# Custom Fish Bowl - The Tank The Forum Gave Me



## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Hello Folks!

A new journal and a new tank! It's early days but I have fun making these posts so lets get started.

A month and a half ago I made this thread where I asked how to keep the spouse happy while having multiple tanks. I received a lot of good advice and some hilarious advice. The end result was my wife agreeing to a new tank but it was going to be a zero equipment tank and it couldn't look like an aquarium. Meaning it couldn't be a rectangle, it needed to be a fish bowl.

I began searching for a LARGE fish bowl. Something bigger then 10 gallons. I did a LOT of searching and ended up with only a few options. I once more asked the forum for help in this thread. DaveKS came through and found an amazing vase/vessel/fish bowl. But sadly the wife rejected it. I was left with no other option but to commission a hand blown vessel/fish bowl. And that is what I did. I contacted somewhere around 10 glass blowers within a 100 mile radius. Out of those ten, 7 either could not do it or did not respond to my request. Two of the 10 wanted more then 2000 dollars for the commission and one estimated a cost of 250-300 for the fish bowl. I went with this last one. Yesterday I was contacted by the artist and told to come pick it up. 

I am actually not a fan of commissioned pieces from artists because I buy the thing before I get to see it and in my experience I am usually not completely happy with the end result. That was unfortunately the case here. My commission was for an oval piece but the artist was clearly aiming at making it perfectly symmetrical, and missed the mark. The result is a piece that is lopsided just enough to make it look like its not quite right without it being so far out of proportion to be obviously a design element. So, not great. But my wife is the real reason it was made and she likes the look after she sees it on a counter so /shrug here we go!!!

Here is the fish bowl with some bananas providing scale:










I just moved this past Saturday, so the place where its ultimately going is slightly blocked at the moment:










This is going to be a Walstad tank with no filter, no heater, no equipment whatsoever. So I began by selecting my dirt. I went with Nature's Care Organic Garden Soil. Here is what the bag looks like:










Here is the back of the bag:










I went with this one because it had reasonably low values for Nitrogen, Phosphate and Potash plus all the ingredients were from natural products as opposed to chemical fertilizers. I would have preferred something even lower in nutrients but it was not available to me. 

Because I knew I had a lot of excess nutrients plus large bits of bark I began by sifting and soaking the soil.

I used a dip net as my sifter because that's what I had. this ended up being a very fortuitous choice as the sifting process was made very simple by shaking and massaging the net to get the soil to fall through. Here is the dip net sitting on top of the bucket:










Here is the sifted soil:










In order to jumpstart the nutrient leech I filled the bucket with water. A LOT of the contents of this soil floated. I mean probably 2/3rds or more. This is likely ground up wood/bark/leafs. I let it soak for a few hours and then pulled out everything still floating. Here is what that stuff looked like:










Today I am going to dump out all the water and all particulate that is still suspended in the bucket after 24 hours. I will decide if there is enough dirt left in my mud bucket to proceed or if I need to add more soil to build up a deep enough layer in my fish bowl. My plan is to ultimately fill and dump this bucket every day for at least a week. The plan being to let nutrients leach out into the water NOW before its part of an aquarium substrate. 

The substrate itself will be made up of pool filter sand, Safe-t-sorb and dirt. I am planning to put down a thin layer of sand/safe-t-sorb first (mostly for aesthetic reasons), then the dirt, then cap with the sand/safe-t-sorb combo. I will be planting this quite heavily with submersed and emersed growth. I have not decided what the hardscape is going to be yet. I might go plants only, or hardscape might be limited to only wood. Still very undecided.

Light will be a desk lamp with a 10-20watt bulb. Not sure which one yet, ideally I will find a dimmable 20 watt led with 90+cri but that seems hard to find so I may have to settle for less watts or less cri. 

Stocking will be shrimp, snails, and hopefully a 2 or 3 japanese rice fish. Assuming I can find the orange ones. They seem exceedingly difficult to locate. 

That's all for now! I'll update as progress occurs.


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Great start for a journal! 

i really like the idea of commissioning a glass blower to custom make a large fish bowel, that's something I've never heard of. I'm surprised you were able to find that many glass blowers within a hundred mile radius.

Keep the posts coming, this should be a fun journal!


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## iamaloner (Jul 10, 2017)

Are you a 9gager perhaps?
Only true 9gagers will know why I asked 

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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

I had never heard of a 9gagger and didn't understand the reference till I found out that bananas are apparently a thing? Anyway no, I just used a banana because I literally just moved in and most things are packed. I needed something to use for scale and my wife's giant cat wasn't giving me a true perspective.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Small update:

I have purchased some plants and found some others that I will be using in this tank. Specifically I have some sagittaria subulata (the non-dwarf or giant variety), some rotala that was labeled as bossii by my local fish store but is redder then I thought bossii was supposed to get, and some hornwort I got from a local lake. I will also be getting some dwarf hair grass and red root floaters for sure, possibly some other plants.

I have also also cleared out the wall of empty boxes so I could get access to the window sill this tank will be sitting on. Here is where the tank will be located:










I still need to buy the lamp and the bulb that will be lighting this tank. This will be a bit of a negotiation since the wife must be pleased with the overall aesthetic. I would cheerfully use something like this. But I need final approval first. ;P

Anyway today I was finally able to get my hands on a bag of HTH Pool Filter sand. I have been looking for this stuff for a while now which is odd only because its not scarce. Months ago I went to my local pool supply store and bought a bag of Pool Filter sand and was surprised with how fine it is. Specifically this bag:










Its not terrible, but its also not great. Its what I am currently using in both my Spec V and my 40 gallon breeder quarantine tank. I thought of using it again for this tank but folks have said that HTH is the way to go and I am glad I held off. The second Ace Hardware store I went to had plenty in stock.

Here is a picture of the HTH on the left and the BRAND X (lighthouse) Pool Filter Sand on the right:










While the Lighthouse sand is much more uniform in size, that size is significantly smaller then much of the HTH sand. The HTH sand is also shade darker, so its slightly more tan and less white then the Lighthouse sand, though honestly they are pretty similar in color.

The substrate is going to be a mix of Safe-t-sorb and HTH pool filter sand. I went ahead and mixed some up and put it in the tank as a very thin layer on the bottom and sides. The goal here is to aesthetically block the appearance of the dirt.

Here are the bags of substrate:










And here is the substrate mixed and in the tank:










Speaking of dirt. For the last 2 weeks I have been changing the water in my bucket of mud more or less every day by about 80%. At this point the water clears up enough that I can see the bottom well before the next water change. I am pretty much done with water changes for the most part but I want to keep the dirt submersed for now since I likely have completely cycled media or soon will. 

So what is holding me back from completing this build at this point?

Well.... mostly plants. I have a bunch of plants in my quarantine tank right now growing out. I wanted to grow them a bit and/or get them healthy looking before doing this build. I want to plant heavy right from the start on this one and my local fish store does not really grow plants properly. Meaning they don't mind sticking them in some water and putting a light over them, but its not necessarily the right light, and they certainly don't run co2. Thus my plants from them tend to be sad.

Plants from online have been a bit hit or miss with me. Sometimes I get really nice stuff, other times they are barely alive. I will likely order dwarf hair grass from online though because the stuff at my local fish store is always awful looking.

I also need to figure out hardscape. I still have not decided if this will be rock only, wood only, or a mix of both. I really like rocks, but this one lends itself to wood I think since I will almost certainly need to be leaning my hardscape up against the glass. Next update will likely be about the hardscape situation.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

So far so good!

Eventually I want to do a bowl arrangement as well. I have already marked a style that I found on Pinterest that I want to duplicate. 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/553520610454111252/?nic=1

This looks like a design that would be perfect for the bathroom as a nightlight.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Hard to be sure, but it looks like a wood and rock arrangement? It's certainly very lush, I am hopeful I will be able to make something similar.

Might be interesting to have the bowl run on reverse hours. So at night the light is on to light your way. If I were single I would totally have lots of these things up. And while the wife has many advantages, plentiful aquascapes just ain't one of them.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Update:

Things are getting much closer to planting. If all goes well I should be planting at least the foreground plants tomorrow or the following day.

Here is where my bucket of mud is at now:










You can see pretty clearly all the way to the bottom. Not much to see of course, just mud, but there is essentially no noticeable particulate matter suspended in the water column with no cap. Pretty happy where that is right now.

I also took a trip to my local fish store and bought two pieces of "malaysian driftwood" whatever that really is. I have my doubts about it being actual driftwood but it doesn't matter much, it looks spiffy. 

In other news I secured both my light bulb and my light fixture. The wife gave the ok on the light I previously posted. And after some deliberation I settled on this light bulb. Its significantly larger then I hoped it would be and thus sticks out of the fixture a bit. But other than that I am pretty happy with it. Using some rough estimates through a combination of the lumens to lux calculator and the lux to ppfd calculator. I am guessing this gives me roughly 15-20 par at substrate and about 45 par at the water's surface. I can further adjust this by raising or lowering the light a few inches.

Here is what the setup looks like right now:










And a closer look at the hardscape, little that there is at the moment:


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

It really does look great.

Nice job selecting driftwood.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

somewhatshocked said:


> It really does look great.
> 
> Nice job selecting driftwood.


Thank you! It was a challenge getting the wood because my local fish store has the wood in a big bin a few feet high and at least 5 feet across. I was wearing my 5 month old son at the time in a child carrier. So bending over to dig through this thing plus keeping him happy was its own adventure 😜

Eventually I found one of the pieces you see which set the tone, then it was just a matter of finding another to match/mirror.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

UPDATE:

Planting huzzah!

Well partly huzzah.

I previously had ordered 2 pots of dwarf hairgrass and 2 pots of micro sword and one anubias nana from H2O Plants. I picked H2O Plants because I had seen their youtube channel and they are in New Jersey whereas I am in Maryland. All the other places I could find for plants were on the west coast. So I hoped they would arrive quicker. They shipped USPS and it still took 3 days, so /shrug there is that.

Anyway they all arrived and more or less decent condition. In preparation for planting I poured out all the water from my bucket of mud and brought in the soggy soil that was left behind. I squeezed the water from a handful of dirt and put it into the tank. I did this until I ran out of soil. The effect was pretty much exactly what I hoped it would be. This is how it looked:










After this I was all ready to put my hardscape back when I realized I definitely should boil this wood gosh darn it. Otherwise I will be in the middle of tannin city, population? ME

This is an operation that was definitely best carried out while my wife was not around.










Thank you for your help tanins, your presence is no longer required:










Aaaaaand back in place:



















The plants as they arrived (sorry for the terrible picture)










I broke them down to tiny little bits and then replanted:










There was after it was all said and done significantly less plant matter then I anticipated. I probably need another 5 pots to get to the density I was planning on. Or.... I can go dry start. Which is where I am at now. I am going to give dry start a go and see how it comes together.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

very nice! 
Like the wood pieces.


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## Econde (Oct 13, 2015)

Discusluv said:


> very nice!
> Like the wood pieces.


I agree. Also that is a very nice lamp! Looking forward for more updates.


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## KFischer (Feb 15, 2019)

Thank you for being so descriptive! I love it!


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Small Update:

My wife and I were both dissatisfied with the bulb I selected. It was too big, and the lit portion was easily visible anywhere in the room. So I replaced it with this bulb.

It came today and is clearly the superior option. The 40 degree angle of light means that you can't see the lit portion unless you get down on your knees next to the fish bowl. The intensity of the light is also quite nice and frankly looks brighter to my eyes then the old bulb. Whether its actually brighter to the plants would take a proper par meter I suspect.

Anyway this is how things appear today:


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Niiiicceee! 

That's a really cool looking bowl is it really 10 gallons? Good final price on the glassblower!

