My Tesco "pico" bowl project
Discussion
Thought I'd start a new thread for this, rather than clutter up the other thread.
Having set up a high-tech 25 litre nano tank over the last four months with intense lighting, CO2 injection, external filter and heater, I'm now considering my next watery challenge.
Because I'm currently "between careers" and not earning, this time it's going to have to be on a shoestring. I've stopped spending money on the nano tank.
I'm considering a planted "pico" bowl, something like this bowl from Tesco for a fiver which by my sums would be about 4 litres. (Can someone double-check my sums - 10cm radius, 4/3 pi.r³ - sound right?)
I'm thinking of an Ikea "Jansjö" LED lamp for lighting, which is only 70 lumens but hopefully that'll be enough - I won't have any CO2 and will be trying to keep nutrients low so the light requirement should also be low, unlike my nano tank which has injected CO2 and a generous daily nutrient dose.
It'll be unheated and unfiltered. The plants will be responsible for the majority of ammonia control. I'll have a substrate of garden soil, topped by gravel - a kind of "Walstad" setup. I'll start off with some pieces of dwarf hairgrass which I can pull up from the nano tank. I might try some HC as well, although without CO2 and with low-ish light I doubt it'll grow. I can of course bung some hornwort in there, and I might scoop some Azolla caroliniana from the pond (it's a bit like duckweed but with a pretty, feathery leaf shape).
I will probably have to spend some money on plants; any suggestions? They'll need to be low-light, low CO2 and small.
Needless to say, fish are out of the question in such a small, unheated, unfiltered container! However, I will probably add Malaysian Trumpet Snails, and once the bowl has matured for a month or so perhaps a nerite snail. If I'm feeling confident that the bowl has matured well then I'll consider adding a handful of red cherry shrimps.
And here it it! No plants yet, but I did buy a small piece of driftwood which I'm currently boiling in water to try and persuade it to sink.
Edited to add: You might notice that my aquatic projects are getting smaller and smaller. I predict that my next project will be a freshwater planted whisky tumbler. And I'm only half joking!
Having set up a high-tech 25 litre nano tank over the last four months with intense lighting, CO2 injection, external filter and heater, I'm now considering my next watery challenge.
Because I'm currently "between careers" and not earning, this time it's going to have to be on a shoestring. I've stopped spending money on the nano tank.
I'm considering a planted "pico" bowl, something like this bowl from Tesco for a fiver which by my sums would be about 4 litres. (Can someone double-check my sums - 10cm radius, 4/3 pi.r³ - sound right?)
I'm thinking of an Ikea "Jansjö" LED lamp for lighting, which is only 70 lumens but hopefully that'll be enough - I won't have any CO2 and will be trying to keep nutrients low so the light requirement should also be low, unlike my nano tank which has injected CO2 and a generous daily nutrient dose.
It'll be unheated and unfiltered. The plants will be responsible for the majority of ammonia control. I'll have a substrate of garden soil, topped by gravel - a kind of "Walstad" setup. I'll start off with some pieces of dwarf hairgrass which I can pull up from the nano tank. I might try some HC as well, although without CO2 and with low-ish light I doubt it'll grow. I can of course bung some hornwort in there, and I might scoop some Azolla caroliniana from the pond (it's a bit like duckweed but with a pretty, feathery leaf shape).
I will probably have to spend some money on plants; any suggestions? They'll need to be low-light, low CO2 and small.
Needless to say, fish are out of the question in such a small, unheated, unfiltered container! However, I will probably add Malaysian Trumpet Snails, and once the bowl has matured for a month or so perhaps a nerite snail. If I'm feeling confident that the bowl has matured well then I'll consider adding a handful of red cherry shrimps.
And here it it! No plants yet, but I did buy a small piece of driftwood which I'm currently boiling in water to try and persuade it to sink.
