# nano in a 5 gallon glass jug?



## GulfCoastAquarian (Jul 30, 2002)

I guess the most challenging thing to provide will be light. Unless it came from the side and this would cause algae on the glass more than plant growth. If only that neck was large enough to house a screw-in compact fluorescent bulb!


----------



## Schala (Mar 15, 2003)

Maybe I misunderstand, but if the opening is only 1 1/3", how are you going to get your hand in there to plant it?


----------



## Ray1214 (Aug 6, 2003)

Well you would probably be able to plant in it by using really long necked tongs. I would be more worried about cleaning it if you keep fish.
Standard gravel and a skinny piece of driftwood with Javafern would be my first thought, then perhaps a piece of hornwort. 

Ray


----------



## Slaigar (Jun 8, 2003)

Awhile back, I toying with the idea of putting terrarium plants in a glass jug. But I ended up giving up because of mainly getting things in and out of the jug.

You would not have any problems fitting foreground plants glossos and microswords but planting with tongs may make it very difficult. It can be done, but it would time consuming. You would also have to be very careful on water changes. Pouring water from so high will cause some turbelence.


----------



## evan (Jul 4, 2003)

you could always smash the jar... and glue it back together! hahaha. you could break off the bottom of the jar add gravel and plants... and glue it back together. the gravel would make it harder to see the break off part.


----------



## Janice (Aug 12, 2003)

I guess I could use a class cutter and cut the top off of the jug.

I was attracted to the challenge of trying to make an ecologically-well balanced tank in the jug. I've got a lot to learn!


----------



## evan (Jul 4, 2003)

o yea java moss would be a nice plant. with some fish. you can use high light and get the java moss to be a brighter color. im sure that would look nice.


----------



## jonah (Nov 29, 2002)

Janice said:


> I guess I could use a class cutter and cut the top off of the jug.


That's really a pretty good idea. You'd want easier access to the interior for maintenance and you might be able to rig up some kind of lighting in the neck.


----------



## evan (Jul 4, 2003)

but then you will have to disassemble the jug and it won't be as "neat" as having the jug untouched with a mini ecosystem in it. you can get a stick shaped driftwood and stick in there with some kind of moss on it like christmas or java moss. then you can just let the rest of the moss fall on the ground. it will grow into a sort of messy lawn. the wood will give it a nice effect and make it look like your looking inside a lake or something. you can drop a few greyish round stones in there. make it look random and natural. for the lighting just get a desk lamp and a screw-in fluorscent bulb 20 watts+. this sounds pretty cool... maybe i should try it myself! hehe.


----------



## evan (Jul 4, 2003)

o yea another problem would be getting dead fish and invertebrates out of there. unless you have really long tweezers that won't be hard. o yea and with moss you don't have to worry about planting. the moss will find a place for itself.


----------



## Janice (Aug 12, 2003)

Good ideas, Evan. Now I'm inspired again. I really didn't want to have to cut the bottle. I like the moss idea a lot. If a fish dies and its really tiny, could it be left to decay and fertilize the moss or would that cause problems?


----------



## evan (Jul 4, 2003)

if a fish died... it would have nasty stuff growing on it. eventually it will be fine after maybe a "millenium". a dead fish will get fungus on it and yucky stuff. plus it will practically kill your water. it may stink too. the other fish may die too.


----------



## cousin it (Nov 1, 2002)

I currently have a 1gallon (aprox) jar which i have planted with hairgrass which lives in my bathroom window. works out quite handy as the hairgrass loves the natural light and very quickly covers the substrate. Im still working on additional plants to use in there to add a different leaf shape.
the substrate consists of 1" lily compost and 1" playpit sand and that seems to do the job quite nicely.


----------



## evan (Jul 4, 2003)

cool. i wish i had some hairgrass. there aren't any aquatic plant suppliers near my house. thats too bad. i really like the hairgrass look. maybe i could get a 2.5 gallon and plant it with that stuff. the last time i bought plants was online. i don't feel like going through that hassle again. the plants came in crap condition, and they are still growing nice new leaves while most of the leaves that the plant came with are dying. they've lost most of their green, and become clear. o wel. it will take time to heal.