Loving the Walstad method thanks for all the great photos. Now I'm tempted to do the same thing with my 10 gallon. 

Are you putting a fishy in there? 

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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Niiiicceee!
> 
> That's a really cool looking bowl is it really 10 gallons? Good final price on the glassblower!
> 
> ...


Thank you!

Its actually 7.5 gallons filled to the brim. Before putting any substrate in I did a fill test outside to make sure it was not going to explode or anything. Sadly the glass blower did not build it to my specification but /shrug its a bit late for concerns in that regard ;P

Anyway I do plan to add blue ramshorn snails, at least 1 amano, and a colony of yellow neocaridina shrimp, plus some Japanese Ricefish (specifically the orange or koi type). The problem I am running into right now is finding the darn ricefish. They are exceptionally rare in the United States. I might have a lead on some eggs.......... I have never hatched eggs before so that will be its own adventure right there if I can't find an alternative.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

I just looked up Japanese Rice Fish - awesome little fish and I see what you mean about finding them.

I'm going to The Aquatic Experiencnce in the Meadowlands, NJ this weekend I could ask around for you. 

Always wanted to meet Rachel O'Leary  

And I'm sure you've seen Pencilfish...
View attachment 887975


Didn't know they were killifish (love killifish!)

There's a place called Aquatic Arts that sells them (pic attached) they're out of stock now but just contact them for next shipment (I think they're in NY). 

Call *The Wet Spot* in Portland, OR I'd be very surprised if they couldn't source these fish. 

I saw a couple of eBay sellers have some but IDK if they ship to U.S. (from Europe). 

I could ask my Japanese neighbor (who takes (good) care of my fish when we're away) to see if anyone in Japan will ship them - now you've got me wanting some I'd never heard of them before now! 

Why so rare in this country?!
View attachment 887977


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

I am definitely interested in anyone with orange or koi type ricefish that is willing to ship. The things are everywhere in japan averaging 2 to 4 dollars a fish. Here??? Nothing. I have seen a few websites that are out of stock right now. I am also daily searching aquabid and ebay for sellers willing to ship to me but so far nothing. If you come up with something please let me know!


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Small Update:

A wise man once said "impatience is the key to success". Or maybe it was "those who rush are bound for great success".

Anyway, I was at petsmart today to get a part for an experiment and I decided to check out the plants section. They happened to have a relatively nice looking bit of dwarf hair grass. I usually see their stuff and think it looks awful but this one was ok (it ended up being partly awful) but anyway I picked it up. Here is what it looked like in the bag:










When I took it all out and separated it I found that many of the individual plants were growing oddly. The packaging these things are put in is awful. Because its a little plastic satchel the plants fell over and started rooting from their tops because their tops got exposed to the nutrient goo that they are packaged in. Thus all my plants had to be cut in half to get the second set of roots a chance to be in substrate. 

*ehem* allow me a small rant.

/rant on

You see Petsmart knows about this issue, they couldn't not know about this issue since I discovered it on my first tissue culture from them. I saw many other tissue culture packages with large amounts of dead plants in them because the plants had shifted upwards in shipping away from the nutrient goo and thus died. However, they have not taken any action to fix this situation by putting the tissue cultures into say, cups? You know, like everyone else. Why?? Because these little satchels are easier to hang on their little hooks and take up less space on their shelves. This is important since undoubtedly they are not selling very many of these satchels (because they look terrible) and thus they don't need to actually give a whole proper rack over to tissue culture. GRR

Anyway 

/rant off

I prepped the plants and stuck them in. Here is a picture of how they look now:










I also put some ThriveC in my mister and I am currently misting 3 times a day. Any second now its all going to take off, I just know it ;P


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

No problem. I think Aquatic Arts may have some in quarantine perhaps try writing them.



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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> No problem. I think Aquatic Arts may have some in quarantine perhaps try writing them.
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk


I actually did write both aquatic arts and the wet spot. Hopefully one has them but /shrug time will tell. The trouble is there are quite a few variants of the fish (all of which seem available to me except the orange or koi types). I can for instance get the blue ones, the daisy blue ones, the pearl ones, and the original wild type shipped to my door right now. I might possibly even be able to get the black ones. I just don't want any of those ;P


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Just heard from aquatic arts. To sum it up, they do not have any and don't know when they will get any. Le sigh


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## tinkerpuppet (Feb 13, 2010)

What a beautiful bowl! I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out!


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

@minorhero spoke to Rachel O'Leary and she's got the blue ones. She gave me the info for a guy who's got the orange ones I'll get it to you tomorrow when I go through all my cards.

I spoke to someone else who can allegedly get any of them I'll dig up that info tomorrow as well. 








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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> @minorhero spoke to Rachel O'Leary and she's got the blue ones. She gave me the info for a guy who's got the orange ones I'll get it to you tomorrow when I go through all my cards.
> 
> I spoke to someone else who can allegedly get any of them I'll dig up that info tomorrow as well.
> View attachment 888019
> ...


Alright! Coming through with the hookup! I only started watching Rachel O'Leary a month or so ago but she seems like a fun person to meet. Thank you for reaching out to her!


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

No prob - Rachel O'Leary was a blast! Would have been fun to join her at the bar afterwards but I had to get a new fish home.

Took a raincheck bcs she's not that far from me and extended an invite to tour her fishroom 

Sorry for the delay I'll post the info for ya tomorrow. 

By chance would you have any idea why my pics are posting sideways??? :/ 

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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> No prob - Rachel O'Leary was a blast! Would have been fun to join her at the bar afterwards but I had to get a new fish home.
> 
> Took a raincheck bcs she's not that far from me and extended an invite to tour her fishroom
> 
> ...


I am guessing something to do with tapatalk or your phone settings. Is auto rotation turned off on your phone by any chance?? Sorry I know thats no help. I upload my pictures from my phone to imgur. From there I edit them on a computer and then include them in any post I need them in. Imgur allows me to edit things like rotation and image size.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Hummmmm well auto rotate is on. I think pics must be taken in landscape mode in order to load correctly.

So here's Rachel's contact for the orange rice fish: Lucas Bretz in Ohio. She said if there were any problem finding him just shoot her an email.

I'll get you the other contact in a bit. 

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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Hummmmm well auto rotate is on. I think pics must be taken in landscape mode in order to load correctly.
> 
> So here's Rachel's contact for the orange rice fish: Lucas Bretz in Ohio. She said if there were any problem finding him just shoot her an email.
> 
> ...


Heh I actually sent Lucas Bretz an email about a week ago. Sadly no response as of yet.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Hummmmm perhaps go through Rachel? I'm sure she'd be happy to give him a call. 

I think her website is msjinxed.com but check out the address on YouTube to make sure  

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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

LRB Aquatics is what you're looking for.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

somewhatshocked said:


> LRB Aquatics is what you're looking for.


Yep that was where I sent my email. Specifically to the orders email address. I will give it a few days since aquashella and aquatic experience were back to back so probably busy.

In the meantime there is a brand new fish store in my area I hope to check out tomorrow. If I am really lucky they will have what I am after. Otherwise I will contact the folks selling eggs out of Japan and hope for the best.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

You've got a ton of great stores within an hour of you. Definitely check them all out when you can. You'll be surprised by what you can find. @Maryland Guppy gave me a list a few months ago and I've since visited them all. Really impressed with most of them.

But there are also several hidden shops throughout the DC metro area if you ever get the chance to hop the train south. I've found all kinds of interesting tank stuff in little shops throughout Chinatown.

If you do end up importing, it's not complicated to get proper certification to pass APHIS inspection. If it were me, I'd have one of the many shops in your area try to obtain them or import them. Easier and cheaper that way.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

So sorry about the upside down posting.

I took the photo in landscape mode (not portrait) that's supposed to fix the problem. I'll have to look into it more.

Maybe I'll take the photo upside down LoL.

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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Holy cow check out the Segrest Farm tour on YouTube - America's largest fresh water wholesaler  

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## SwampGirl (Jan 12, 2017)

I really like where this bowl is going! Do you have a list of plants you're planning on adding besides the DHG? Also have you considered other fish besides the rice fish? I think this would be an awesome setup for an Ellasoma pygmy sunfish, I think Jonahs has _Ellasoma zonatum_. Also have you considered dealing with the fish jumping out? I'm not sure how prone Orzyias are to jumping but they seem similar to killifish who are prolific jumpers. I have found that floating plants present an aesthetically pleasing alternative to a lid. Looking forward to seeing this evolve.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Ok here ya go. Alan Luken of Segrest Inc told me he can get any rice fish you want but he's a wholesaler. He said give him a call or shoot him an email and he can tell you which stores have his JRF.
> 
> Very nice guy, too. Mention Aquatic Experiencnce he might remember the convo.
> View attachment 888109
> ...


This is awesome! Thank you! It somehow slipped through my net over the last few days but I just sent off an email so hopefully the quest might be close to an end 

Bump:


SwampGirl said:


> I really like where this bowl is going! Do you have a list of plants you're planning on adding besides the DHG? Also have you considered other fish besides the rice fish? I think this would be an awesome setup for an Ellasoma pygmy sunfish, I think Jonahs has _Ellasoma zonatum_. Also have you considered dealing with the fish jumping out? I'm not sure how prone Orzyias are to jumping but they seem similar to killifish who are prolific jumpers. I have found that floating plants present an aesthetically pleasing alternative to a lid. Looking forward to seeing this evolve.



So far its just DHG and micro sword that's planted. There will be hornwort and rotala (my fish store labeled it Bossii but it doesn't look like Bossii to me but /shrug) There may be a third stem plant, I haven't decided, possibly pearl weed. I am planning red root floaters for a floating plant, but they might all die on me before I flood the tank ;P Currently they are busy melting in my quarantine tank. I did recently order Lilaeopsis Chinensis from literally the only seller I could find online. I have no idea how its going to come in, but some of it might find its way into this tank as well.

There won't be a lid but ricefish are not known for being jumpers. They have been kept for literally hundreds of years by the Japanese in little clay pots and still are to this day. They are however a type of Killifish.

I did consider other types of killifish as well as pygmy sunfish (continuing the native theme) but in the end I decided the ricefish would be really spiffy because the clay pots (essentially patio ponds) the Japanese keep them in is pretty nifty and this fish bowl is putting my American spin on it.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Update:

Dry start is coming along but soooo slow. In that its clear I won't have a lush carpet by say next week. I don't know how long I will leave it but it will be at least another week before I flood.

Here is how it looks today:










And then the impatient bug hit me. I was out at a petco today and looked at their tissue culture section. They had some decent looking Bucephalandra Brownie Ghost and lobelia cardinalis, which I wasn't familiar with. After looking it up though I found it to be a North American native which I am a complete sucker for so I picked that up as well.

Here is how they looked:










I separated out the buce first and got a LOT of little pieces out of that cup:










I decided to try to dry start the buce on my wood which is kept relatively wet thanks to all the mistings. The misting itself has some Thrive in the bottle so the water is fertilized. While I was at it I decided to also plant the anubias nana I bought originally. The anubias I cut into two pieces and jammed into the wood. I was planning to do the same for the buce but the process was not delicate and one of the anubias' leaves came off convincing me to use superglue for the buce.

Despite using superglue I planted the buce in areas where the wood had cracks, divits, or holes. That way it would look more natural. I also went ahead and planted the Lobelia in the back on one side.

Here is how that looked form the back:










Here is how the tank looks now:










It will be interesting to see if the buce makes it, I think it will but nothing is for sure


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Coming along nicely [emoji2][emoji106]

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## Econde (Oct 13, 2015)

Great updates. I envy you all that live near a Petco. We have PetSmart here but meh. Anyway looking forward to seeing more of your progression.

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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

You're welcome! 

