# Hello! Walstad bowl help please.



## joshus (Sep 24, 2013)

Hi everyone!

I really don't have much experience in fish keeping and my betta, Buddy, I got about a month and a half ago is my first fish since I was a kid. I really enjoyed growing some plants in his bowl (just gravel) so I found my way here. I have been lurking here a couple weeks (learning a lot from this helpful forum) and decided to give a planted shrimp bowl a go.

I guess I'll just go over what I have done so far:

I got a bowl from the craft store that holds about 2 gallons, some MG organic soil, and some pool filter sand. I don't have a lot of money to spend so I went to a local canal and grabbed a bunch of plants. I live in central Florida to give you an idea of my local species. I am almost done with my BS in Natural Resources, so I am pretty familiar with the species of my area, but I have no experience with this planted bowl project.

The plants I collected are:

Floating
4x Water Fern (Salvinia minima)
1x Water Lettuce (Pistia stratiotes)
1x Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes)
1x Frog's Bit (Limnobium spongia)
3 Stems of Anarchist
1 Stem of Hornwort (I think)
Some hitchiking bits of varried duckweed as well

Planted
7x Tapegrass (Vallisneria americana)
4x Ludwigia (exact species unknown)

I tried to find some RCS locally to no avail. I figured that I would just get some Ghost shrimp instead but while I was collecting plants, I managed to catch some local Mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki, with my hands. I have a hard time counting them but I believe I got 7 or 8, 2 or 3 of which are females.

The only prep I did on the substrate was to rinse the sand a few times until the water was clear. I put about an inch of soil and capped it with about a half-inch of the sand. As its my first time, the bottom is a little uneven but not too bad. I had to rinse the plants well because they were matted in brown algae. I placed my plants pushing the roots down into the soil with a wooden skewer. Then I filled a bucket with hose water and treated it accordingly with Prime conditioner. Slowly I filled up the tank as to not disturb the and and soil, plopped my floaters in, and released the fish after some acclimation. This was last Thursday, 9/19.

Day 1









Today (Day 5)









Growth of plants

























Top Down








Location









After adding the Gambusia, I have learned a lot about them. They pretty much eat anything from algae to zooplankton but especially enjoy all types of insect larvae/eggs. I added a couple tiny snails I found, possibly apple or mystery snails, and they have left them alone for now. I feed them about 20 crushed up Hikari Bio-Gold betta pellets daily and I found even the crushed pieces seem a bit too large. They seem to eat the the non-powdered bits later after they fall and soften some. The tank is kept on our patio and, ideally, I would like insects to lay eggs for food. Yesterday I didn't feed them and noticed they poke around in the sand a lot, seemingly eating something. I'm not sure about food...

I don't terest the ammonia in the water because I don't have a kit. Do I need one? I have Prime and I've read about people using it everyday for a couple months until the bowl balances. Is this preferable? I really would like avoid water changes (haven't changed it at all yet) and just top the bowl off when needed.

Is the new plant growth good? I am worried that they will use up all the nutrients and then start dying. I think that the first few weeks there are elevated ammonia/nutrient levels that the plants are taking advantage of now?

The fish seem healthy and active currently. They chase each other around and don't seem distressed at all. Apparently these are very hardy fish, so I'm not sure how much of a sign they will give me if there is trouble. I'd like to add a couple Ghost shrimp but I'm not sure how they will interact with the fish as many people claim the Mosquitofish are very aggressive. I don't want to put shrimp in just to be murdered.

So, please, I am open to any and all feedback as I am really unsure of this project. Let me know if I am doing something stupid or futile! I probably did some things wrong but hopefully some things right too. I am very unsure about balance in this bowl or what sort of bioload it can handle.

Thanks so much for reading my longer-than-intended post!


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

That bowl is really looking great! I might go and have a look at the local craft store for one like you got.

You don't need an ammonia test the plants will use it all.

The plant growth looks good so far, just be sure to give it enough light since a lot of those plants are full sun/or mostly sun plants. 

You'll notice if they use the nutrients up, the plants will start turning yellow/white/black and or get holes in new or old growth. You probably don't have to worry about it for a while, but the floating plants will probably run out of nutrients first since their roots don't have access to the soil.

I don't think the fish will bother full grown shrimp so you can add those.

I think you should have a look in swampy/boggy areas for some pygmy sunfish. They'd do great in a tank like that, but they need live food. They are extremely pretty fish. They live around Okeefenokee park part of Florida.


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## joshus (Sep 24, 2013)

Thanks for your thoughts! I was beginning to wonder if I said something wrong 

I mis-ID'd the anacharis. It is actually Hydrilla verticillata. I should have known. Interestingly, I was looking in the tank around 2pm yesterday (a very sunny day) and noticed streams of bubbles coming from the Hydrilla. Hard to believe one could observe it producing oxygen so rapidly... I got some actual anacharis that I'm about to throw in also. I hope to score some Bacopa caroliniana from a pond I've seen it in.