----------



## freaky-lil-raver (Sep 16, 2002)

I wanna see a pick of this glass jug.... n cutting the top off and using it as a lid is a great idea..... 

Mary


----------



## Angie (Sep 4, 2003)

I was in a night club one time that had a 5 gallon glass jar made into an aquarium and lamp unit. There was a substrate and some plants with a fairly light load of fish. At the time I was into fish but hadn't paid much attention to live plants so I didn't question much about them except how they were planted in there. I remember wondering how it was filtered and how they were able to float the fish. The lamp fixture seemed to be attached to the opening of the jug with the wires coming down the side of the jug. I have one of these jugs and really would love to do something cool like that with it but for the life of me I can't think of how to get all that stuff in there and then once I get it there how the heck would I care for it properly. If you figure this out let me know, please. roud:


----------



## Janice (Aug 12, 2003)

Well, it took me long enough, but I finally planted my glass jug last week. It has a 4 inch substrate base of onxy sand and some flourite and gravel that I had leftover from other projects. 

I've had the substrate, some java moss and some hairgrass growing in there for months. I didn't do much except change the water once in a while. 

Last week I pumped in some DIY CO2, and planted a couple of foxtail (I think they are foxtails...my four year old was at the LFS with me, talking the whole time so I couldn't really concentrate. Anyway its one of those pretty feathery asparagus fern looking plants.) 

I set the jug on a stand in a corner of my office where I spent most of my time. It is near a window, but the window only gets a little bit of full sun which I will have to monitor carefully, I know. I've situated the jug so that some of it stays a tiny bit shaded. I'm supplementing the sunlight with a 10 watt daylight screw in bulb.

So far the temperature of the jug has fallen as low as 60 at night and gone as high as 80 when the sun is at its strongest. 

I added 4 white cloud mountain minnows and two algea eating shrimp. One minnow died the first day. I buried him deep in the substrate using a long bamboo stick with a prong carved into one end. I also use this stick to hold the CO2 tube down during the day and to do the planting. 

There's no filter. So far I've emptied about 15% of the water and replaced it with fresh water almost every day. A couple of times a day I pour a stream of water down the neck of the jug to add some oxygen. 

Its been about a week and the fish and shrimp seem relaxed and happy. The plants are pearling a lot. 

Any thoughts or ideas about all of this? The main thing that I'm worried about is the temperature drop at night. I need some way to regulate the heat a bit better, I think. I chose the White clouds because they can endure the temperature changes and they are so small. During the summer I'll probably have to move the jug even further from the sunlight.


----------



## Angie (Sep 4, 2003)

My husband's suggestion on heat was to use a heating pad but the problem is regulating the pads temp, my suggestion would be to wrap it around the back rather than sit the bottle on top of it. My personal suggestion is to put something around the entire tank at night before you leave the office blanket, towel or some sort of insulation so that you can keep the daytime temp durring the night, rather than trying to heat it durring the night. The whole thing sounds pretty cool, good luck with it and don't forget to post some pics soon.

Angie


----------



## Janice (Aug 12, 2003)

Insulating it at night is such a good idea. My common sense evaporates sometimes when I look at these Fish Gadget catalogs. I should check the army/navy store. I bet they have some sort of sub-zero survival gear that could be adapted. Or I could just sew up a little quilted tea cozy kinda thing for my jug of minnows. Thanks again, because part of my original jug idea was to keep it really simple. 

I'm still thinking about those fish jug lamps that you saw in restaurant, and keeping my eye out for a fixture that might attach to the neck of the jug, without interfering with my fish care. Something a bit more attractive than the clamp light I have now. 

I'll try to take some pics soon.

-Janice


----------



## hypsophrys (Nov 16, 2003)

Don't worry about removing any dead fish. The shrimp will take care of that.