You saw where I posted it right side up? (figured out what I was doing wrong).

Did you happen to check out their YouTube video showing their farm in Tampa? Huge.

I hope he comes through for you - we had a nice convo about the rice fishes and other fishy things. [emoji225]

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## SwampGirl (Jan 12, 2017)

Wow petco tissue culture that isn't rotting, yellow, dried out, cracked, or growing on the side of the cup?!?! And Lobelia cardinalis is an awesome plant, I find it on the edge of ponds and water features here all the time growing in its low aquatic form, but you can also grow it emersed (in your garden or a pond) and see the bright red flowers, it gets big if you let it grow that way. There are some other cool Lobelias but none that I know of with an aquatic form like cardinalis which makes it unique in its genus. The dry start actually looks good, plants look healthy even if they're not explosive. In my experience, with soil underlayers it takes a while for plants with weak or small roots to find the dirt, but then once they do they take off, so keep up the patience. When carpeting I like to plant one plant right on the side of the glass so I can observe the root development and get an idea of where the others are. Keep it up!


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> You're welcome!
> 
> You saw where I posted it right side up? (figured out what I was doing wrong).
> 
> ...


He directed me to their website to see what fish they sell and then a feature to see who they sell to. Turns out they sell to Petco and PetSmart plus a few local fish stores in my area. I haven't contacted anyone yet to see if they will do a special order for me but will soon. 

The egg seller I thought of as my backup has not responded so heh it's rough in ricefish land 😉


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

SwampGirl said:


> Wow petco tissue culture that isn't rotting, yellow, dried out, cracked, or growing on the side of the cup?!?! And Lobelia cardinalis is an awesome plant, I find it on the edge of ponds and water features here all the time growing in its low aquatic form, but you can also grow it emersed (in your garden or a pond) and see the bright red flowers, it gets big if you let it grow that way. There are some other cool Lobelias but none that I know of with an aquatic form like cardinalis which makes it unique in its genus. The dry start actually looks good, plants look healthy even if they're not explosive. In my experience, with soil underlayers it takes a while for plants with weak or small roots to find the dirt, but then once they do they take off, so keep up the patience. When carpeting I like to plant one plant right on the side of the glass so I can observe the root development and get an idea of where the others are. Keep it up!


I am pretty excited to watch the development but I am not sure the dry start was a good idea for the anubias or buce. I am away for about 32 hours and neither was looking super hot before I left even after stepping up my mistings.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Oh wow too bad. 

You know I looked up those blue ones that Rachel has I thought they were very cool looking. I think it's worth shooting her an email to see if she can't get the yellow ones would she mind contacting her buddy that does? 

I understand the guy hasn't responded to you but I bet he answers her 

Thing is Rachel O'Leary is a NANO FISH *specialist*. I told her I was on a mission of mercy and she seemed genuinely interested in helping 

I'm in the Harrisburg area about every three months and look forward to checking out her fish room [emoji7]

Photo is Rigel the Alien betta in his temp quarters waiting on his tank to cycle. I'm too chicken to do a "fish in" cycle. 

Curious to see how you're going to cycle that Walstad bowl.









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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Curious to see how you're going to cycle that Walstad bowl.


Its probably already cycled. The dirt in this aquarium has been kept continuously submersed for over a month at this point. The dirt releases ammonia naturally so it should be cycled. Or such is my thinking. When I fill it I will do my tests to make sure and add a few snails and some shrimp before adding fish.

I do like the look of your betta! I seriously considered an alien betta but ultimately the koi bettas won me over.

I actually have a VERY solid lead on some King Red Medaka which if it turns out, will be quite exciting since these aren't just a little orangeish like many lower quality ricefish but should either be very orange or even a light reddish color depending on the quality of the fish. The person selling them to me would be sending me fry with a guarantee live arrival. If it turns out I will post the full tale of how I found this person. 

In other news a lot of the buce is looking really bad. I have already pulled bits of it off the wood that turned completely pale/tan. I can very firmly not recommend dry starting buce on wood that is not constantly wet. Some of the buce is doing alright though (the buce that is not in direct light from the lamp essentially). So it looks like a little bit will make it. I am thinking of trying to dry start some moss to cover up the superglue marks. I have always wanted to dry start moss. I might give that a go in the next day or so.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

My fish seller sent me an image last night:











Getting excited to have fish in my fish bowl! Of course the darn fish bowl is in dry start.. so I am going to get a breeding box so I can put these fellows in my 40 gallon quarantine tank. I am extremely reluctant to let them mix with the general population of eastern blacknose dace I currently have in my quarantine tank as I feel like the dace might be on the aggressive side, especially to fish smaller then them. I have never kept fish like this but I think it should be ok?


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

And another Update:

I went ahead and pulled some more buce that was dead or close to dead this morning. Probably have removed about half of the buce overall. I decided to go ahead and do the dry start method with moss while I was at it. I have been preparing for a moss dry start for a while in that I have been letting my fissidens fontanus in my Spec V and also now in my quarantine tank grow completely unchecked. I have even made efforts not to remove the loose bits with the gravel vac. The reason being that I am planning to do a dry start with moss in my much planned 120 gallon native tank. But... that's a while away and my the fish bowl is here now. So I went ahead and "harvested" some moss. Within 30 seconds I was able to get a really good portion out of my Spec V just by itself. I didn't even clean it out so I doubt my 120 gallon will ever be effected. This is what the moss looked like:










I think this is more then came on one of the 3" squares when I first ordered it.

Anyway the dry start moss method aka yogurt method, aka blender method calls for the moss to be ground up pretty small, usually in a blender. It often calls for you to mix in yogurt as well during this process. I did not want to use a blender for 2 reasons. 1) My 6 month old is presently sleeping and I don't want to wake him up  and 2) I am somewhat leary of using the blender for moss that we also use to make babyfood... So yea I opted to use a knife instead. And honestly this worked really well, unless I was making a LOT of moss I wouldn't hesitate to use a chefs knife again.

Basically I just squeezed the moss into as small a ball as I could and then cut it very very small with the chefs knife. I didn't use a cuttingboard because I didn't want to clean a cuttingboard, just some papertowels folded over to provide a cutting surface. I made several passes at 90 degree angles and it was done. 

Here is how it looked:










A lot of people mix their blended (or in my case sliced) moss with buttermilk or yogurt. I have read online that this is to inhibit mold. I believe this last part to be a completely false statement. In my research into moss I read that acidic liquids such as buttermilk or yogurt are useful food sources for the moss, in otherwords, its plant food for moss. 

I however did not want to have buttermilk or yogurt in a dry start because it will stink and it most definitely does grow mold just fine as anyone who has left yogurt in the fridge too long can tell you.

I opted instead to take some garden soil (same stuff in the rest of this build) and mix it with the moss. I was probably mixing close to a 1 to 1 ratio of soil to moss and I think that was way too much. When I do it again I will mix it in a 2 to 1 ratio in favor of moss.

Here is what it looked like:










I then spritzed this mixture with water from my mister. It only took 3 or 4 sprays before it was wet enough to mix which I did with my hand since it was already covered in moss bits.

This is what the wood/tank looked like before application:










See all the ugly white bits? Yea not a fan. The buce really really did not like this method of growing.

I then smeared the moss on just using my fingers. I have heard others say they used a pastry or art brush but honestly this worked super well. I was able to smear the moss into cracks and get bigger bits onto the worst of the superglue marks. I will definitely do it this way again.

Here is how it looks now:










Next up: more waiting!

I will keep spraying as before since the most needs the water now as well. It should attach in a week or so and then spread within 2 to 3 weeks. Le sigh I am in for a proper dry start after all.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Where do you come up with these obscure but way cool nano fish? 

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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Where do you come up with these obscure but way cool nano fish?
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk


I heard about Ricefish from watching videos on youtube. They are growing in popularity among some of the content makers right now. Aquarium CO-OP has done some stories on them and SerpaDesign just got some as well. Apparently a lot of people put them in tubs over the summer outside and they breed like rabbits.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Oh so what looks like miniature gold fish are rice fish too?

You wouldn't happen to know anything about lights would you? I made a new post in the Low Tech Forum no replies yet.. :/ 

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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Oh so what looks like miniature gold fish are rice fish too?
> 
> You wouldn't happen to know anything about lights would you? I made a new post in the Low Tech Forum no replies yet.. :/
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk


Yep those are also ricefish. There is some crazy number like 200 strains of ricefish. 

As for lights, I am using an asta 20 freshwater on my spec v and this tank has a floodlight in a desk lamp. Either could work for your tank, in the end it probably comes down to budget and what you want out of your light.


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## SwampGirl (Jan 12, 2017)

Wow those rice fish look so cool, I hope that you get them and breed them.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Look what I found on Reddit. Bowl was found in a thrift shop.










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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Look what I found on Reddit. Bowl was found in a thrift shop.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Le sigh, ya there are some sweet setups out there. The wife put significant constraints on what was allowed for this one. If I had had my way it would have been a uns tank. Or baring that, the spiffy cylinder daveks found. Oh well water under the bridge at this point.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Update:

I realized its been about 2 weeks since I last updated on the dry start so its time for an update.

I started the dry start with 2 rockwool pots of hairgrass and 2 of microsword. A few days later I added an additional tissue culture of hairgrass. If anyone is reading this in the future and wonders how to go about this process, I highly advise just buying the tissue cultures. They cost twice as much as the rockwool pots, but contain 3 to 4 times as much plant matter.

Anyway its officially 3 weeks since dry start began with those first 4 pots. Here is how it looks now:










I am pretty happy with how its grown in. Its not perfect in that I can still make out substrate here and there but its really quite nice compared to how it first looked:










I will likely flood sometime in the next week to week and a half. 

I also bought... more plants! I was at my local fish store and saw a plant I had not heard of before called Juncus Repens aka creeping rush. Its a native to north america and I am sucker for native plants. So I bought a pot. Here is how it looked:










It apparently turns brownish red under high light which is surprising only because, mine definitely turned brownish red. Or at least the section of it I have in the lower right of the first image. This is surprising to me because based on my calculations I should only be running medium light at best. Which means my light is higher then I thought, or the plant turns red a lot easier then I thought. Or maybe it just turns red when grown emersed easier then I thought. 

Anyway It should be interesting to see how it grows going forward once I flood. 

Oh you guys want to see my roots? Yea... I got roots!










Heh, I didn't grow them that way intentionally, but it is a bowl after all and the side of the tank is deceptively shallow in substrate, so there are a lot of roots visible all over the planted area.

Its hard to make out in the picture but my dry start moss is doing pretty good from what I can tell. Its definitely grown a little bit in the week since application which means it should be rooted to the wood reasonably well and won't go floating away when I flood.

In other news my anubias nana is all dying/dead. The buce that survived to this point is not looking too hot. I may flood sooner rather then later just to try and save that stuff.

I was actually expecting my fish to come in this week but I haven't heard from my seller as to a ship date. I hate to pester the fellow but I will probably poke him in another day to find out if he is shipping next week.


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## NotCousteau (Sep 25, 2014)

Nature Freak said:


> Oh wow too bad.
> 
> You know I looked up those blue ones that Rachel has I thought they were very cool looking. I think it's worth shooting her an email to see if she can't get the yellow ones would she mind contacting her buddy that does?
> 
> ...


Is this an alien betta from Frank's Bettas? I just messaged him about buying one. It's beautiful.
@minorhero: I love ricefish. I think they have a subtle beauty, and they're very gentle. You keep dace, too? I kept native minnows and dace for a while. They were always very docile. Nice bowl!


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## SwampGirl (Jan 12, 2017)

Yay Juncus Repens!! Juncus is a cool genus of rushes, I'd been looking at getting some for my native tank. That root growth is awesome! Looks like the dry start was a qualified success with the hair grass. Excited for flood day!


