu, Oct 24, 13 at 3:03