Edited to add: You might notice that my aquatic projects are getting smaller and smaller. I predict that my next project will be a freshwater planted whisky tumbler. And I'm only half joking!
I've been boiling the piece of wood for about 24 hours (Mrs Oxgreen was unimpressed with my abuse of her Le Creuset), and it now just about sinks.
So I've bunged it in, along with a bit of hornwort for prettification.
I've ordered some plants:
So I've bunged it in, along with a bit of hornwort for prettification.
I've ordered some plants:
- Dwarf hairgrass (Eliocharis parvula)
- Anubias nana "mini" to attach to the bottom of the wood
- Sagittaria subulata
- A portion of Java moss to attach to the edges of the wood.
It's all planted up with the proper plants now, and as you can see I decided to stick a Tillandsia air plant on top. Looks okay, but needs to settle a bit more and I need to get rid of some of the soil that has settled on the leaves...
Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Thursday 24th March 14:34
)Noticed the first signs of algae yesterday, so did a 75% water change and reduced the lighting period to 4 hours. The water was quite discoloured; I guess the piece of wood is still leaching tannin.
I've not received the batch of baby Malaysian Trumpet Snails I ordered from eBay, so there's another batch on the way. There are a few pond snails that have somehow taken up residence though.
I'm going to try growing a small amount of Glossostigma emersed, out of the water around the base of the air plant to try and make it look a bit less daft. I've got a pot of it that has been growing very successfully in a propagator in the greenhouse under grow lights, and just standing in a saucer of water. I reckon I could wrap a very small amount of compost in some kind of material, and place it just in the water near the top of the wood.
Actually I've just thought: I could also try growing some cress...
I added a single drop of ammonia solution a week or two ago, and tested the water a few days ago. The ammonia level was not as high as it 'should' have been, and there is now a nitrite reading - so nitrification is already happening, which is good.
There will never be any fish in it, of course, but once it has settled down I'll probably add a Nerite snail - and once it has matured for a few more months I might be brave and try adding some red cherry shrimps. Not sure though, that might be pushing it a bit far. With the substrate and wood in there, there's only about 2.5 litres of water!
I've not received the batch of baby Malaysian Trumpet Snails I ordered from eBay, so there's another batch on the way. There are a few pond snails that have somehow taken up residence though.
I'm going to try growing a small amount of Glossostigma emersed, out of the water around the base of the air plant to try and make it look a bit less daft. I've got a pot of it that has been growing very successfully in a propagator in the greenhouse under grow lights, and just standing in a saucer of water. I reckon I could wrap a very small amount of compost in some kind of material, and place it just in the water near the top of the wood.
Actually I've just thought: I could also try growing some cress...
I added a single drop of ammonia solution a week or two ago, and tested the water a few days ago. The ammonia level was not as high as it 'should' have been, and there is now a nitrite reading - so nitrification is already happening, which is good.
There will never be any fish in it, of course, but once it has settled down I'll probably add a Nerite snail - and once it has matured for a few more months I might be brave and try adding some red cherry shrimps. Not sure though, that might be pushing it a bit far. With the substrate and wood in there, there's only about 2.5 litres of water!
Hows the pico tank going? I have some spare marimo balls and java moss. I was thinking of setting something up, ideally maintenance and tech free. I was reading about brine shrimp today, but unfortunately they need saltwater. I'm not sure if it would be possible to have anything living in it aside from plants.
It's going really well!
A while ago I bought a batch of baby Malaysian Trumpet Snails off eBay and chucked them in, and they seem to be thriving. None of the plants have died, and the moss will shortly need a trim. Somehow a runner from the Sagittaria has made its way across to the other side of the bowl and is invading the hair grass, so that plantlet will need cutting off and replanting back where it belongs. The little piece of Anubias rhizome that I broke off and superglued near the top of the wood seems quite happy growing semi-submerged and semi-emersed. There is remarkably little algae: just a small amount of green thread algae.
And I've started adding some shrimps!