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

@NotCousteau yes this is an "Alien" and I believe he's from Frank's. That's what the vendor said. I picked him up at the expo The Aquatic Experiencnce in Meadowlands NJ a few weeks ago. Couldn't resist. 

One thing you should know in advance is that these fish are quite shy and will never be "interactive" like the typical domestic Betta Splendens - the ornamental type.

The wild types are just that - their disposition is like that of a Coy Dog. They may be domestically bred but they're rather feral in nature

They need a *heavily* planted tank to feel secure, otherwise they'll just hide all the time. . 

Frank feeds nothing but live daphnia and fortunately I have some but that's all the fish would eat for the first month.

Now he's been weaned to Dr.Bassleer's Bio Fish food and he loves it. They're the only pellets that are small enough.

Bear in mind these are very small fish - *much* smaller than your typical Betta Plakatt for example. Small and shy.

My fish is just starting to come around but it took a month. 

Just wanted to let you know if you don't have experience with wild fish it will be a learning curve, but he's a beautiful fish. He also liked frozen brine shrimp from the beginning if you don't have live food. But teaching him that pellets are food was a process for sure. 

I wouldn't pay the fee to import one. There's a place in CA that gets them in regularly. They're called Coast Gem I think? I would call them and ask when the next shipment is coming in. I think it's a rip off to pay the transshipper and all of that. If I've got the name wrong let me know I'll find it.

There's another local guy on eBay I can get you that info too.

A note about the color - my fish Rigel is technically Turquoise I think, but sometimes he looks bluer and sometimes he looks green depending on the light. If you get a steel colored fish it won't have this effect. I'll see if I can attach pics of his color changes It's very cool. 

And with all wild types they're prone to jumping so keep the lid on.

Hope this info helps and feel free to ask me anything. 

I think Frank takes nice pics and the "Aliens" metallic sheen is beautiful but I don't think Frank paints a realistic picture of what it's like to keep them. So if you're looking for your typical social and interactive betta these guys may not be for you. 

Apologies for the crappy cell phone pics. I need a real camera. But these are the same fish lol.

.






























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## NotCousteau (Sep 25, 2014)

Nature Freak said:


> @NotCousteau yes this is an "Alien" and I believe he's from Frank's. That's what the vendor said. I picked him up at the expo The Aquatic Experiencnce in Meadowlands NJ a few weeks ago. Couldn't resist.
> 
> One thing you should know in advance is that these fish are quite shy and will never be "interactive" like the typical domestic Betta Splendens - the ornamental type.
> 
> ...



Thank you for all of the great information and additional photos! That betta is beautiful. I was looking for a blue one like yours, too.

I've kept wild-caught native fish (minnows, dace, darters) before, but surprisingly, they adapted to aquarium life like champs and were always out and about and ate flake and pellet food like machines even though there were no non-native, non-wild-caught fish to teach them. They also had no fear of fishnets and would swim right into them. I'm guessing that was because they were wild-caught and didn't go through captive breeding and care with nets or weren't wild-caught across the world and didn't encounter nets through transportation, etc.?

Good go know about the tank setup and feeding for these guys. I culture daphnia outside, which won't help me much if I do get this betta this time of year. The transhipper fee for me is only $5 through the local guy here, because I believe he's already importing Thai bettas for his shop.

How big is your betta and do you keep it with anything?

Thanks.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

If your transshipper fee is only $5.00 that's great! 

Funny about your wilds Lol. 

I've got my daphnia in a big tote outside in the garden it's still warm enough here in NYC but in a month I may have to switch to grindle worms. 

Check out the Dr. Bassleer BioFood you have to email them for the US distributor. I've got "size medium" but they're perfect for the Alien. 

Bassleer is a German fish pathologist and this stuff is 59% protein and even the Alien loves it. I really wanted him to graduate to pellets so I can go on vacation! 

I'm attaching the ingredient list and the email and no I don't work for Bassleer. The price is similar to NLS.

Pic I just took he looks blue - but again half the time he looks green. If you don't care for all the color changes I'd let Frank know exactly what you want. 

Keep me posted we can compare Alien notes and sorry for the temp hijack @minorhero !























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## NotCousteau (Sep 25, 2014)

Thank you, @nature Freak!


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

No worries about the hijack, I always thought hijacks were kinda fun personally 

I really like the aliens and seriously considered getting one for my Spec V but the koi type bettas hit all the right betta buttons for me 

I am definitely hoping my eastern blacknose dace end up being super docile when it comes to tank companions. I would like to eventually keep them with ghost shrimp. Right now they are such voracious eaters I worry if I could get the ghost shrimp past the surface before they were all completely eaten.

While on that note, I was really happy with eastern blacknose dace until today when I saw a picture of mountain redbelly dace. Now I am wondering how far away the nearest population of those guys is to me, because they looked amazing.

Here is a picture I found online for reference:


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

I know it's kind of generic to suggest... but... what about a nice group of male Endlers? Or even male Guppies of some sort? 

Or if you decide to go colorless, there's always Heterandria formosa. They'd do well in a vase like that.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

somewhatshocked said:


> I know it's kind of generic to suggest... but... what about a nice group of male Endlers? Or even male Guppies of some sort?
> 
> Or if you decide to go colorless, there's always Heterandria formosa. They'd do well in a vase like that.


I actually have some endlers in my spec v. I like them but I have also done them at this point. I really enjoy having different fish species and getting to see how they behave in the aquascapes I create. I kind of became somewhat fascinated with the ricefish when watching videos on youtube of folks that have them. That they have been kept as pets for the last 300 years is pretty amazing. Plus they breed easily and are hard to get in this country which means there might be some breeding for profit options for me to help offset the cost of the hobby.

And anyway... UPDATE:

UPS guy dropped off a box almost immediately after I made my last post. Here is what was inside it:










They are fry! Heh, I thought I was getting juveniles that were much further along in their development but looking back at my email communication with the seller I see that he did indeed tell me they were fry. The picture he sent me that I previously posted must have been of the parents.

Here is the breeder box I put them till the bowl is ready for them:










They are essentially impossible to photograph at this point, so it will be a little while before I can get a clear image of them. When I put them in that breeder box I discovered that one of my dace had previously jumped into that box and I didn't know it. Getting him fished out before he could eat my crazy hard to get ricefish was an interesting moment.

Anyway they are all in place and at least some of them are eating so there is that.

And now that they finally came, a word about my search for ricefish.

I started my ricefish search when I first ordered my bowl from the glass blower. So its been about 3.5 months now. There are some websites that have sold them in the past but are currently out of stock. I contacted them anyway. No luck.

I then started daily searches of aquabid and e bay No luck.

This went on for a few months. I would search different terms such as ricefish, rice fish, medaka (japanese for ricefish), oryzias, and oryzias latipes. No luck.

I saw a video from SerpaDesign where he got some ricefish from Lucas Bretz so I reached out to him. No Luck.

I found a japanese facebook page called Medaka and Miniature Garden that claimed to sell eggs and ship internationally. But their last post was from 2017. I contacted them. No luck.

Nature Freak went to Aquatic Experience on a mission for me and provided contact information for a fish farm that might have them. But around this time I also got really desperate and started emailing everyone that had even a loose association with ricefish. 

It paid off. One of my inquiries was to a facebook group in the UK. They were unable to ship me any eggs or fish but one member mentioned that there should be someone in Hawaii that sells medaka through aquabid. I had been searching aquabid daily and there were no orange or tri-color medaka for sale but there was someone from Hawaii selling blue ricefish. I sent a direct email to him and to my great relief he had the ricefish I purchased. He had purchased his fish as fry direct from japan and was willing to send me the fry I now have. 

I am absolutely thrilled that the whole thing came through. Now I just need to not kill these little fellas and I will be good to go!


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## Quint (Mar 24, 2019)

That betta is really nice. Gonna have to search for similar after the one Ive got passes (not anytime soon, he is a tough ol fish thats been thru alot but older now and slowing down).


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Ricefish were relatively popular in the hobby in 2012/2013. I had a 20gal tank of them that I documented for a while here on the forum. I'll try to dig that thread up to share. Still occasionally see them in Louisville stores and have seen them recently when checking out shops in DC/MD/VA. Were pretty cheap. So they've gotta be coming in via common suppliers.

May be worth asking the shops you frequent if their suppliers can provide them.

Their popularity ebbs and flows but you should have no problem selling them if yours end up breeding well.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Hey great news about the fry congratulations! Awesome score 

What are you feeding them? 

I have a soft spot for Koi as well - my favorite betta was a big Koi  

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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

@Quint thanks but I hope your guy has many days ahead of him.  

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## Quint (Mar 24, 2019)

Im sure he will, the inlaws bought him for the kiddos. He then had a major attack of fin rot/fungus which took out most of his flowing fins. Got him over that and they grew back. Then he got a 10G to live in. The daughter then brought home a female koi. She beat him to within inches of not making it. Didnt realize she was going to be so aggressive. Had to rehome her and he recovered. He was never quiet the same after that. Has all his fins back and is a fat little trooper though. 

Those koi bettas are pretty cool looking fish. The female we had was very nice looking and wish I could have kept her but didnt have the ability to setup another tank and she was so aggressive toward other fish, primarily other bettas but others also.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Hey great news about the fry congratulations! Awesome score
> 
> What are you feeding them?
> 
> ...


Right now I am feeding them tetra color flakes ground very fine. I really wasn't prepared for fry so I will need to go buy some first bites today.

As to the market for ricefish. Well I honestly have no idea, most people have never heard of them. Its in my favor that I got a reasonably desirable breed assuming they color up as nicely as I am expecting them to. Right now only the two largest fry have any color on them. I am guessing my fish range in the 2 - 3 week age right now. They can apparently start breeding as early as 3 months of age so it won't be too long before I have an idea as to the quality of their coloring.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Update!

Its fill day. With the fish here and them being so darn small I really wanted to get the process started for moving them to their new home. I am leary of my dace jumping into my breeding box... again. Here is the bowl before filling:










I have dirt and sts in this bowl and both cloud the water something awful when disturbed so I knew I wanted to fill the bowl very very slowly. I therefore set up a siphon using airline tube.

That did work.... but dang it was slow. I got impatient and setup a siphon using airline tube and a rubber tube with 3/8" inner diameter. That worked perfectly. Here is how that looked:










After the first bucket was in the bowl it was time to plant my Rotala. My local fish store labeled it Rotala Bossii but its been getting pinkish/red at the top which made me think it was not bossii. If anyone can confirm what it is I would appreciate it. I had been growing this stuff in my quarantine tank and already had trimmed the tops once and replanted. I pulled the best looking tops and boy howdy were the roots long. I almost as long as the plants were tall. I pinched off most of those roots and set them aside:










Then I planted. It was pretty easy because the bowl actually spins reasonably well on its base so I could turn it around and plant the back without issue. 

5 juvenile blue ramshorn snails are the first inhabitants:










Some random debris floated up and I used a cup to skim the surface. And now here is how it looks:










The distortion at the widest point is pretty awful, something I did not really experience when the bowl was dry. But its possible to move your head around to see above and below it. Other then that its looking pretty good. As things settle in I will get better pictures.

I will do my water changes over the next few weeks. By tomorrow I should be able to get an idea what is leeching and what is not. One fear I had was that my wood would float. That wonderfully was not an issue. The base of the wood has been sitting in a pool of water for the last several weeks and I have been spraying the rest with water several times a day. Plus I boiled it first which is where I truly give the credit, but its still nice to see it was not a problem.

Once I can confirm my bowl is cycled, which I expect it is, I will add some shrimp. Going to go with yellow neos because I hear they breed reasonably true. Plus one adult amano. Once the shrimp are in and healthy for at least a week I will add the fry.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Wow looks great! Good job 

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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

@Quint yes the female Splendins can be just as aggressive as the males definitely can't be kept with males unless breeding.

