So being bored, and needing to do some work on my 1.5 gallon AND my college homework, I decided to do something else entirely. You see, I've been seeing these old pictures of absolutely tiny tanks that looked incredible. ( Fish Tank of March '06 at The Age of Aquariums - Tropical Fish ) So I decided to try one myself. Now, I know I'm not the best at scaping, and I don't have easy access to most of the plants that those examples used. So I decided to do something else.

Materials:
-1 liter tank (roughly, more like 5 cups)
-random gravel for a substrate
-1 large-ish rock from my main tank
-2 dwarf sagittaria
-dirt/clay from that strange place called the "outside"

First, you need a bowl for your 'tank'. This one might be a bit large for a palmtop though...

But hey, it fits in my palm

here's where the mud and the dwarf Sag come into play. I'd had a heck of a time trying to get the lil buggers to not float, and they were in desperate need of some ferts. So I simplified my life. I washed and rewashed the dirt, so that the small particles that tend to cloud up the water would have already been flushed away. I then set the mud off the the side for a day or two to dry out a bit. Once the mud had dried out a bit and I could work it like clay, I formed it around the roots of my little dwarf sag (seriously, they're about 1/2" tall at best!)


With one planted...


This is why I rinsed and cleaned the dirt before using it. These pictures are literally about one minute after I added the water (gently) and there's very little clouding. 10 minutes later, no clouding.





For now, this is what it looks like. It will probably change as I mess with my other tank and might be able to add stuff to it. What do ya'll think?

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Cuuuuute! They are basically mini under water gardens!!! now I want one! I'm not sure what plant I have though that will do with no lighting.... and in unheated water... it gets really cold in here in the winter!

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20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

lol, the bowl for that was just $1 at GoodWill. Yay for bargains!
I got some new plants, so I added a bit of xmas moss. It looks a bit out of place since it totally throws off any sense of scale, but I think it still looks alright. I also ended up with a free pond snail (Fred) that I put in there, and then added a malaysian trumpet snail, just to keep him company (George). Pics in the morning!

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

lol, there's some that are cuter than mine, but I already like mine! I'm probably just going to leave mine in the windowsill so it gets some indirect light and maybe by my tank so that it gets the extra light from the tank. I think it'd be fine, as long as it's inside. lol, it's probably as much fun to play with as my "big" tank

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Next day pic showing the moss that I added. Didn't quite know what to do with it, but it seems alright as it is. Too bad you can't see Fred and George in the picture though

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Cool! I'd sooooooo do that if I had a window sill! We have a big sliding glass door.... no sill, lol. But a very cool idea! Maybe when we move.......

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20g Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981
36g Bow Front Heavily Planted http://www.aquariumforum.com/gallery...00&ppuser=8981

I got bored of the moss just floating about, so I tied it down to the big rock. Yay for the tank being small enough that I don't have to really worry about messing things up, as long as I don't disturb the dirt. Fred and George are doing well (after 2 days, lol)
But I'm headed off to the other side of the mountains for the weekend, so I'll be back to check up on it in 2 days.

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Well, it's been about a week so here's an update.

The dwarf dwarf sag seems to be doing well, and if I didn't know how much it hates growing, I'd say it's getting just a little bigger. The moss was doing well, and Fred and George spent a lot of time on it. Had to remove a baby George already. I'm trying to only have those two in there, not those two and kids. The bowl's simply not big enough for more
Unfortunately my anubias in my main tank needed some emergency tlc and time away from the tank's light (I think, it just started dying on me after I started using the light) so I switched the mossy rock and the anubias. It seems really huge though, it's almost too big for the little bowl, but somehow it almost looks alright...in my opinion at least.

And now for the pics:

See any change in the dwarf sag, or is it just me?

on second thought, the anubias looks ridiculous in here, but I don't have anywhere else to put it...

Anubias can grow with their leaves out of the water, right? Also, Renoir wanted in the pic, and what Renoir wants, Renoir gets.


