# Low-budget bowl



## Majsa (2 May 2020)

Time for a new scape! I have been planning to do something with this old bowl but never got to it until now. I expect it to hold about 7,5 lites of water when 3/4 filled. I am not planning to add any fauna. 




 

I have set a restriction for myself; the idea is to use mostly/only plants and gear that I already have. I found this small sponge filter and I have a Dennerle bio-CO2 kit laying around, just need to buy a bottle. The piece of wood has been soaking for a few days now. I also have an opened bag of Tropica soil powder from 2018, I hope it's still good! As for plants, I have a lot of easy plants in my other tanks, just need to choose:

Anubias nana
Anubias petite
Bucephalandra sp. red
Java fern, small variety (I think Narrow)
Java windeløv
Java trident
Bolbitis heudelotii
Crypt wendtii
Crypt lutea and lucens, but don't know which one is which
Crypt beckettii petchii
Crypt albida "brown"
Crypt parva
Crypt undulatus red (not even sure if this is still there)
Spiky and Christmas moss
Cladophora aegagropila (moss balls)
Limnobium laevigatum
Pistia stratiotes

Any suggestions for combinations are welcome! Some of the plants can easily be removed from the other tanks, others are more difficult (for example crypt parva is such a slow grower I have only a few rosettes). 

If I am going to order the bio-CO2 bottle anyway, I might smuggle in one or two plants - any must-haves? I like hygrophila pinnatifida, but I haven't succeeded with it in the past. Something small that can grow half emersed in the top part?

Talking about emersed, could it be possible to do a "reverse dry start" (wet start then) and gradually turn this into an emersed setup by the autumn? All the plants are growing submersed at the moment.


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## Majsa (4 May 2020)

I thought I'd find volunteers to clean off the white slime from the spiderwood.


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## Majsa (15 May 2020)

Here it is, on day 2. It became a jungle bowl with lots of ferns. It was tricky to plant this (glue on fingers and floating ferns) and I am afraid maintenance won't be any easier  I am trying to do daily water changes for now to minimise algae.


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## Greeny (15 May 2020)

It looks great! What a nice interesting focal point in a room. I know what you mean about sticky fingers. I used superglue for my epiphytes for the first time ever and I stuck my fingers to all sorts of things like each other, the superglue bottle, my planting tweezers etc! Ended up with a nice film of it on my fingers lol. As for maintanance, looks well worth it imo!


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## Majsa (16 May 2020)

Thanks Greeny!


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## Melll (13 Aug 2020)

How is the bowl doing now?


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## Majsa (13 Aug 2020)

Hi Mell, nice of you to ask! I was planning to run this for the summer but then got other ideas and recycled everything 

The wood, some of the plants and the bio-CO2 system went to my "new" 45L tank (I have a journal here), together with plants and some gravel from my dismantled shrimp tank
I used the soil to make a wabi kusa ball (pic below)
and the ferns are still in the plain bowl, as I don't know what the do with them (I don't want to trow away the windeløv as it is the only one I've got)

I liked the bowl but found it a bit high maintenance, especially the bigger piece of wood just kept producing stuff (didn't know the white mold can pearl ). Maybe it could work better with some (pest) snails and/or truly low-tech. But the plants did fine, except the smaller crypts (albida brown and parva) which didn't really want to root.


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## Dr Mike Oxgreen (13 Aug 2020)

I know you said “no fauna”, and for such a small bowl that’s a wise decision.

But you could get away with some _Asellus aquaticus_, which you could collect from ponds or streams nearby. They’re very hardy and kinda cool.


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## Melll (14 Aug 2020)

Majsa said:


> I used the soil to make a wabi kusa ball
> 
> View attachment 153061



This looks really nice 😃👍


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## Majsa (14 Aug 2020)

Dr Mike Oxgreen said:


> I know you said “no fauna”, and for such a small bowl that’s a wise decision.
> 
> But you could get away with some _Asellus aquaticus_, which you could collect from ponds or streams nearby. They’re very hardy and kinda cool.



Wow those look cool indeed...and a bit scary at the same time! I’ve seen people talking about Asellus here before, but never looked it up until now. 



Melll said:


> This looks really nice



Thanks Melll!


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## sparkyweasel (14 Aug 2020)

Majsa said:


> Wow those look cool indeed...and a bit scary at the same time!


They are cute and interesting. They are also Isopods; if you think _Asellus _is scary, don't look at giant isopods, 
eg: Isopod


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## Majsa (15 Aug 2020)

The link isn't working for me, but of course I looked it up


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