Yesterday I also noticed a good amount of mosquito larvae in a birdbath in the yard. I went and scooped some out and dumped them in the bowl. The fish went crazy for them. I ended up probably putting about 40 into the tank over the day.  Couldn't help myself. I'm not sure who got what thought, one obviously pregnant fish is quite the pig. Its going to get a little too cold for mosquitoes soon (probably) so I wonder if crushed Hikari Bio-gold betta pellets is acceptable food?

I've read of Gambusia tearing apart frogs so I'm wary of adding shrimp. I probably will give it a go but I hope I don't feel too bad if it, or they, meet a violent end...

I wonder if putting it out in the rain now and then might be helpful too?

Anyway, thanks again for the help! Any thoughts on food or anything else would be really helpful.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

The bowl looks really good. The bubbles are indeed oxygen--what planted tank enthusiasts call "pearling".

I've always found it very difficult to keep water hyacinth alive indoors, so don't be surprised if that one doesn't make it. And some of the other species might check out too, but that is normal. As long as you have other species growing well, don't worry about it.

In a two gallon bowl, 7 or 8 gambusia are probably at or above your maximum bioload. The ghost shrimp are not as tolerant of crowding as the gambusia, so it probably isn't a good idea to add them. The obvious solution is to set up another bowl for shrimp!

These things are so much fun. Thrift shops and garage sales are a great place to look for containers. Right now I have 9 of them, each with a resident betta, and one or two species of plants that I want to propagate. The bettas do very well in them, and are so much healthier than ones kept in bare containers.


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## frenchie1001 (Jun 25, 2013)

wish i could find a large enough bowl to do something similar.!


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## joshus (Sep 24, 2013)

Hello again! I've been a bit busy the last few days...

Thanks for all the advice guys. I don't think I'll put a shrimp in for now. I'm thinking it would be best to just see what happens when the weather gets cooler as the bowl sits on our patio. I have a couple questions if anyone feels like dispensing some much appreciated advice. 

Some pictures from today (Day 11):
































































I've noticed a new runners on the water lettuce, new leaf on the hyacinth, long roots coming from the hydrilla into the substrate, and good growth on the ludwigia, including a new sprout. Overall, I'm pretty surprised at the growth of the plants and apparent fish health. The hornwort seems to be growing pretty fast also. The fish seem less skittish and more "social" (I guess) . Some longer roots on the water lettuce are clearly dying though.

I have done nothing but top off the bowl twice and the water is getting a little yellow/brown but it is still very clear. Would you guys suggest that I do a water change? Maybe 50%? I'd really like to just leave it alone but I don't want brown water and I think the only remedy is to change some water. Also, probably contributing to the yellow water, I just leave fallen leaves and other debris to settle and decompose on the sand. I don't seem to have a large amount of debris on the sand and the leaves break down completely in a matter of days. I'm not sure if this is right...

So, thanks for reading again and I really appreciate your thoughts!


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

The discolored water is from the soil. It is leaching tannins into the water slowly. Similar to brewing a cup of tea. It is not harmful, but the color can be distracting if you aren't into tea-colored water. A 50% water change will help clear it up.

The good news is it will only last a few weeks until the tannins are fully depleted. Then your water won't be discolored and you can pretty much do as you want and leave it to itself.

The plants are looking good


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## asukawashere (Mar 11, 2009)

I think this is a really fun project, but you're going to find really soon that the plants you've selected are going to overgrow your bowl—any one of the floaters you've selected could take over on its own, and the Eichhornia and Pistia each can grow up to the diameter of the bowl (throwing out tons of babies along the way!). If you want to be able to access the surface in the future, you'll probably have to remove those two. Also, hornwort is a weed unto itself, as are Hydrilla (which, I'll mention, is a banned invasive plant) and Egeria/Elodea. All are plants better suited to larger setups. 

In short, might I suggest you consider poking around to find some plants that stay smaller? Florida has an astounding selection of neat plants for you to choose from, and it shouldn't be too hard to turn up something that'll stay an appropriate size. Plants like Hemianthus glomeratus, dwarf Sagittaria, Bacopa monnieri, Lilaeopsis spp., Ludwigia arcuata, and Lindernia grandiflora are all far more suited to a bowl of that size, and a little research should easily point you to some places where you can find them. 

The good news about Gambusia is that they are very, very quick to adapt to taking prepared flake/pellet foods, so you don't need to offer them live mosquito larvae indefinitely.  They will also eat any babies when stocked at that density, so you don't have to worry about a population explosion.

If you ever find them, you should try keeping the melanistic G. affinis holbrooki—they're really neat little dalmatian guys.

FWIW, I'm also not sure that's a Ludwigia. Cavan knows that genus better than me; he'd be able to tell you what it is.

Also, a big yes to the water changes—you don't have any mechanical filtration, and there's no current to facilitate gas exchange, so you'll definitely need to be replacing the water frequently. But c'mon, it's a 2 gallon bowl—how hard is it to scoop a few cups of water out of it?


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