A Swedish Suprise

[NatalieHurrell]

Hello all. Not had a tank for some years and we've finally moved into our new house, but it will take about 6 months to do the work on the house and decorating. In the meantime I've set up a little experiment.

I found an 11 litre vase at IKEA today and had an idea, so then went in search of a desk lamp. In hindsight, the lamp might be a bit bright, but time will tell. There is quite a lot of ambient light in our room, so will only have it on for a few hours in the evening and see how I go.

I've gathered further supplies - pond soil, sand, lava rock, plants and what I think is redmoor wood.

I've assembled the vase and put the wood in without soaking it, so I expect mega tannins and daily water changes for the foreseeable future. So far glue is holding it down...

Plants are Bacopa Caroliniana (?), Hygrophilia Corombosa, Eldoa (weighted and wedged between rocks) and Salvinia. The parlour palm is cable tied to the wood until it gets too big. I intend to get rid of the eldoa eventually. Will lightly dose with ferts until I have my inhabitants (a few shrimp and snails).

No heater, no filter. A first for me.

Once I have my big tank set up the whole lot will transfer over.

Wish me luck. I am expecting algae, diatoms and probably the demise of the Salvinia, as it wasn't looking too hot when I bought it! Any suggestions welcomed.

One thing I have learnt is vases are a pain to try and aquascape and no room for maneuver!

Please excuse the pics. Didn't have the energy left to dig out the camera.

 

[NatalieHurrell]

So the vase is a few weeks old now.

I did 50% water changes daily for the first week and every other day since then. I've also lightly dosed ferts, in the absence of any bio load. As a result, I have had to invert the redmoor wood, as the plants are growing fast and running out of space. It looks wrong from an aquascaping perspective, but on the upside it is a great place to wedge the parlour palm, allowing me to ditch the ugly cable tie.

Chuffed that so far all I have had is a little algae dust on the glass, which the Three Amigos (newly installed Malaysian Trumpet Snails) are munching their way through now. I was collecting them from my local Maidenhead Aquatics when my other half (who was out cycling) said he needed recovering, due to "a catastrophic loss of forward momentum". I rushed off, snails in tow, to get him and there then ensued an entertaining 15 minutes, trying to get a road bike in a Mini. Let's just say we had to pretty much take the bike down to it's component parts to get it in the car!

I added some terrestrial moss to the wood yesterday, which has nicely wicked up water. We'll see how that goes. The Salvinia is starting to green up and multiply. The Bacopa has started to breach the surface. I did have a few uprooted plants at one point and have realised what a pig of a job it is trying to maneuver in a small vase. Thank goodness for long tweezers.

Counting down the days until I can upgrade the tank size, but so much decorating to do before then...

 

[aec34]

This is absolutely my kind of tank - love it!

 

[NatalieHurrell]

Quick update. I was soooo happy to find I had a hitch hiking pink Ramshorn this evening. My other half dutifully came over to see and said he'd try his best to look excited! I tried to get a picture (sad I know), but fluted vases don't really allow for focusing easily, even in macro mode. Another reason not to choose a round, fluted vase!

Salvinia is a mixed bag. Lots of new leaves (yay), some dying leaves (boo), but guess it's just the circle of life. Terrestrial moss seems happy.

 

[NatalieHurrell]

So. No proper pics, but have added some Creeping Jenny on the wood, with the tap roots in the water. No idea if it will thrive or not. Will update in course. Hoping it can go in my riparium tank, once I have set it up. Has anyone had great success with this plant in a riparium at all?

Down to twice weekly water changes. I now seem to have gained one new baby MTS (that I know of) and a bladder snail too. This takes the inhabitants to 6 snails.

 

[killi69]

Great project and taking up minimal space! I look forward to seeing the vase flourish👍🏼

 

[MichaelJ]

Minimalism at its best.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Has anyone had great success with this plant in a riparium at all?