Plants:
2 (dying?) anubias nana
2 dwarf dwarf sag
a little bit of duckweed that looks adorable in there

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

I think I want to do something like this kay....as a gift for my mom, as I think she would adore it. I have a few questions though...how often do you need to do water changes on it, if at all? Anything else I need to know before I put one together?

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

I've been doing 80% water changes once a week, since the snails produce a lot of waste. I only have Fred and George in there, and that's all I could humanely put in there, in my opinion. George isn't even a big MTS, just a half grown one. I add a few bits of fish food a couple times a week, and no complaints from them.

Go for low light, but supposedly faster growers like duckweed (hard to see in there, but it's there) and dwarf sag. to take care of ammonia issues...which I have a feeling I'll be getting into shortly, since this is the 3rd week of the tank's life. Both the mossy rock i used originally, and the anubias came from my established main tank. Ammonia could be a real problem though. I hear dirt releases ammonia as the organic material decomposes, not to mention snail waste. Using a regular aquarium substrate would probably be safer really.

Also, cleaning could be a hassle should the need ever arise. 3 weeks in, and not a spot of algae! :D yay for snails!

That's about it really. Use one faster growing plant to take care of ammonia, and a nice slow grower or two to fill it out (not over fill it, lol) and only use small snails, and only one or two of them. My goal for this was a stable, low maintenance and balanced system. Slow seems to be the way to go with it; slow growing plants and slow moving snails. It's a nice thing to wake up and see first thing in the morning, since it's right by my bed, in my window.

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Perfect, billions of thanks!

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

Well, it's that time of the week again, and my palmtop is in it's third week of life. I'm starting to actually see some growth, although it's small from the dwarf sag, which is nice. The leaves are yellowish, so they might be needing better light. The anubias certainly doesn't though. It's starting to recover from nearly dying and I'm hoping it will make a full recovery. Unfortunately now, I'm seeing some hair algae growth on my dwarf sag. Dunno what I'll do about that, the snails have no interest in it. Speaking of which, Fred and George are doing fine, but declared that they wouldn't allow pictures of themselves before they speak with their attorney.


I do believe the dwarf sag is growing. Either that or distortion from the bowl. Oh, and lots of snail poop.


Woo! regrowth! I took the anubias out to remove dead plant matter so it wouldn't rot in the bowl.


The necessary bowl and main tank group picture...

The duckweed roots are quite impressive, some of the roots are nearly an inch long

and just a look at everything from a different angle


Just stay turned till next week for another exciting episode of Palmtop Tank Build!

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Love it!

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

No wonder why I thought the shape of the bowl was so familiar, my mom uses them for candle holders! It's be a great way to display it though...if I had a pair of them...hmm...

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

Well, it's a day late, but here's the weekly update on the palmtop!

Seeing some strong growth from the dwarf sag, it's nearly doubled how tall it was when I first planted it, and it's only been a month! It's pearling everyday, so I think it's quite happy. Haven't seen much growth from the anubias, but I'll try to be patient... I'd just like it not to look monstrous in my tank, but the dwarf sag may help with that as it grows...I just hope it doesn't grow too much. There were some worries about how well the D. sag would root in such huge gravel, but I've noticed that the roots thread their way down to where the dirt has settled, and they aren't floating away, so I'm guessing those are nicely rooted now.

In other news, there's eggs! Looks like Fred got busy, but no comment from either of them. I'm not sure whether to remove the eggs or not. The bowl's too small to have the babies in, but if I put them in the main tank, Renoir was probably eat them. I might have to remove all but a very few eggs...I'm sure Fred and George will be good parents, but there's the whole issue of the tank being too small for more than say, 1-2 more snails. I do want a few pond snails in the betta tank though, I think I like the little guys. I like watching snails move about, but with MTS you rarely see them, so I'll try and save some eggs.

lots of growth, but there is some hair algae, and a dirty outside of the bowl, sorry for not cleaning it first!