----------



## AquaTony (Jan 21, 2004)

In a 5 gallon tank, I use a reptile heater pad wih a temperature controller. The pad sticks to the bottom of the tank. I've written about it here before.

I also seem to recall that a home brew supply store having a premade wrap for 5 gallon jugs. You might be able to find something if you search online or call a home brew store. They might even have a heated one that maintains an exact temp.



Angie said:


> My husband's suggestion on heat was to use a heating pad but the problem is regulating the pads temp, my suggestion would be to wrap it around the back rather than sit the bottle on top of it. My personal suggestion is to put something around the entire tank at night before you leave the office blanket, towel or some sort of insulation so that you can keep the daytime temp durring the night, rather than trying to heat it durring the night. The whole thing sounds pretty cool, good luck with it and don't forget to post some pics soon.
> 
> Angie


----------



## Angie (Sep 4, 2003)

I used to use the heating pad under my boa tank but he could easily move away from the main point of hear and he didn't have 4" of substrate. I think it is a great idea but wasn't sure how it would work with the substrate and how it would affect the plant roots. I was thinking maybe putting it on the side but you could play with it, I think that there are some good ideas up for grabs. Just play around and see what works best. I can't wait to see the results.


----------



## skylsdale (Aug 26, 2003)

http://www.plantedtank.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1295&highlight=

Scroll down the 3rd pic: it's a terrarium bowl as you mentioned wanting to do before. The author (Brandon429) does exactly what you are wanting to do with all his setups--tries to get a balance going among inhabitants while still having all their needs met appropriately.


----------



## Janice (Aug 12, 2003)

Brandon's nano and pico tanks inspired me to try this idea when I first found this site a while back. Aren't they interesting? 

Well, everything is still fine. Frisky minnows, busy shrimp. Clear water. The fish won't come to the surface to eat if the water is too high in the jug, though, so I keep it lower than I would have thought. This also gives me room to trickle fresh water in a couple of times a day to add oxygen.


----------



## Janice (Aug 12, 2003)

So far things are holding pretty steady. Another one of the White Clouds died about a week ago, but I think it was due to an accident. This has never happened to me before: I was siphoning some water out of the tank and he got sucked up and into the bucket. Unfortunately, right before he got sucked up, I'd gotten a mouthful of fish water when I was trying to start the siphon, and I was sort of repulsed so I rinsed my mouth out with my coffee a few times and spit it into the dirty water bucket. I got the fish out quickly, but he died the next morning. 

The plants are really pearling. There's a little cyanobacteria along the edges near the substrate but not much. The 2 remaining White clouds and shrimp seem happy. 

There are some little things skating around in the water, usually near the surface but not always. I think they are insect larvae of some sort. I'm trying to see if the fish are eating them, but so far its hard to tell. I think they might be. Does anyone have any ideas of what they might be? 

I finally took some photos and I'll post them as soon as I get them back from the lab.


----------



## Janice (Aug 12, 2003)

Everything is going well except for the cyanobacteria which is coating the substrate. Its pearling, so I guess I've got a blue thumb. The stuff is hard to vaccuum up, too..it clumps up and floats around in the gravel vac and then sinks back to the bottom without getting siphoned into the bucket. I made a little rake by rubberbanding some toothpicks to a skinny bamboo rod and then I can twirl them in the tongs like spaghetti and ease them up through the neck of the jug. 

The fish and shrimp are still looking good. I think that those little things swimming around were baby minnows. Whatever they were they are gone now. 

The plants have taken a downturn.. at first they were pearling and showing signs of growth, but now they are only doing mediocre. I think that my overzealous cyanobacteria control issues have led me astray. I was putting the diy co2 tube into the jug in the morning and removing it at night, but I stopped when I found the foxtails completely shrouded in pearl covered cyanobacteria veil. I had to remove those and a couple of other plants, they were just too coated with the stuff. 

Any suggestions?


----------