Here's a pic of our Koi his name is "Maki" short for Uramaki.









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## SwampGirl (Jan 12, 2017)

I think it will actually work out really nice that you got fry! They will be able to adapt better, plus who doesn't love watching tiny fish grow up? It is disappointing that they probably wont start breeding as soon as if you had juvies. Bowl looks great planted!


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

SwampGirl said:


> I think it will actually work out really nice that you got fry! They will be able to adapt better, plus who doesn't love watching tiny fish grow up? It is disappointing that they probably wont start breeding as soon as if you had juvies. Bowl looks great planted!


Thank you, I admit this is the first time I have raised fry or had any intention of breeding fish and I am definitely enjoying this aspect of the hobby now that I am doing it. Its also not as hard to photograph the fry as I first assumed. They are very much topwater fish so I pretty much always know where to find them. Here you can see some of them hanging out next to my terrible looking red root floaters I am trying to rescue from the tender care of my giant duckweed.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

They're so cute 

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## SwampGirl (Jan 12, 2017)

minorhero said:


> SwampGirl said:
> 
> 
> > I think it will actually work out really nice that you got fry! They will be able to adapt better, plus who doesn't love watching tiny fish grow up? It is disappointing that they probably wont start breeding as soon as if you had juvies. Bowl looks great planted!
> ...


Oh you've never bred any fish!? Then I can understand the trepidation! I think Orzyias are a good fish to start with breeding. What do you plan on feeding them? I'd set up a brine shrimp hatchery if I were you.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

So far I am feeding tetra color flakes finely ground or fluval bugbites finely ground. I have thought about live foods but it doesn't seem "necessary" since they are a few weeks old and apparently able to eat prepared foods. I have heard of folks feeding hardboiled egg yoke in gauze and I might experiment with that route. I have never done live foods before and I am not too keen on going there if I can help it. Though I would consider daphnia simply because they can live in the tank itself I hear?


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## rakali (Sep 19, 2019)

minorhero said:


> Though I would consider daphnia simply because they can live in the tank itself I hear?


I'd recommend daphnia moina. Of the daphnia I've tried so far they seem to be the hardiest. They are also a smaller form and perfect for fry. I'd recommend half in the tank and half in a culture jar so you have a back up. My jar has a little gravel at the bottom and holes in the lid. Nothing fancy. You can feed barley grass and or spirulina powder available from any decent health food store.

https://www.carolina.com/crustaceans/moina-living/FAM_142336.pr?question=moina


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Monia are good for fry and when daphnia reproduce (which is often) there are lots of tiny baby ones. 

I've never had any luck keeping them inside; what works for me is a big tote thing I keep out in the garden. I just tossed in a few leaves and twigs and a tiny amount of yeast and forget about it let nature take care of it. When it rains I get natural water changes. Oh I do have a solar powered water pump - one of those cheap things people use in bird baths. So far so good. 

If you lived closer I'd be happy to give you a small culture - the ones on eBay are huge just for some fry. But live is really good for them. 

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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Monia are good for fry and when daphnia reproduce (which is often) there are lots of tiny baby ones.
> 
> I've never had any luck keeping them inside; what works for me is a big tote thing I keep out in the garden. I just tossed in a few leaves and twigs and a tiny amount of yeast and forget about it let nature take care of it. When it rains I get natural water changes. Oh I do have a solar powered water pump - one of those cheap things people use in bird baths. So far so good.
> 
> ...



Do they over winter? I live in maryland. Its getting into the upper 30's tonight and within a few weeks it will be below freezing.


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## NotCousteau (Sep 25, 2014)

minorhero said:


> Do they over winter? I live in maryland. Its getting into the upper 30's tonight and within a few weeks it will be below freezing.


Yes, they do. I live in Minnesota and my first daphnia culture froze solid in a 3-gallon bucket one winter and came back the next spring. I now keep them in a 65-gallon stock tank and a 24-inch plastic planter that freeze over and still have a culture the next spring.

Not sure how they do it!


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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

Do you get mosquito larvae? That would be my concern in the northeast USA.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

I am going on vacation in 2 weeks for a full week. As of right now I am thinking of putting the fry in the bowl, adding some daphnia and hoping for the best. I am open to suggestions but that's the best I have for right now. Previously I was thinking I would just add them to the bowl and hope they ate the biofilm for a week.


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## SwampGirl (Jan 12, 2017)

Daphnia will "survive" in the bowl until they get hunted down, and they won't reproduce fast enough to feed a bunch of hungry rice fish fry so you would need a separate culture container to keep them going. Daphnia will produce slower than brine shrimp (you can pretty much make as much baby brine as you need vs waiting for daphnia to reproduce) but they are probably slightly better food. Usually breeders feed both with brine as the staple and other live foods like daphnia, mosquito larvae, melanogaster, white worms, scuds, etc. being rarer supplements. a daphnia culture would probably produce enough to feed a few rice fish while they grow and start breeding. 

Because they are fry and not adults I would be more wary of assuming that they will survive without feeding, though they will likely be fine with the microorganisms in there, daphnia wouldn't hurt at all if you can get them though.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Ok current plan then is to order the daphnia (which I did) and split the culture into the bowl, and another container. The container might be outside. I might even split it into thirds with a container in the basement of my house and another outside and the rest in the bowl. Probably add some spirulina powder in there as well for the daphnia and for the fry. Add it to the bowl before I leave and hope for the best.


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## SwampGirl (Jan 12, 2017)

minorhero said:


> Ok current plan then is to order the daphnia (which I did) and split the culture into the bowl, and another container. The container might be outside. I might even split it into thirds with a container in the basement of my house and another outside and the rest in the bowl. Probably add some spirulina powder in there as well for the daphnia and for the fry. Add it to the bowl before I leave and hope for the best.


You can honestly split the culture as much as you want, and probably should just to have more backups (daphnia cultures sometimes just die off for no discernible reason) Spirulina will feed them immediately but I would also add something like a piece of dried vegetable that will release food slowly. As soon as they eat the spirulina in the water, they will start starving if there is nothing actively producing food in the culture. One small piece of dried veggie will feed a culture for a long time. Adding a little aquarium mulm is also a valid method for slightly faster "slow release" food.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Yup Nature is awesome not only do they overwinter but the eggs can survive decades long droughts and only hatch when conditions are right. 

Have fun on vacation where ya going? 

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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

@Streetwise I don't know if the NE comment was for me but I'll answer anyway.

If the water were stagnant I'm sure I'd get mosquitoes but I have this cheap solar water pump that keeps the water moving well. It was about $17.00 on eBay from a NJ company. The charge lasts all night and even in the shade it works I've seen versions that shoot up water like ppl use in bird baths - keeps mosquitoes away. 

The real problem in the summer (July+ August) is the HEAT. 

Daphnia prefer cool temps and crash - well mine do anyways - when we get bad heat waves. 
So I don't even bother during July/August.
Right after the ice melts till right before it freezes I get free fish food with the exception of summer.

I don't have the option of keeping them inside.

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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

Yes, thanks. So moving water is enough to inhibit mosquito larvae?


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## SwampGirl (Jan 12, 2017)

Streetwise said:


> Yes, thanks. So moving water is enough to inhibit mosquito larvae?


It doesn't inhibit any existing larvae but it stops them from laying in that body of water. They need a stable surface to lay their eggs.


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## GMYukonon24s (May 3, 2009)

I like the color of Rigel.


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## NotCousteau (Sep 25, 2014)

@Streetwise I do get mosquito larva in my cultures. I know people may hate me saying this, but I don't mind it. I like using the larva as food for my fish and newts. I don't notice a particularly high amount of mosquitoes in my yard. I'm a big native plant gardener, so I like having a water feature that also support insects. I get a lot of dragonflies and damselflies in my yard, which feed on mosquitoes.

I have considered maybe one day adding a solar "fountain/sprinkler" in my stock tank because the surface agitation makes it impossible for mosquitoes to use it to breed.

I also get blood worms (midge fly larva) from time to time!

Bump:


Nature Freak said:


> @Streetwise I don't know if the NE comment was for me but I'll answer anyway.
> 
> If the water were stagnant I'm sure I'd get mosquitoes but I have this cheap solar water pump that keeps the water moving well. It was about $17.00 on eBay from a NJ company. The charge lasts all night and even in the shade it works I've seen versions that shoot up water like ppl use in bird baths - keeps mosquitoes away.
> 
> ...


What's the brand and model of that pump? I've been looking at getting one. Thanks.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

NotCousteau said:


> @Streetwise I do get mosquito larva in my cultures. I know people may hate me saying this, but I don't mind it. I like using the larva as food for my fish and newts. I don't notice a particularly high amount of mosquitoes in my yard. I'm a big native plant gardener, so I like having a water feature that also support insects. I get a lot of dragonflies and damselflies in my yard, which feed on mosquitoes.
> 
> I have considered maybe one day adding a solar "fountain/sprinkler" in my stock tank because the surface agitation makes it impossible for mosquitoes to use it to breed.
> 
> ...


So is there any kind of filtering going on then? Or is it literally just a tote filled with water? Do you need to do any maintenance at all to it? I have ordered my daphnia culture and I am expecting it in a few days. So I have till then to get whatever I want going outdoors and in.


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## NotCousteau (Sep 25, 2014)

minorhero said:


> So is there any kind of filtering going on then? Or is it literally just a tote filled with water? Do you need to do any maintenance at all to it? I have ordered my daphnia culture and I am expecting it in a few days. So I have till then to get whatever I want going outdoors and in.


The pump is only to agitate the water surface so mosquitoes don't lay their eggs in the water. This is just for your own comfort and your neighbors' well-being. Mosquito larva don't harm daphnia at all.

I do zero maintenance to my outdoor daphnia cultures. I just tossed them in a 3-gallon bucket and they thrived and reproduced. I then divvied them up between a 65-gallon stock tank and a large plastic planter. 

It's great if you have rainwater on hand to start a culture outside. If not, treated tap water should be fine. But I would definitely get your outdoor daphnia tanks/vessels set up now so the water and vessel can age a little. I keep mine in shady areas that get some sun light. Too much sunlight and warm temperatures can cause them to crash. (Their numbers naturally decline at the height of summer.)

I let leaves, branches, etc. accumulate in my tubs to a certain degree. I think these definitely help feed and shelter the daphnia. If I were you, I'd start up more than one tub if possible and feed them lightly with powdered spirulina and yeast at first to get them going. Once they are established outside, they don't need any work at all.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

This is great news, I really like the idea of a zero maintenance live food option. Fall is in full swing here so I doubt I will be seeing any mosquitoes until spring anyway. By then I can figure out surface agitation solution be it solar powered air pump or solar powered water pump. 

I will be going to the hardware store tomorrow to buy a plastic tote for my culture.

In other news.. Update:

Its been a few days since filling. I have been doing water changes every day and testing my water. PH is 7.2 ammonia and nitrite has been zero. Nitrate is typically 20. My light cycle is quite long right now at 14 hours a day broken up into 2 parts with a 4 hour lights off period in the middle. I am seeing quite a bit of pearling from my plants.... also from my algae. Cause I definitely have algae. I was growing algae on my wood even before filling. Now that the tank is filled its definitely expanded a bit. I also have algae on my Rotala, a lot of algae on my rotala. The snails are doing their part but its definitely more then they can keep up with right now with the plants all transitioning to submersed states. So with that in mind I decided to add some shrimps. 