Remember last time how I was talking about the duckweed roots?

vs...


Lots of baby Freds, but I'm not quite sure what to do with them...hmm...


And finally, my new project! :D Think I'll try and do a little mini moss bottle for a Christmas present for my fish-hating mom, LOL The little bottle only holds 1/4 cup of water, it's so cuuute!

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

well, that time again!

Finally got tired of the hair algae, and tried removing a bit off of my dwarf sag, and luckily, since this is hair algae it cam off nicely and didn't leave a lot left on the plant. Need to get a couple more bits of it out though. I also got my first kind of other algae, green spot. It's coming on pretty rapidly and all over the bowl. I can't scrub it off though, so that's a pain. There's be a little bit of other algae too, but that cam off with my very first cleaning of the tank. I wiped it down when I was doing another 80% water change, and everything's good to go.

Fred's eggs have been coming along nicely, and as much as I don't want more snails, it's been interesting watching them develop. The hard part is though, that he had soooo many, i keep finding new bunches of them. Anyone know how long they stay eggs before hatching? George seems interesting in being a good father, always hanging about the eggs. Fred goes out and patrols the bowl, but at least he's not trying to crawl out any more.

The dwarf sag is still growing nicely, still staying fairly small though, and the anubias is...not doing anything again. I've also found that I now have little tiny white worms in the bowl, especially on the sides. They're too small to get a picture of, but they're everywhere. No idea what they are, but might be from how dirty the tank is...there's lots of snail poop built up, and probably some ammonia from the dirt too. Still, Fred and George seem quite happy.

Sorry, no pics for now, but I'll have them up later!

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

looks great kay!

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"Being ignorant is not so much a Shame, as being unwilling to learn".-- Benjamin Franklin

Lol, guess I'm slacking a bit!

There hasn't been a huge amount going on, aside from the new arrivals- Fred and George are daddies now! Fred's eggs hatched, and there were more of them than I was expecting, and by time I found them, the babies snails had hatched and were too small for me to grab. I also found a baby George, I hadn't seen one since I first set the tank up, nice change, aside from the fact the my little bowl is now overstocked. >.> I have no idea how many little baby Freds there are (pond snails), but I'm sure there's just two MTS, George and his baby. The happy couple seem quite proud of themselves, but I'm still wondering how I'll make it work.

Trying to help this, I added a gob of christmas moss back into the bowl, all tangled up in the anubias roots. Hoping this won't hurt the anubias, but I'm assuming it won't. Anubias looks like it's grown a little bit again, finally.

I'll get pics up as soon as my computer stops being so laggy

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

I promise! Pictures this time! XD

Things are looking ok. I added all the moss last week, and it's pearling quite a lot, telling me there's a lot ammonia in the tank...probably. Unfortunately there's about as much hair algae as there is moss, but I guess that's helping the chemistry too. I'd love to get rid of it though, that stuff everywhere in all of my tanks. I've also noticed tiny white worms on the glass, don't know where they came from or what they do, but they're there.

Some growth from the anubias, barely. There's some indication that there will be new leaves coming in, it's just that it's growing so slowly...I used to be able to grow it at a decent speed, like a leaf a week.

As for Fred and George's babies, I haven't seen them since they hatched. I removed some more of Fred's eggs though. Hopefully I can keep the population controlled, or this tank will crash. >.<

Alright, picture time! :D

The snail odessy, from when I first saw the eggs to their hatching. Took 2-3 weeks, I think.

the developing eggs with George watching over them

yaaay! hatching! And now I have no idea how many there are, they were hatching when I came back from a weekend out of town.


This is a current view of the back of the bowl, you don't get to see it too much in my other pics

need some hair algae?

Tried to get a picture of the pearling moss, but the little white worms got in the way (the little white specs). Pretty good view of the hair algae too


well, until next week! :D

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Lead me not to temptation...I can make it there myself just fine, thank you

awww this is really cute. Might try one myself