15l bowl scape

[Commander Shepard]

Hi everyone
Just started a new project, which will be my second aquarium.
It's a 15l glass bowl. No filter, no co2, fairly strong light and a tiny heater.

The substrate is composed of layers of lava stone gravel, Tropica Substrate, root tabs, a bit more gravel, then a sand cap.

For the plants, I have dwarf hairgrass, MC, crypt lutea hobbit, Althernatera mini, some buce and whatever else I'll bring over from my main tank. I'll also add a peace lily or similar for nutrient export.

The hardscape is mostly done now:

 

[Commander Shepard]

Planting is done, except for the emersed houseplants. The distortion will take some getting used to for sure. MC looks huge initially, but once it transitions to underwater growth it will be a third of the size, at least that's how it went in my other tank.

 

[The Miniaturist]

Looking good, it will be interesting to see how it grows & matures.
I think the distortion is a 'marmite' thing...you either like it or you don't! I bought a second hand Aquael Sphere 45 last year & I love it. It sits next to my work table so I get an uninterrupted view with no corners!
I have 4 sparkling gourami & 4 pygmy corys in there, they seem to be very happy.
The only thing I find awkward is trimming & planting. You really need to look down from the top otherwise you chop the wrong thing or miss completely! 🤓

 

[Commander Shepard]

Added the emersed plants. Asparagus fern and some other fern I don't recognise.

 

[PARAGUAY]

Nice choice of emmersed plant looks really good

 

[Commander Shepard]

Nice choice of emmersed plant looks really good

Thanks! Not sure if they'll survive long term, especially the unknown fern, but it's worth a try.

 

[Commander Shepard]

Looking good, it will be interesting to see how it grows & matures.
I think the distortion is a 'marmite' thing...you either like it or you don't! I bought a second hand Aquael Sphere 45 last year & I love it. It sits next to my work table so I get an uninterrupted view with no corners!
I have 4 sparkling gourami & 4 pygmy corys in there, they seem to be very happy.
The only thing I find awkward is trimming & planting. You really need to look down from the top otherwise you chop the wrong thing or miss completely! 🤓

Yeah, I'm starting to think maintenance will be a nightmare, though hopefully all the shrimp will reduce the need. Love sparkling gouramis, have a couple in my larger tank.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Added the emersed plants. Asparagus fern and some other fern I don't recognise.

I think the "Asparagus Fern" (Asparagus (plumosus) setaceus) might struggle with it being too wet in the winter.

The other fern looks like a Boston Fern (Nephrolepis exaltata), it may be all right.

cheers Darrel

 

[Commander Shepard]

Hi all,

I think the "Asparagus Fern" (Asparagus (plumosus) setaceus) might struggle with it being too wet in the winter.

The other fern looks like a Boston Fern (Nephrolepis exaltata), it may be all right.

cheers Darrel

Saw people using it quite a bit, though that might have been just for the YouTube video of course. If it dies there's always a peace lily.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

If it dies there's always a peace lily.

Spathiphyllum (Peace Lily) is pretty fool-proof. I stuck some bits in one of the fish tanks about three months ago until I got around to potting them up. I found them again today, and they have done much better than the bits I potted up.

Adiantum spp. (Maidenhair Fern) <"work pretty well"> if you want a fern? The little ones you buy are usually A. raddianum.

This was @hitmanx 's plant nine years on.

cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,
Poor photo, but this is the "forgotten" Spathiphyllum.

Cheers Darrel

 

[Commander Shepard]

Found this list from Serpadesign, wish I had it when I started: Understanding Riparian Plants — SerpaDesign

As for the bowl, the asparagus fern started growing, while the Boston fern is slowly dying back, though this might change later on.

Also thinking of adding some larger stems of parlour palm to help with the initial ammonia spike, which has been quite bad, up to 6ppm with a 90% water change every 2-3 days. It grows tall so it won't shade the underwater plants as much.

Started working on extending and covering the above water wood with some moss that doesn't spread underwater. Hoping to just pick something from the forest around here.