I have heard that yellow neocaridina breed truer then other color various. Or maybe they just are not as noticeably off color since yellow is a pretty pale color to start with. Following that logic I got 10 neocaridina golden back shrimps at my local fish store today. Here is what they looked like in the bag:










And here they are getting to work:










I am debating whether or not to add my adult amano shrimp I am planning for this tank as well. My plan right now is to encourage a bit of algae so that my fry will have something to snack on when I am not around. I have a lot of respect for the algae destroying power of my amano shrimp. 

Speaking of fry, at this point if all goes well with the shrimps I will be adding them to the bowl in a few days.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

OOOHHH, pretty shrimp - luv them.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Small Update:

I bought a 17 gallon tote at Home Depot for $9 the other day. Today I took it over to a corner of the yard not really used for much and dug a shallow hole for it to sit inside. Here is how that looked:










Used my fill dirt to build back up the sides a little bit and then threw some dried leaves, some twigs, a few still green leaves and half a shovel full of dirt from the bottom of the hole into the tote. Then filled 'er up from my hose.










Tada daphnia culture bin ready and waiting for my daphnia to arrive. Which should be in the next few days if all goes to plan.

I only deviated from others advice by adding the dirt to the bin. I might come to regret that but I figured its an easy way to add bacteria and small organisms to my bin right from the start.

For the winter at least I will not bother with water circulation. Come spring I hope to have figured out some way of doing it efficiently. I have found a lot of solar powered water pumps for fountains, a couple of air pumps for ponds, but thus far have not seen much with battery backup built in so it will run during the night which is clearly the most needed time to keep down the mosquitoes. I found one or two but the reviews were horrible so I am wary of them.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

@NotCousteau apologies for the delay. 

You know I can't find the make and model (or it's not listed): but it's called AC/DC Solar Powered Oxygenator Pond Aerator Aquarium Fish Water Oxygen Air Pump. Just type that into eBay. 

I'm attaching screenshot of eBay page. 

It's the listing with the American Flag a company in NJ you want that one bcs you have 30 days to return. All the others were shipped from China. 

It's also the only one that also has battery backup that's solar charged or you can plug into wall (I did that for the first charge)









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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

I think the dirt is a good idea I pondered doing that myself. 

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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

@Streetwise yup as others have said mosquitoes look for stagnant water so I don't get larva to begin with, although if I saw any I'd feed them to the fish! 

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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

The star or the fish?!









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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Your garden sounds totally amazing [emoji106]

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## SwampGirl (Jan 12, 2017)

Where the tote is, I dont see any way its NOT getting dirt in it at some point. I thi m you're fine, the surface dirt from most places is pretty inert in nutrients.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

@minorhero belatedly...I posted the eBay link to the unit I bought that's got battery backup. 

It's seems kind of intense for a smaller tub like mine so I use the option to "pulse" it.

I threw in some decomposing fall leaves too.

Not to go on about Rachel O'Leary but she's got a funny video about culturing daphnia. Apparently it took her a while to get the hang of it. She shows how she feeds it with Brewers yeast I'm experimenting with that now. Up till now I've been throwing in a little spirulina powder that I pre mix.

In the video, O'Leary says she learned daphnia favor decomposing things kind of gross but she said some ppl throw in a dead animal? I don't know if that belongs on Snopes or not [emoji2957]

I thought of your fry today bcs I noticed that I've got a lot of very tiny daphnia. The hybrid betta is a small fish he likes chasing the little daphnia around.  

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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

@SwampGirl didn't you say you just put a piece of vegetable in with the daphnia? 

Never thought of that sounds like a good idea  

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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Update:

Almost an hour after my last post the darn daphnia arrived.

Whoops.

I thought I had 2 or 3 days more time. Oh well they were here and here is how they looked:










The culture is supposed to have 500. I suspect it has an amount more then 300 and less then 10,000. Beyond that I can't imagine how you would measure the difference between say, 400 and 600.

Anyway I dumped most of the culture right into my bowl and the rest, about 1/4 I put into my new outdoor culture bin. After temperature acclimating each time.

The ones in the bowl I have observed and seemed to be doing fine, other then the fact that the culture was most definitely not pure. There was what I identified as a scud based on swampgirl's journal and some kind of larva that was busy squirming around hunting the daphnia. The latter I have found 2 of so far and fished out both times. 

With the daphnia in place and the shrimp still doing great I decided it was time to move in the fry. It was simply a matter of removing as many plants as I could from the breeder box and then taking the entire thing out of the current tank and essentially dumping it into the fish bowl. All made it safely to their new home. Here are some pictures of the settling in:



















I also noticed today that my ramshorn snails are officially of breeding age:










This last is actually kind of fun for me as I have a bit of a desperate need for snails at the moment.

I have a LOT of algae issues in this tank, almost certainly brought on by my extended light cycle. So along with the fry I added 2 more ramshorn snails. Then later today I added an adult Amano shrimp as well. I was thinking of holding off on the amano for a while but I think the algae is severe enough to warrant its immediate release into the bowl.

The fry have only been in the tank a few hours and they are definitely doing pretty good. They have even started to become less skittish now that they can see me coming as it were.


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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

You have multiple tanks, right?

Edit: Yes, of course you do!

Are you picking one tank to grow these out in, and then feed to other tanks as needed?


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Hey wow that's great! 

I'm wondering about your daphnia culture bcs it looks so clear as in hard to see them - lemme dig up a pic of what mine looked like. I can't remember the exact number I ordered but it was loaded with them. Whatever I paid for they gave me 3x the amount (3 bagfuls Lol I had to unload them locally on Aquaswap). This happened twice. 

I went through a number of vendors before I got a decent culture that was thriving on arrival. I have nothing to gain from this (other than paying good Intel fwd) but the awesome eBay vendor is escobaraquatic0. 

I think they were a little bit more expensive but they sent amazing cultures and are a pleasure to deal with. 

I thought scuds were fine for fish, no? 









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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

The daphnia are just in 2 locations at present. In an outside tote and in the bowl. Not many left in the bowl near as I can tell. My master plan was to put the fry in and then they feed on the daphnia over the course of weeks. I severely underestimated how quickly 7 fry could eat a few hundred daphnia. I suspect there will be none left by tomorrow evening. 

The outside culture I plan to just not touch for a few months.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Hey wow that's great!
> 
> I'm wondering about your daphnia culture bcs it looks so clear as in hard to see them - lemme dig up a pic of what mine looked like. I can't remember the exact number I ordered but it was loaded with them. Whatever I paid for they gave me 3x the amount (3 bagfuls Lol I had to unload them locally on Aquaswap). This happened twice.
> 
> ...


Your culture definitely looks more densely populated then mine. I also have the smaller type of daphnia, not the magna that most folks sell. I would not use my seller again simply because his culture was not pure daphnia which he must know and should warn people about. 

I am not at all worried about the scuds, the larva or whatever I could live without but I think will likely get eaten as well.


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## rakali (Sep 19, 2019)

Daphnia reproduce so quickly I wouldn't worry much about the numbers. If you have a few that are happy you'll have more than you know what to do with shortly. I culture them inside in dollar store mason jars with a bit of gravel. I feed with some spirulina and barley grass powder and recently I added some nori. That was enough to keep the culture happy. They multiply remarkably quickly. Good luck!


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Ahhhh perhaps you bought monia? I received a bag of those once and couldn't see them. 

With the magna, once they're happy they'll be reproducing and you get a lot of tiny ones.

I've never had any luck keeping them indoors never mind in a mayson jar indoors. Now that the temps have dropped the daphnia are jamming. 

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## rakali (Sep 19, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Ahhhh perhaps you bought monia? I received a bag of those once and couldn't see them.
> 
> With the magna, once they're happy they'll be reproducing and you get a lot of tiny ones.
> 
> ...


Not sure if you were directing that to me but yes mine are moina. For me the magna died off but the moina remained.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Actually that was for @minorhero but I saw your amazing Mason jar video that never worked for me. Culture crashed immediately. 

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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Update!

Its been about a month since I filled the bowl so I figured now was a good time for an update. 

Since I last updated the bowl has gone through some changes. First and foremost I went away for a week. Since I knew I was going away and my master plan of adding live food to keep the fry going failed (the fry ate it all in less then 24 hours) I decided to not worry overly much about algae and let the fry eat that while I was gone. This worked to the extent that .. there is a lot of algae, and the fry all survived. So huzzah total success ;P

Anyway after I came back I decided it was time to do something about the algae. I added 4 mid sized amano shrimp to the tank and a couple more ramshorn snails. The snails I had in there have been very busy reproducing like crazy. I probably have a few dozen baby snails in this tank. I doubt all will make it to maturity, but in the meantime they are useful in eating the algae off the tips of the hair grass. 

I also replaced the bulb... again! I decided the previous bulb was way too strong because even with 5 amano shrimp (one quite large) the algae was still growing faster then the shrimp could eat. I was also very unhappy with the color of the previous bulb. All of my plants looked yellow-orange. 

I thus replaced it with a significantly less powerful bulb... specifically - this SANSI daylight bulb. Its a lot smaller with frankly significantly better color. Its also not generating algae at quite the rate the previous bulb was doing it.

Oh and I added a vampire shrimp.... because VAMPIRES!!

Heh actually I added it because the local fish store guy said they will also help with my algae. I know traditional thinking is to put them in a high flow tank but he seems pretty happy so far crawling around the driftwood and doing his spiffy filter feeding hand trick. Time will tell if it was a good idea.

Here are some pictures of the bowl I took the other night with my real camera.



















Vampire shrimp visible in the lower right:



















The fry have all gained size as you can see and color as well. I think they still have a bit to go though before they will reach maturity. At this point its just steady as she goes.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Trying to take pictures of this tank is gosh darn difficult! Even with all the lights off in a room except the tank light and taking the shot at night there can still be glare when shooting from certain angles. This is because the light is bouncing around the inside of the tank.

Anyway I tried to capture how the shrimp, snails, and fish look and almost succeeded, in the meantime while I try to figure this out here are some shots of the critters:

From above:










Random shrimp swimming along the edge of the glass:










Ramshorn snail doing what they do... namely breed like crazy and eat my algae:










Random shrimp swimming by:










From my phone camera - a snail who had eggs laid on its shell, and now the eggs are hatching:










Its hard to make out here but the shrimp in the middle of the picture is berried so huzzah!


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Thank you for posting such a detailed update!

It looks so great. Your focus on scale has more than paid off - with hardscape, plants, critter selection and even substrate depth. Really nice.


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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

Very nice! Some of my best iPhone shots I get are when I hold the phone directly against the glass. I really need to get a tripod, but the glass shots are very stabilized.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

somewhatshocked said:


> Thank you for posting such a detailed update!
> 
> It looks so great. Your focus on scale has more than paid off - with hardscape, plants, critter selection and even substrate depth. Really nice.


Thank you! 

In a recent video by Floo The Flowerhorn on Youtube he noted that it takes 2 months for one of these Walstad tanks to settle in. I am really seeing the truth in that statement in my bowl. The first 3 weeks or so there was a lot of algae, a lot of that had to do with my light but still, I thought I would have better control over the algae given the amount of planting. Then at 3 weeks it really started to dissipate. Now at over a month the algae is noticeably less and new algae seems to either not be forming or is being eaten as fast as its growing. Even the glass is pretty clean.

So far only my rotala is growing well as far as stems go. The other two plants I have in the middle and back left do not seem to be doing much. The tank is getting more balanced by the day so it doesn't bother me but it will be interesting to see how it looks 6 months from now when hopefully those plants have grown in a bit more.



Streetwise said:


> Very nice! Some of my best iPhone shots I get are when I hold the phone directly against the glass. I really need to get a tripod, but the glass shots are very stabilized.


