Dr Mike Oxgreen
Member
About a month ago I set up a small bowl, about 3 to 4 litres, with some Tropica soil mixed with grit, some dwarf hairgrass and some mini in-vitro hairgrass. I put an IKEA desk lamp over it on a timer for 8 hours a day. I filled it with water from my 20 litre nano tank, which houses ember tetras and blue velvet shrimps.
I was astonished how quickly the hairgrass got established, and after about 10 days I decided to do a slight cull of mis-coloured shrimps from the nano tank. Having nowhere else to put them, I simply dumped them into the bowl. I figured they’d stand a 50:50 chance of surviving.
Far from merely surviving, they appear to be thriving in there. I see occasional molts, and now I’m seeing countless babies. I’m certain that none of the five or six shrimps I put in there were berried at the time, so they must have bred in the bowl. And given the short timescale, I reckon they must have got on with it straight away!
The bowl gets weekly 50% water changes using water from the nano tank, so it’s getting second-hand nutrients. It has no filtration or aeration, but I do see bubbles rising from the hairgrass. Amazingly there has been almost no algae - just a tiny bit of staghorn on some of the longer threads of hairgrass directly under the light (now trimmed off), and there may be a slight haze developing on the glass near the bottom. I lob a tiny piece of tablet food in there every few days, whenever I think of it.
I didn’t give the aesthetics much consideration, so when lockdown eases I may look in local shops to see if I can find a suitable small piece of stone to act as a centrepiece.
I’m just amazed at how these shrimps have made this their home!
I was astonished how quickly the hairgrass got established, and after about 10 days I decided to do a slight cull of mis-coloured shrimps from the nano tank. Having nowhere else to put them, I simply dumped them into the bowl. I figured they’d stand a 50:50 chance of surviving.
Far from merely surviving, they appear to be thriving in there. I see occasional molts, and now I’m seeing countless babies. I’m certain that none of the five or six shrimps I put in there were berried at the time, so they must have bred in the bowl. And given the short timescale, I reckon they must have got on with it straight away!
The bowl gets weekly 50% water changes using water from the nano tank, so it’s getting second-hand nutrients. It has no filtration or aeration, but I do see bubbles rising from the hairgrass. Amazingly there has been almost no algae - just a tiny bit of staghorn on some of the longer threads of hairgrass directly under the light (now trimmed off), and there may be a slight haze developing on the glass near the bottom. I lob a tiny piece of tablet food in there every few days, whenever I think of it.
I didn’t give the aesthetics much consideration, so when lockdown eases I may look in local shops to see if I can find a suitable small piece of stone to act as a centrepiece.
I’m just amazed at how these shrimps have made this their home!