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1.5 Gallon Jarrarium


Dawn T
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I've had the jar for a while, but just didn't feel inspired to get anything done with it. Finally got inspired AND the plants and hardscape I needed. Not to mention the right tools to be able to work in tight spaces. No filter, no heater. Small adjustable booklight for lighting.

The Jar:
triangular
8.5" each side
12" tall

Hardscape:
Granite
Driftwood (I think it's spider wood but not sure - wasn't tagged when I bought it)

Plants:
2 Anubias nana 'petite' (attached to the driftwood)
1 Java fern (attached to the rock)
Dwarf hairgrass
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'green' for background

Livestock:
2 pond snails

I got up the next day to the cloudiness I expected. I'm just leaving it be to let it cycle without my interference. I did squeeze a sponge from an established tank in there, which should help with the cycle process. Made a mess, of course, given the detritus, but I'm ignoring that. Will let it be for now.

Once it's done cycling and plants get established, I haven't decided what I want to put in there. Cool water nano fish are a possibility, but I'm thinking maybe a couple of nice snails. Since I have a few weeks or so before it'll be fully cycled, I have time to make up my mind. Just as well since I need to wait for warmer weather to order livestock for both this and my newly-unoccupied 29g.

The final photo was taken looking down from above the jar, so you can see the shape of it.

Oh, and I do have it covered to help with evaporation. I just have a piece of heavy, food-safe plastic clipped to the top using the clip from the light. That's working well. Condensation gathers on it overnight and drips right back into the water.

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I like the use of your vantage point with a triangle it naturally draws your eyes to the center. I don't know what kind of livestock you're considering but I think cherry shrimp would look really cool climbing the drift wood.

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I've thought about cherry shrimp, but this jarrarium will be room temperature year-round. Summer, it would be mid- to high-70s, but winter, we tend to keep 70-72 in the house. Would that be warm enough for cherries? I know smaller volumes of water will shift more with day to night temps, so I wouldn't want to risk it getting too cold for them. ?

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Mine stay unheated at around 70 usually and the lowest probably 60-65. During the summer my tank can reach 85 degrees and I haven't noticed anything to their detriment. From my experience as long the temperature slowly moves up and down like a body of water would outside, you should be fine. I do enjoy seeing seasonal differences in my tank so there may be some bias to that.

If you heat your house during the winter, that would help insulate your jar. Your light will probably be producing a good amount of heat and you can put a lid on the jar or saran wrap to trap heat. Generally I think cherries can handle cooler water but I haven't really taken it to the extremes yet.

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3 minutes ago, Patrick M. Bodega Aquatics said:

So sorry! I thought this was the what you got done today thread. Sooooo sorry! Your tank looks awesome!

No worries. I thought it might've been a boo-boo. Done it myself, so I TOTALLY get it. LOL

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My jarrarium is a week old today. I got up this morning to find that the cloudiness I found the day after I built it, and that got worse for a day or two after THAT, has completely cleared up. I still have a lot of debris in there from squeezing out a little bacteria-laden filter sponge that first day, but at least the cloudiness is gone. I skimmed the water surface today to remove some ickiness that had taken up residence there, but that was easy to get out.

Crypt is doing well, except for one leaf showing signs of melt. The others have straightened out and seem fine. The Java Fern windelov, no change there, but as slow as those things grow, I'm not expecting anything in only a week. Same with the Anubias nana petite, which are also fine. The dwarf hairgrass appears to be doing a meltdown, but I know they're prone to that with a change in environment, so I'll just monitor and hope it bounces back.

Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate all registered 0 yesterday, so I dosed with a tiny bit of Easy Green, to be on the safe side. I wasn't expecting all of those to be 0 so soon, so I'll be watching that, especially with the hairgrass melt that's going on. Definitely will NOT be adding anything besides those snails until I KNOW the water parameters are stable and safe over a much longer haul.

Oh, and the 2 little pond snails are doing well. Constantly on the go.

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Had an ammonia spike yesterday (.25). Later than I expected, but it finally came. Also, I couldn't take the stagnant smell coming from the jar, so I dropped a little sponge filter in there. Interestingly, the snails were hanging out at or ABOVE the water line and had been for hours. Within a short period after adding the sponge, they started cruising around again, all the way down to the substrate. I haven't done any water changes, unless you count using a little scoop to remove surface scum and having to add back in about 1/4 cup of water. Just letting it do its thing.

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  • 4 weeks later...

