# "No-tech" pico jars/bowls



## mosspearl

Nice.  I'm very intrigued with setting up bowls and jars of aquatic plants. So far I have several gallon jars holding excess frogbit and water lettuce.


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## Kehy

I have a solar-powered jar that's been going for about 2 years now. At first it just had a single scrawny dwarf sag, about .25" of dirt, and a couple snails. After about a year, the snails had doubled the depth of the substrate, the dwaft sag was a jungle, and there was continually a huge amount of hair algae during the changing seasons. All critters remained very small, despite their age. About 2 months ago, I added enough fine black gravel to make 1" of substrate, and somehow a small red rili shrimp had made its way to the jar. It's grown very slowly, but it's now 3/4" long, and developing a saddle, but has fairly bad color, as to be expected. Now I try to imitate life in a tiny pond, including adding food (maybe once a month), "rain fall", "droughts", and an animal feeding on the plants, removing them. There's a rich diversity of life, less hair algae, or large amounts of algae in general. I'll add pics tomorrow, when there's some sun


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## amyhartofey

Thanks mosspearl  I love things in miniature especially so this project is really calling to me!

Kehy, that sounds incredible! Do you think I need dirt/soil in mine or will the gravel do? How often have you done water changes? Also, how much direct sunlight does yours get - and does this change a lot with the seasons? (Can you tell how much I love this concept )

Also, newbie question here, but do pond snails eat hair-algae? They seem to be eating SOMETHING and it's not the plants so I assumed it was that.


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## amyhartofey

This is my other no-tech bowl. I was going to get a couple more pictures but they came out awful so this will have to do 










I found this bowl/vase (it's prettily off-centred so I reckon it was meant to be a vase) in a second-hand shop a few months ago. I put this together the other day after rescaping my minnow tank and having lots of moss, gravel and snails left over as well as this weird angular rock that really didn't fit with the river-bottom theme I was going for in that tank. It looked awesome in the bowl, though!










It's about a litre and a half of water and it gets about two hours of direct sunlight a day without apparently killing the snails. It also looks really pretty  The full-room shot (please ignore the mess):










It currently has about 10-15 pond snails in there, all happily motoring about on the surface tension of the water and, hopefully, munching on whatever algae they find. I wish I could have a shrimp or two, but sadly they're illegal to import to this part of the world or sell in stores. The only legal way to get shrimps is to catch the local freshwater varieties and apparently they are very delicate to keep 

The only problem I am seeing so far is that a lot of the moss has shoots of black/brown-coloured algae growing on it and the snails don't seem to be interested in eating it. Should I be concerned? What can I do? 

Thanks for looking


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## mosspearl

I think I saw this last bowl on Tumblr.


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## amyhartofey

I expect you did! I'm just discovering the aquarist community on tumblr and it's awesome


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## Kehy

My jar doesn't get any direct sunlight, only indirect. Its definetly easy to tell the changing season though, I get intense hair algae for weeks until the light stabilizes a bit. As for water changes...I think the last one was 4 months ago? As for adding dirt, be careful, you will get inevitable greenwater and intense clouding. It goes away after a while (I did 3 daily water changes in the first week to take care of clouding from the dirt) fortunately, and the snails mostly take care of algae on the sides of the jar.
The jar is about .5 liter, I took the pics under a desk lamp. When I added the extra substrate, I pulled a couple D. sag for one of my tanks...and the entire substrate came up. Hence adding gravel, hahaha


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## amyhartofey

That is so neat, Kehy!


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## GMYukonon24s

Beautiful jars!


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## manzpants92

Great idea! really like it


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## 10gallonplanted

You neeeeed skreeeeemp!


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## amyhartofey

Jars update 










Not sure why that picture is so brown? Anyway, there's been a population EXPLOSION among the snails in the larger jar. We got babies EVERYWHERE:










They are so tiny! Lord knows what I will do with them as they get bigger and infest the jar. Cull them I expect 

As you can see we're developing a ton of nice algae but the java moss is growing very slowly indeed. Should I be removing the algae - is it stopping light getting to the moss?










Look at this little cutie taking a rest  I love my spotty little snails










I've only had one real bid for freedom - found a dry little carcass beside the jar on day three - so I think they're all doing okay. As for the little jar, the single inhabitant is churning out so much poop there's practically a dirt substrate:



















Otherwise not much to report as yet. I just bought a turkey-baster yesterday for water changes (tipping-out is a serious no-no with the gravel, and all my siphons are much too big). We'll see how it goes!

Thanks for all the comments and interest, this forum is awesome!


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## amyhartofey

10gallonplanted said:


> You neeeeed skreeeeemp!


UGH I WISH

As I mentioned, shrimp are illegal here  I'm sorely tempted to make a collecting expedition (local varieties, caught wild, ARE legal) but there aren't any freshwater streams very close to my house, only brackish mangrove swamps. I don't think I'm quite ready attempt that!

So yeah, pond-snails are really all I have access to. But 1) they are FREE, 2) they are really cute and pretty and gold-coloured and 3) it was this or cull them so I chose this


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## TonyK

Great looking jars!


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## JerSaint

You totally inspired me! I went the old school fish bowl route with a Betta. I used MGOPS capped with a "bio-active" sand (I think it is seeded with bacteria to help establish the environment). Started just a few days ago and added "Gary" the Golden Mystery snail (thanks Spongebob), and the Ziggy the Veiltail Betta today. 

I threw in Wisteria clippings a banana anubias, crypt and a bamboo shoot that I hope will grow out of the top.








Thanks for the inspiration!:thumbsup:


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## Kehy

For a betta tank, I really wouldn't recommend no tech. At the very least, bettas need a heater and a filter, which means fairly stable temps, making them unsuitable to be solar powered. The sunlight, even indirect sunlight can have a pretty strong effect on the temps in these small containers, which as you get smaller, the effect becomes more extreme. 

There is also pretty low bio limit on what these jars can sustain. With a no-tech like my jar, a single shrimp and a bunch of snails is all I feel comfortable putting in there. You'd need a lot of fast growing plants to keep up with the waste production of the fish, not to mention the regular water changes. 

Really it's a good looking bowl, and plant wise it looks fairly good (keep the leaves of the bamboo above the water), but I just wouldn't have a fish in one of these.


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## amyhartofey

What a beautiful bowl - really happy to have inspired such a lovely scape  If/when the bamboo grows up through the top, it's going to be such a stunning piece!

Like Kehy said, this isn't a good environment for a betta - even my largest bowl goes through some whack temperature fluctuations, I honestly don't know how the snails manage - but shrimp or snails are perfect for this set-up. Get a nano tank for your beautiful betta - something 2gal or bigger, with a hob or sponge filter, and a nice little heater. A pico cube can look stunning for a betta! And cheap too; my first betta set-up was $100 not including plants.


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## Kehy

I have another really low tech bowl in a 5 gallon terrarium. All I give it is light for the plants and food for the shrimp. It's under 10,000k LED lights, but it does seem really blue compared to what I'm used to...Everything grows under them, just slowly. I'm using the bowl as a place to selectively breed some blue rili shrimp.


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## pedropete

love these bowls!!  keep up the awesome low/no-tech aquaculture!


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