I do have a tripod but the way the bowl curves its not a lot of help. There is significant distortion if I shoot from the wrong angle or location so only certain angles and shots are any good to begin with. I also do not have a macro lens for my real camera so I am making do with some cheapo extension tubes which let me kinda mimic a macro but not in super awesome way. I also took some pictures of my other tank last night and will be posting that later. With a flat piece of glass in front I am able to get much better shots.


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## RainforestConcepts (Nov 20, 2019)

Love the detail and the shape of the bowl!


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

RainforestConcepts said:


> Love the detail and the shape of the bowl!


Thank you! It has been interesting growing plants in something spherical. If doing it again I probably would have bought a proper globe instead of this one with it being lopsided. There is a lot of distortion where the glass changes angles. But overall I am enjoying this tank/bowl immensely. My favorite aquarium right now.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

minorhero said:


> Thank you! It has been interesting growing plants in something spherical. If doing it again I probably would have bought a proper globe instead of this one with it being lopsided. There is a lot of distortion where the glass changes angles. But overall I am enjoying this tank/bowl immensely. My favorite aquarium right now.


 Looking very nice. Great job putting this together!

I was so sad when my unconventional aquarium-- the cylinder vase-- sprung a leak. 
Eventually I will set up another cylinder or maybe a bowl, but be much more careful of what is touching the glass/ not loading it up so much with rock.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Discusluv said:


> Looking very nice. Great job putting this together!
> 
> I was so sad when my unconventional aquarium-- the cylinder vase-- sprung a leak.
> Eventually I will set up another cylinder or maybe a bowl, but be much more careful of what is touching the glass/ not loading it up so much with rock.


Thank you! 

Its a super fun tank to watch. The mix of inhabitants, amano, neo, vampire... plus snails and ricefish is really fun. The shape gets everyone's attention when they come to my house. Then they realize its full of critters and they get even more excited. 

If I had to do it again though I would have just bought this round vase and called it a day. Its available elsewhere for cheaper to. Plus it wouldn't have the weird distortion issues I have with mine when the glass changes angles.


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## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

minorhero said:


> Thank you!
> 
> Its a super fun tank to watch. The mix of inhabitants, amano, neo, vampire... plus snails and ricefish is really fun. The shape gets everyone's attention when they come to my house. Then they realize its full of critters and they get even more excited.
> 
> If I had to do it again though I would have just bought this round vase and called it a day. Its available elsewhere for cheaper to. Plus it wouldn't have the weird distortion issues I have with mine when the glass changes angles.



Yes, that is a very nice round vase. Im going to save that one to my "wish list"- thanks for the link.


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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

Your tank looks awesome. That Amazon-linked tank still looks asymmetrical.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Update!

I filled this tank on Halloween so its been just about 2 months since I added the water.

I decided it was time... and frankly a bit past time to do trim on the plants. The rotala has gone crazy (as expected) and delightfully the carpet of dwarf hair grass and micro sword has also taken off. The other plants are mostly just biding their time. They grow... just not very quickly. Certainly my so called "stem" plants (other then rotala) are not doing anything exciting. I may add other stem plants so the rotala has something to compete with. Any suggestions?

Here is how the tank looked before the trim:




























The red root floaters took forever to get their feet under them. Finally they took off. Then my snails decided they were a tasty snack. All those holes are from baby snails. I have always been told snails won't eat live plants unless they are starving. I guess my tank is currently experiencing the downside of a run away ramshorn snail breeding session.

Here is how the tank looked after a BIG trim.




























In other news the SANSI light bulb I installed is working extremely well. It was considerably smaller then either of the other two bulbs but the colors are nice and the plants are booming under it. If anyone is looking for a common lightbulb to use on a small tank powerful enough to get dwarf hair grass growing then I feel comfortable recommending the SANSI. 

The other pleasant surprise is the vampire shrimp. He is still alive and doing quite well. Its a rarity to see him. Probably only comes out in the open once or twice a week. But he is still around more then a month after I put him in. The belief with these guys is that you need a strong flow to keep them healthy but this tank has zero flow. I think the lack of filter is what is keeping the vampire shrimp doing so well. There is always some bits of plants floating around in the tank and that is what he loves to eat. An over filtered aquarium would kill this fellow, but my no filter walstad is perfect for him.


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## Nature Freak (Sep 30, 2019)

Wow I've been away for a few weeks and what a transformation! Nice work! 

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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Nature Freak said:


> Wow I've been away for a few weeks and what a transformation! Nice work!
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk



Thank you! It's been a fun ride. I added some more plants to the back of the tank a couple of days ago. I didn't pull what was there, just shoved these stems in on top. 

Unfortunately I can't remember their names... heh The one with broad leaves started with a C, the one that looks like fancy hornwort... can't remember a thing. I also added some broad leaf Ludwigia in the back. Will be interesting to see if it retains its red color.



















My biggest concern at this point is that I have seen no egg laying from the ricefish. You can sex ricefish by their anal fin apparently. From what I can see.... I think I might have all males.......... I'm hoping I'm wrong. If I'm not wrong.. I think I need to buy more ricefish heh.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

So happy to see how your bowl has matured. Everything is looking terrific.


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## Donedeal (Feb 22, 2019)

Bowl looks great! I've never heard of ricefish before. They're very good looking fish and fit the aesthetic very well.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Donedeal said:


> Bowl looks great! I've never heard of ricefish before. They're very good looking fish and fit the aesthetic very well.


Thank you they are a lot of fun. Nice to see another Maryland'er!


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## EdWiser (Jul 14, 2015)

Great fish bowl keep one on my kitchen counter. Easy to take care of. Rice fish are fun too. Like white cloud minnows
Tough fish.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Update!

Another month passed and it was time to trim the tank again. Here is what it looked like before the trim:



















And after the trim:



















The last time I trimmed I used my cheapy s-wave scissors that were definitely Brand-X. They were absolutely aweful. I thus went on a quest for the best carpeting scissors. I don't know if I succeeded in finding the BEST carpeting scissors, but what I found was pretty darn good. I ended up with a pair of Gingher Embroidery double curved scissors seen here posing next to some regular scissors:










These things were great and made short work of my carpet trimming in this tank. If folks are looking for a set of scissors to trim a carpet, then I definitely recommend these guys.

Meanwhile... ricefish! So I have been patiently waiting for my darn fish to breed. For them to even show signs of breeding would be lovely. Every day, multiple times a day I have been checking for eggs and have been for months. Thus far... nothing.

Until:










The top fish has eggs near the anal fin. WOOT!

This is how ricefish breed. The female will lay eggs and they will stick to her side until she brushes them off onto plants.

So I definitely have some breeding action going on which is super exciting. Now I have no idea if I will get any fry since I have a LOT of snails in this tank and I am concerned they will eat the eggs. But.. at least its a possibility now


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## schooldazed (Mar 31, 2013)

Have been enjoying your thread since the beginning. Bowl's looking fantastic. Especially the no tech dwarf hair grass. Impressive all around. Just a thought - you might consider floating your trimmings jic...fry. Cheers


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

schooldazed said:


> Have been enjoying your thread since the beginning. Bowl's looking fantastic. Especially the no tech dwarf hair grass. Impressive all around. Just a thought - you might consider floating your trimmings jic...fry. Cheers


Its definitely not a bad idea but ricefish are supposed to not harm fry once they themselves have reached maturity (apparently older siblings are different). That said, if I don't see any fry and continue to see eggs I will start to try different things to make it work. Right now I have a few pieces of giant duckweed in the top but I am going to try filling the top with giant duckweed in the near future. This alone might help.


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## fortyneck (Jan 24, 2020)

Súper cool!!!


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## schooldazed (Mar 31, 2013)

minorhero said:


> Its definitely not a bad idea but ricefish are supposed to not harm fry once they themselves have reached maturity (apparently older siblings are different). That said, if I don't see any fry and continue to see eggs I will start to try different things to make it work. Right now I have a few pieces of giant duckweed in the top but I am going to try filling the top with giant duckweed in the near future. This alone might help.



I was just thinking in some other container for a week or so in case the rice fish had laid on what you trimmed.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

schooldazed said:


> I was just thinking in some other container for a week or so in case the rice fish had laid on what you trimmed.


Ahh now I understand and yes in the future that might be a good way to go. I have a breeding container that I have put in the side of my 40 gallon quarantine in the past. I think going forward I will dump any trimmings from this tank into that contraption for a couple of weeks.


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## Donedeal (Feb 22, 2019)

Very exciting! Makes me want to try out a fish bowl, but I think it would end up being a fun snack for my cat...


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Donedeal said:


> Very exciting! Makes me want to try out a fish bowl, but I think it would end up being a fun snack for my cat...


My wife has 2 cats. I happen to exist in the same universe they exist in so technically I have 2 cats as well.

One of the cats is chill, the other I catch drinking out of this bowl all the time. I make unhappy noises at it when I catch it doing it, but you know... cats. Anyway so far all the inhabitants are fine, she just likes to drink the water.


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## Streetwise (May 24, 2019)

My ex-stray drinks out of my bedside tanks because he only trusts moving water. I don't have any fish in those tanks, but I think he ignores the fish in my other tanks anyway.


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## Donedeal (Feb 22, 2019)

minorhero said:


> My wife has 2 cats. I happen to exist in the same universe they exist in so technically I have 2 cats as well.


This is the same situation that I'm in, just with one cat. My 55G is built into the wall so she likes to sit on the coffee table nearby and stare at the fish there. My 10G is on top of a dresser in my bedroom, so the cat spends about 50% of her day right up against the glass. At least once a day I'll catch her swatting at the glass trying to get my poor betta or cardinals, in which case I have to make unhappy noises at her.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Update!

What a difference a few weeks can make! So when I went through and ransacked all of my rotala it had an extremely negative effect on the plant. Basically I stalled the heck out of it. The problem with this is that my rotala was definitely doing the heavy lifting when it came to filtering this tank. With my rotala not growing, my Walstad tank wasn't filtering. Water quality started to degenerate pretty quickly. Here is what the rotala looked like when I decided I had had enough:










As you can see, things are starting to look murky, and the rotala hasn't recovered at all despite it being over a week since I cut the tops.

I went to my local fish store and purchased 2 different plants. 1 bundle of Myrio Filgrea and 2 bundles of Hygrophila Angustifolia. Here is what that looked like:










Then I cut all the Rotala down to substrate level. I didn't pull the plants because I don't want to deal with the mess. If they grow back I can decide if I want to cut them away again or let them rise once more. The look was dramamtically different with these plants which I quite liked. But... well things took an even worse turn. The rotala wasn't doing much to filter its true, but these plants are brand new to the tank and they were not established at all. So the only filtering going on in this aquarium at this point was the few other plants I already had growing. A couple of stems of ludwigia, my carpet, and some stems of a plant my LFS calls Columbine but what is probably called something else by the rest of the world.

Anyway not much filtering, and my water turned green, like really green:










That's when I lost my vampire shrimp. He showed up in the front of the tank barely moving. This is very uncharacteristic for him since he usually hides. He also had crazy black hair like growths all over him. Looked like BBA. I didn't take a picture of it since it freaked me out too much. I just netted him out and euthanized immediately. I tried looking up after the fact what it was and basically came to the conclusion it was likely a fungal growth brought on by poor water quality. I am sure it was made worse by the fact that I rarely see this guy so it the growth had days (weeks?) to set in. I was hoping to establish the new plants and let the green water clear up on its own. But when the vampire shrimp died I decided it was time to fix the situation. I had previously purchased a "Green Killing Machine" uv filter and employed it here. While this thing is effective the quality is so incredibly bad that I can't in good conscious recommend anyone else purchase one of these. If looking for a uv filter I would look elsewhere. Anyway I put it in and 6 days later my tank was free of the dreaded green water. It was in fact exceptionally clean and clear so much so I am wondering if I should start using a small submersible pump simply to circulate water. I have enjoyed not having any cords coming out of this tank but the water quality is really nice right now. So I will have to see where the tank goes from here as the plants really start to grow in.