1 MONTH UPDATE: The jarrarium is doing well. I ended up removing the sponge filter. Size aside, I just didn't feel it was needed anymore. I did leave in one of Aquarium Co-op's no-clog airstones, though, being run on a tiny air pump that came with a nano kit I bought forever ago. I don't want stagnation to recur that I had before. I love the fact the no-clog stone is weighted so it sits nicely on the bottom where I want it instead of trying to float. LOVE that product!

Anyway, I added a bit more substrate the other day, as I felt it was too thin in places.  Made a royal mess, of course. So I did an almost-100% water change. Also, I added duckweed, and a hitchhiker red root floater, to help with algae problems that tried to arise. I also got the light on a timer - 4 hours on, 3 hours off, 4 hours on during the day to help deal with the algae. The plants seem to love that. Also, finally got a small piece of stiff plastic cut for a custom lid to prevent too-rapid evaporation as well as keep bubbling water from splashing out.

The plants I initially put in there are doing great. New growth visible on both Anubia petites (in fact, both have gotten 2 new leaves each in the last month!). The Crypt and Java windelov have also gotten new leaves. The dwarf hair grass was my only real concern, initially, as it started melting. The old leaves are still melting back, but new growth is coming in beautifully. The pond snails are still proliferating, and I love watching them scoot around and clean things up. Still watching for their population to balance out.

Today's readings:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0
GH - 170
KH - 180
pH - 7.8

I'm not trusting those water parameters to mean this thing is fully cycled, since I did that HUGE water change a couple of days ago. Since I've decided to use this for cherry shrimp, I want to be absolutely certain it's cycled before I go adding those little guys in there.

Here's how it looks today:

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

7 WEEK UPDATE:

The water continues to remain stable - hallelujah! I've been "feeding" it lightly a couple of times a week with nano fish food and monitoring the water parameters to see if I have ammonia or nitrite spikes. Both have been remaining at 0. Nitrates have been at 0 as well. This morning, I wanted to get updated photos, so I went ahead and removed the air stone (since stagnation should no longer be an issue) and also took out the duckweed (left in the red root floaters).

All melting has stopped, and the plants that had melting (crypt & dwarf hairgrass) have gotten new growth. There are tiny critters just visible in there, swimming around and doing their thing. The population of pond snails has stabilized, and they're constantly trucking around.

The detritus is unsightly though. Drives me bonkers. Why did I think it was a great idea to put black substrate in this thing? I've decided on cherry shrimp for sure, when I can get some, and I think they'll look nice against the black sand, but... ugh. The detritus definitely does NOT look good on it. I'm not overly concerned about the bits on the plants, as I know the shrimp will most likely clear that off, but will they do anything with all that's on the floor of the jar? Will it eventually go away on its own? This is my first venture with both shrimp AND an unfiltered "tank" of any kind, so I'm not sure what to expect.

Overall shot attached, along with 3 close-ups.

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BTW, the specks on the glass are actually tiny air bubbles in the glass itself. Not detritus or critters. The glass is almost speckled throughout its entire surface. Gives it a really interesting appearance when observed from my seat at the laptop.

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Cherry shrimp are Neocaridinas just like my Blue Velvets and from what I've learnt are supposed to be o.k. anywhere from 60 degrees Fahrenheit to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. A stable pH from 6.0 to 7.6 however seems to be way more important than the temperature. The jar looks nice.

Edited by Jungle Fan
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I'm working my way down to smaller jars 🙂 I really like the way your 1.5 gallon looks. I started with a dirted unfiltered unheated jarrarium style 5 gallon stocked with male Endlers, moved onto a 3 gallon planted bowl with orange shrimp, and would like to eventually get down to something this small. 

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@Lynze This is my first venture into something like this. In the past, the smallest tank I've tried was a 5 gallon with a betta in it. It had a filter and heater, of course. This small, no-tech concept has been fun to play with. Especially since I've been playing with it without fish or shrimp in it who could die if I royally screw things up. After watching some SerpaDesign vids on YT, I've been playing with the idea of little terrariums, too. What I love about that is that some of the plants I'm familiar with from the aquarium hobby can work in terrariums, too, since they can grow both below and above water. My hobbies get to cross over. Love that.

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Here is an idea for your substrate surface. You could get a bag of tiny gravel like Peace River, and scatter just a little bit to go one grain deep with maybe 75% cover. This might give a more mixed appearance and let the detritus blend in. Here is an example, albeit with slightly larger gravel:

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