The shrimps in my 'main' 25 litre nano tank have been breeding like crazy, and somehow a proportion of the recent babies are reddish - gawd only knows where those genes came from! The shrimps in that tank are meant to be blue, and I'm slightly concerned that if there's too much genetic diversity they'll eventually revert to the plain brown wild form, so I've been targeting the non-blue babies and siphoning them up to transfer them into the pico bowl.
The shrimps seem to be surviving fine in the bowl, although they are masters of concealment and it can take a while to spot any. But when you do find them, they're doing that little shrimpy dance while picking up bits of detritus to eat. Occasionally you see one swim about - they're surprisingly active considering the water temperature must be only about 20°C. I've probably put about 15-20 mis-coloured baby shrimps in there so far, and will probably continue my fascist racial cleansing of the shrimps in the main tank.
I've also siphoned up a few little crustacean creatures from the main tank - I think they're called "seed shrimps". Weird little things that scuttle around on the substrate and occasionally swim quite fast. Lord knows where they came from, but they seem harmless and quite cool.
It's nice to have a bit of movement in the bowl. I'm spending most of my days on ATPL studies at the moment, so the shrimps are a welcome distraction from Meteorology, Air Law, Principles of Flight etc etc ad nauseam.
I'll take some pictures today and post them up.
A while ago I bought a batch of baby Malaysian Trumpet Snails off eBay and chucked them in, and they seem to be thriving. None of the plants have died, and the moss will shortly need a trim. Somehow a runner from the Sagittaria has made its way across to the other side of the bowl and is invading the hair grass, so that plantlet will need cutting off and replanting back where it belongs. The little piece of Anubias rhizome that I broke off and superglued near the top of the wood seems quite happy growing semi-submerged and semi-emersed. There is remarkably little algae: just a small amount of green thread algae.
And I've started adding some shrimps!
The shrimps in my 'main' 25 litre nano tank have been breeding like crazy, and somehow a proportion of the recent babies are reddish - gawd only knows where those genes came from! The shrimps in that tank are meant to be blue, and I'm slightly concerned that if there's too much genetic diversity they'll eventually revert to the plain brown wild form, so I've been targeting the non-blue babies and siphoning them up to transfer them into the pico bowl.
The shrimps seem to be surviving fine in the bowl, although they are masters of concealment and it can take a while to spot any. But when you do find them, they're doing that little shrimpy dance while picking up bits of detritus to eat. Occasionally you see one swim about - they're surprisingly active considering the water temperature must be only about 20°C. I've probably put about 15-20 mis-coloured baby shrimps in there so far, and will probably continue my fascist racial cleansing of the shrimps in the main tank.
I've also siphoned up a few little crustacean creatures from the main tank - I think they're called "seed shrimps". Weird little things that scuttle around on the substrate and occasionally swim quite fast. Lord knows where they came from, but they seem harmless and quite cool.
It's nice to have a bit of movement in the bowl. I'm spending most of my days on ATPL studies at the moment, so the shrimps are a welcome distraction from Meteorology, Air Law, Principles of Flight etc etc ad nauseam.
I'll take some pictures today and post them up.
Edited by Dr Mike Oxgreen on Saturday 11th June 07:12
Interesting. I wonder how many shrimps it can take before the bioload becomes too much. Do you chuck in a carefully portioned amount of shrimp food?
I actually had a dual purpose in mind. I have taken on a solitary dwarf puffer in a nano tank and it would be nice to raise a culture of maybe baby shrimp or daphnia to augment the frozen bloodworms he's eating. I have introduced red ramshorn snails to my main tank in the hope they will breed to use as another food source.
I actually had a dual purpose in mind. I have taken on a solitary dwarf puffer in a nano tank and it would be nice to raise a culture of maybe baby shrimp or daphnia to augment the frozen bloodworms he's eating. I have introduced red ramshorn snails to my main tank in the hope they will breed to use as another food source.
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