It is a very rampant grower. Anagallis tenella looks similar, but is much smaller and better behaved.

cheers Darrel

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Anagallis tenella looks similar, but is much smaller and better behaved.

There are photos in <"My first 3.........">.

cheers Darrel

 

[NatalieHurrell]

Thank you Darrel. More food for thought.

 

[NatalieHurrell]

So, having done a heck of a lot of decorating in the rest of the house, we couldn't face the wallpaper stripping and making good the walls in our lounge. We've managed to book a decorator for 15th January, so looks like I can order the tank for delivery early Feb. After waiting over a year to get this far, I can actually start thinking in earnest which tank I want. For now I'll have to accept my little 11 litre vase is it for now. It's flourishing, with some emergent growth and zero algae, so at least I seem to be able to grow things!

In the meantime I have started gathering some basic supplies, which also gave me a good excuse to walk around Maidenhead Aquatics for a while. Went in empty handed, came out with a piece of redmoor I intend to use as twisted roots coming down a bank of lava rock, a net and some more pond soil. I also grabbed a small bag of pea gravel from the garden center to use as a bottom layer under the substrate, to prevent compaction. Will be topping with coarse sand.

I also want to go out and collect some fallen leaves. I discovered that Magnolia are safe to use and we have a huge tree in our garden, so headed out to gather those this morning. They can dry out fully and then I can store them. Will get some oak and beech leaves too if I can.
I've also acquired a gnarly piece of oak, that will need soaking and some heather wood. Not sure if I'll use those or not, but good to have a choice.

It's not much, but a step in the right direction.

 

[NatalieHurrell]

So, the Swedish Suprise has now morphed into a 36 litre bargain tank I picked up for £20.00 (supposedly only three weeks old). That along with an Oase Thermo internal filter I purchased from UKAPS (thank you once again Paulthewitt) and a very solid little secondhand table, it has made for a cheap setup of what will be a plant growing tank now and a quarantine tank later.

I placed a layer of gravel in the tank to prevent compaction and to raise a section on the right. This will be to place an amazing piece of Corbo wood on, once it's waterlogged enough. I then moved over the substrate from my vase and topped with coarse sand. Sadly not the colour I wanted, but was all I could get at the time.

Now this is not meant to be an aquascape, just a temporary tank (until Februaury), so I have not put a background on it, not banked the substrate up. The plants are just the ones that had outgrown the vase, so they are all looking a bit sorry for themselves.

The piece of Corbo wood I have has a natural cave in it and holes that will make for a good riparium and emersed planting area. I hope to start them off in this tank then simply lift the wood out and place in my new tank when I get it.

Here it is so far. I don't have any fine filter floss, so may take a while to clear...

 

[NatalieHurrell]

May have slipped and ended up with two Sparkling Gourami for now. I blame my other half. He told me to get them! Will up the group size and add Pentazona/Hexazona Barbs when I upgrade the tank in February. I had to take out the Corbo wood to make room for the fish. That's now soaking in the garden. The Parlour Palm is now in a container of fertilised water. It's taken two days to get the sparklers to eat anything. Flake food and frozen rejected. Turns out they love Fluval Bug Bites. Phew! Please excuse the pants pictures. Taken on my phone, not my DSLR.

 

[NatalieHurrell]

Happy New Year one and all.

So, over the last week I have learnt that a) Sparklers only prefer the best things in life - they won't eat flake food, only bloodworm and Bug Bites, crushed by hand (I am their slave already) b) just how dense a densely planted tank needs to be before they stop being scared of their own shadow or jousting constantly with their tank mates, c) four is better than two. Agression has now dropped to mild chasing when they can be bothered. I'm hooked already. I've kept all manner of fish in my time, but these have me entranced. I have included a particularly bad photo, taken on my phone. Will Rock out the DSLR at some point... oh and ignore the poor plant behind, it arrived in that state!

 

[Kave_art_man]

Interesting set up, looks very nice, been thinking to do a few different set ups like this with different shapes and sizes