Anyway with the tank looking nice I decided to take some more pictures. This tank is incredibly difficult to photograph but I gave it another go:





































The Top Down:










And the Up The Kilt Shot:










And FTS:










You can see I raised the light on a block of wood. I did this to further decrease the strength. I am also letting the giant duckweed grow in till it essentially covers 70+ percent of the surface. I am still getting some dense green algae that I pull out every water change with a tooth brush. Hoping this will put an end to that - plus you know.. better growing plants.

Hungry baby snails have been working on my Hygrophila while it was establishing itself. Other then that things are going pretty well. I am seeing more eggs, almost every day now and the fish are still growing. I think right now I only have one mature female and one mature male. The other 5 fish are noticeably smaller. So far no fry though. My guess is the snails are eating the eggs. Does that match other people's experiences with snails? I am thinking I will want to separate some fish out soon so they can breed. I wonder how I will explain the addition of the new breeding tank to my wife ;P


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

I really love this. I have done a few filterless tanks, one a traditional 5 gallon and then many random ones using bowls, vases, and other things I had laying around. This may just inspire me to do something similar, but smaller, I have wanted a second "tank", but I don't want my little condo to look like a "tank room".


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

talontsiawd said:


> I really love this. I have done a few filterless tanks, one a traditional 5 gallon and then many random ones using bowls, vases, and other things I had laying around. This may just inspire me to do something similar, but smaller, I have wanted a second "tank", but I don't want my little condo to look like a "tank room".


Thank you! Its a fun tank and definitely my most satisfying to watch. If I had it to do over again I would have bought the glass bowl I found right away. It would have been a bit bigger then my current setup and would have cost half as much. Or if willing to spend a bit more would have gotten the one DaveKS found. Still where I'm at is a fun place.


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## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

The bowl looks awesome minorhero. The ricefish look gorgeous as well. I recently saw some at my LFS and I think i'm gonna keep them as well.

I know you mentioned that you're not too sure what rotala that is but it looked to be growing really well before you hacked it off. Did you ever manage to get an ID on it?


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## andrewss (Oct 17, 2012)

Beautiful form! The presentation is really nice on the desk with the window plants!


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

chicken.nublet said:


> The bowl looks awesome minorhero. The ricefish look gorgeous as well. I recently saw some at my LFS and I think i'm gonna keep them as well.
> 
> I know you mentioned that you're not too sure what rotala that is but it looked to be growing really well before you hacked it off. Did you ever manage to get an ID on it?


Ricefish are great. Right now I feel like I will always have a betta because they are awesome, and I will always have ricefish for the same reason. I want to put them in a small patio pond for the summer but the wife is resisting ;P

I did end up figuring out the plant id. It was Rotala Wallichii. This is supposed to be a harder plant to grow which is why I dismissed this as a possibility early on. I had it in my 40 breeder as well and when the co2 and high lights got installed it turned pink. I ended up nuking it with hydrogen peroxide during an attempt to fight algae. So now I am not keeping any at all. Honestly unless I one day run out of things to do and decide to go dutch I don't see myself ever keeping the plant again. Way too fussy.



andrewss said:


> Beautiful form! The presentation is really nice on the desk with the window plants!


Thank you! I am pretty happy with placement. The window gets indirect light all day long which makes it ideal for low light houseplants. I recently got an orchid to reflower in that window.


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## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

minorhero said:


> Ricefish are great. Right now I feel like I will always have a betta because they are awesome, and I will always have ricefish for the same reason. I want to put them in a small patio pond for the summer but the wife is resisting ;P
> 
> I did end up figuring out the plant id. It was Rotala Wallichii. This is supposed to be a harder plant to grow which is why I dismissed this as a possibility early on. I had it in my 40 breeder as well and when the co2 and high lights got installed it turned pink. I ended up nuking it with hydrogen peroxide during an attempt to fight algae. So now I am not keeping any at all. Honestly unless I one day run out of things to do and decide to go dutch I don't see myself ever keeping the plant again. Way too fussy.


Aw its Wallichii? Sigh, no way I'm getting that to grow in my tank D:

I've never had rice fish before but they sure are pretty... I was still a little hesitant on getting them for my 7g cube since there are so many other nano fish to choose from but I think after seeing pictures of your fish I've more or less decided at this point.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

chicken.nublet said:


> Aw its Wallichii? Sigh, no way I'm getting that to grow in my tank D:
> 
> I've never had rice fish before but they sure are pretty... I was still a little hesitant on getting them for my 7g cube since there are so many other nano fish to choose from but I think after seeing pictures of your fish I've more or less decided at this point.


They have a good combination for nano tanks, they don't need a heater, they don't jump so you don't need a top. And they are tiny so small tanks are ok for them. It's a hard combination to find in a fish. Plus there are a LOT of breeds out there. Finding any in the USA is hard but occasionally you get lucky and find them in local fish stores etc.


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## zmartin (May 1, 2018)

Great thread thank you. It really resonated as have just purchased a 3 gallon fish bowl to play around with during this period of isolation. Really appreciated the information (and final choice) on the light bulb.

I realise the bowl is a walsted but do you provide any additional ferts?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

zmartin said:


> Great thread thank you. It really resonated as have just purchased a 3 gallon fish bowl to play around with during this period of isolation. Really appreciated the information (and final choice) on the light bulb.
> 
> I realise the bowl is a walsted but do you provide any additional ferts?
> 
> ...


In have settled on adding some additional ferts. Diana Walstad is a big proponent of just adding fish food as fertilizer. Frankly I am of the belief that even if that works, liquid ferts are both fairly cheap, and readily available in 2020 and don't make a mess like extra fish food does. 

I have ThriveC I use for other aquariums so I find myself adding a few drops of that when I do a water change. By no means do I add a full dose. Thrive is an EI fertilizer and its just too much in this tank. When I tried I ended up with algae outbreaks. Now that I've settled on just adding a few drops things are going very well with the tank.

Random shot as of writing this response:


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## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

This tank is one of my favorites here on TPT. I like the looks of it plus it's so self-contained. It makes me want to go out and purchase a bowl and start a similar tank. How much time do you spend on the maintenance per week?


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Ken Keating1 said:


> This tank is one of my favorites here on TPT. I like the looks of it plus it's so self-contained. It makes me want to go out and purchase a bowl and start a similar tank. How much time do you spend on the maintenance per week?


Thank you!

I think it is like any other densely planted small tank. It's only 7.5 gallons after all. I drain out about 3-4 gallons during water change each week. And about every 5 or 6 weeks I trim the carpet/stems. I feed 3 times a day right now because I am trying to encourage the ricefish to breed. The mid-day feeding is just a few freeze dried blood worms. 

And that is really it. Some weeks I need to clean the glass, but most weeks its not an issue. There are a LOT of snails in this tank. 

The plants grow relatively slowly for a tank so heavily planted since at the end of the day this is a low tech tank. The latest batch of stems for instance have not been trimmed since planting other then to remove a few dead leaves the snails were munching on.


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## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

minorhero said:


> They have a good combination for nano tanks, they don't need a heater, they don't jump so you don't need a top. And they are tiny so small tanks are ok for them. It's a hard combination to find in a fish. Plus there are a LOT of breeds out there. Finding any in the USA is hard but occasionally you get lucky and find them in local fish stores etc.


I bought 3 of the little buggers today. I'll probably get 2 or 3 more in a week or so.

I live in Singapore where it's hot year round so heaters have never been a problem. Hell some fishkeepers here actually run chillers on their tanks.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

chicken.nublet said:


> I bought 3 of the little buggers today. I'll probably get 2 or 3 more in a week or so.
> 
> I live in Singapore where it's hot year round so heaters have never been a problem. Hell some fishkeepers here actually run chillers on their tanks.


Ah I for whatever reason didn't look at your location. Yea you are are in a great place for fish keeping. You can find these fish practically everywhere and they are pretty cheap as well. I had to go on a quest to get these fellows and I ended up paying about 15 dollars per fish once you factor in shipping.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Time for an update!

This tank (like many) goes through cycles. Its trim, its perfectly grown in, its overgrown, its trim. Etc etc.

It was definitely in the overgrown status:




























Some ludwigia breaking the surface:










I moved out a double handful of giant duckweed (to be added at the end) and then put my scissors to work. I previously declared my embroidery scissors the best ever. I have to revise that statement sadly. They are rusting along the cutting edge which is quite annoying. They still cut well but for how long?

Anyway after the trim here is how it looked:



















A rare look at from the top down without plants in the way:



















Since I last updated I also purchased an Apogee SQ-420 Par Meter. I have been busy taking readings from lots of light bulbs since then. What I found has been surprising. I am getting a LOT more light then I realized in my tanks. With this trim I decided to redo the readings I have for this light bulb to show here what the different levels are:

On a cloudy day with the lamp off I am getting ~3 ppfd at substrate in the middle of my carpeted area:










With no floating plants in the way I am getting a pretty crazy 90 ppfd with the sensor in the same location:










I then added back my double handful of giant duckweed covering about 40% of the water's surface:










Never moving the sensor I now had 50 ppfd at substrate:










This is why I need these gosh darn plants heh. At 50 ppfd any algae I get is eaten by my amanos and snails. At 90 ppfd its too much even for my explosive snail population and 4 amano shrimp. 

And more shots of the tank:



















Of my 4 tanks this one is definitely been the most interesting both in viewing and in it's evolution. Next up.... more of the same


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## zmartin (May 1, 2018)

@minorhero - that information re: your light readings is priceless.

I have just started a planted bulb with a 9w 6500 LED (smaller 3 gallon bowl mind you) and get readings of around 35 par.

I have a 12 watt grow light led on the way but I was worried it would be too strong. Good to know the impact if I moderate with frog bit or duckweed.

Great thread!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

minorhero said:


> Time for an update!
> 
> This tank (like many) goes through cycles. Its trim, its perfectly grown in, its overgrown, its trim. Etc etc.
> 
> ...


Looks absolutely gorgeous minorhero.


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## doug105! (Aug 2, 2016)

Hey Minorhero!

love the bowl! Very inspiring.

What bulb were you measuring and how far above the waterline was it situated?
Did you take some measurements at different distances?

Thanks,

Doug


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

doug105! said:


> Hey Minorhero!
> 
> love the bowl! Very inspiring.
> 
> ...


Thank you!

The bulb is a SANSI 10W Grow Bulb. Its 10 inches to the water's surface, another 8 inches to the substrate so 18" inches from the bulb to substrate.

I have a whole thread on different bulbs at different distances here.


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## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Update:

It's been a month and a half since my last meaningful update. While I definitely enjoy changing the scapes up on my other tanks it is fun to leave this one essentially how I made it and watch it change over time. The latest wrinkle?

Well what happens when you have a balanced tank and suddenly introduce direct sunlight? I give you 3 guesses and 2 don't count ;P

It sure is pretty to look at though:



















When I set this tank up it was late summer. From that point till mid April this tank only ever got indirect light. Then in mid April it started getting about 30 minutes of direct sunlight in the late afternoon. Today I did my maintenance session and the algae was impressive!










Fortunately it was extremely well mannered algae. I was able to pull it out by the handful with little effort on my part.










Here is a bucket of just algae in my weekly removal of giant duckweed. My hand in for some reference.










Water changed and all done:










In other news my shrimp FINALLY bred in this tank. I got babies all over. I am wondering if the algae helped them?? Or was it just a coincidence? I certainly had algae outbreaks before if not as bad and never before did I have much in the way of breeding. With babies in the tank I refrained from doing any kind of gravel vac'ing and instead just siphoned water from the surface.


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