 

[Commander Shepard]

Went out to the local woods and found six different species of moss, including fissidens nobilis.

Then I did something potentially very unwise and added them to the scape without doing much research. Hopefully at least some will survive and also not ruin the aquatic part.

Used some microfibre for wicking and superglue. Replaced the Boston fern with a small buce cutting as it really wasn't doing well.

Don't mind the temporary bag of zeolite - it really helped with getting the water quality under control so I can add some ramshorns.

 

[Commander Shepard]

Some good progress on this one. All the aquatic plants seem to be growing, though the Althernatera looked like it wasn't going to make it and still looks fairly weak.

Added some parlour palm stems to have something bigger that can take up the nutrients. I expect they'll eventually root into the substrate. Also put in salvinia temporarily.

The ramshorns went in a while ago and also an otocinclus. This means a water change every other day, but they are keeping the initial slime algae in check.

 

[Commander Shepard]

Finally got round to taking some photos of this bowl. The fish are in - honey gourami, axelrodi rasboras, chilli rasboras (wasn't planning on them, but they needed rescuing from my main community tank), tiger shrimp and some green hade shrimp. Picked up the green jades from Aquatics to your door, which I do not recommend. Only two out of eight turned out to be proper jade shrimp, the others were cull grade or wild type. Only offered 50% refund as well...

Plants are doing well, with the roots reaching into the tropica soil now. Also added some Hydrocotyle Tripartita Mini which is my new favourite plant. Water changes are also down, still doing a couple per week, the seiryu stone is leaking far more
carbonates than I thought it would.

 

[richardcunliffe]

Nice project. Like the out of water plant selection, I've mean meaning to try some random foraged moss myself. Did you have anything that caused trouble in the end?

Adiantum spp. (Maidenhair Fern) <"work pretty well"> if you want a fern?

Will try this one, I can barely keep them alive in pots!

The distortion will take some getting used to for sure.

I built a shrimp bowl a couple of months back and was disappointed with the distortion. The hardscape looked so good before the water went in. I think it was more the change in the overall effect that surprised me and was emphasised by having hardscape that came out of the water. Yours still looks great even with the water. Next time I think I might try scaping with the water already in...

 

[The Miniaturist]

The distortion seems to be flattened out in photographs. It's great for very tiny fish though, you get to appreciate just how beautiful they are when they're magnified!
If you're a snail fan you may like to add a few ramshorns to keep the glass clean, saves trying twist your hand round all the hardscape.
I still don't know how you managed to fiddle all those rocks & roots in through the top!

 

[kal_xyz]

Looks amazing, love the 360 island design! The only thing with asparagus fern is that if anything dies off it sheds these very fine "needles", def worth keeping on top of pruning to avoid picking it off the water surface which I would imagine could be tedious. Might also never happen if you're better at keeping plants than me

 

[John q]

Love this tank, not sure I'd put any fish in a 15l set up but each to there own .

 

[Commander Shepard]

Thanks everyone!
@richardcunliffe the moss has been okay. Some of it dried out or got too wet, slight mould in a shaded area, but nothing too bad. The microfibre cloth doesn't work quite as well as I hoped, might need something purpose made next time, but I also could have gotten glue on it.

The distortion is growing on me. It's a pain to clean the glass though, next time I'll probably do one of those bevelled 30cm cubes instead just because of that.

@The Miniaturist had a bunch of ramshorns since the beginning to avoid the slime and detritus buildup. They can handle a lot of ammonia and nitrites without any issues.

Did all the scaping @Aquarium Gardens to make sure it fits. Cutting and drilling the manzanita? wood afterwards was a huge pain though, even with power tools. Didn't realise how tough it is.

@kal_xyz had a single stem die so far but caught it before it dropped too much debris. The others seem fine so far.

@John q fish seem fine so far, there are a lot of caves and holes for them to hide and explore, so they don't have the swimming in circles issue. Bioload is also far from the limit. That said, I'm keeping in eye on them and moving them if needed, especially as the gourami matures. The others are mostly full size as far as I can tell.