So today I want to set up a small nano aquarium, and this aquarium is actually inspired by one little piece of wood. You see,
this
is called
Bonsai tree.
It's dead now, but it used to be a tree. I'm sure you guys are familiar with what a Bonsai tree.
They're basically miniature little tree and have one point worth,
certainly adorable, and I want to make it adorable once again.
I seen these at my local fish store, and I've been looking at them for a while,
and I just had to set this up!
I had a scaped in mind and really it's just something extremely simple,
and I thought, why don't I just go ahead and do it and see if I can get you guys inspired enough to do it
as well. So,
before we begin let's go over some of the supplies that I'm going to have here. It's very minimal.
Start off...
with the tank itself first. This is a 12" by 12" by 12"
aquarium or 1' by 1' by 1' tank. Holds about 7, 7 1/2 gallons, something like that.
Then we've got our little Bonsai tree.
I've got a couple of littles Dragon stones. These of Dragon stone rocks. These are actually quite small,
but not small enough for like a true nano scape. So if I'm feeling like adding the rocks in, I'm just gonna take a hammer
to them and bust them up a little bit. I'm not sure if I'm going to use them, but I'll have them on hand.
Then of course,
some planted tank soil. I'm going with this stuff simply because it works really well. Used in the past several times.
I'm probably not gonna use all this, but
I'd rather have too much than not enough.
Then of course, the plants. We've got a couple of little plants here.
There's not a lot here, but there's enough to get us by for a while.
I know that nobody's really gonna start off with massive amounts of plants and be able to really install a
finished scape right from the start like we see so many times.
We all start with you know little clippings, and we grow our plants out. I've got this little moss here. This is called
"Weeping Moss". Now this stuff is really interesting based on how it grows. Unlike the "Spike Moss" in the 375 or the
regular "Java Moss" in the 2000. The "Java Moss" growing like a bush
The "Spike Moss" kind of spreading out slightly and spiking up, really interesting stuff. This is "Weeping Moss".
So, this is going to spread out and kind of droop down and that's kind of what I wanted to look like on the branches here.
Now most mosses and especially this one is relatively easy to keep. It's low-light demanding,
And I'm not gonna need to do a whole much before it propagates itself and spreads itself how I want to and once it gets
nice and bushy on the plant, I'll go ahead and or on the
branches here, I'll go ahead and trim it up nicely and make it look realistic. If you haven't guessed it,
I'm looking to make this look like a real tree once again. Then of course,
I wanted a carpet plant and of course going with the theme of a nano tank,
I wanted to choose one of the smallest plants in the world and this stuff is called "Hemianthus Callitrichoides"
I believe that's how you pronounce it. I'm never gonna get those rights!
It's common name is 'Cuba', named after the country it actually comes from. Now,
this is a carpeting plant and it's gonna spread by itself,
but it's a little bit more demanding than
say "Dwarf Hair Grass" like I've shown you guys how I've carpeted with that before and other types of plants.
I'm actually pretty excited to use this stuff because it's absolutely
adorable and I noticed when I got it out of the container it smelt delicious too!
Like fresh vegetables! Then of course. I've got some other supplies here. We've got an opaque, or you know it's frosted glass
I get this on Amazon.
I've shown you guys using this before. We're gonna add this to the back of the aquarium, which is going to kind of
block out anything behind it and add a little bit of depth to the aquarium itself.
Then a couple of tools like, a razor, some scissors and
some tweezers to plant the plants and then some gel super glue. This is gonna
be really important later on when we apply the moss to the actual branches. I've shown you guys how to attach moss two branches using
sewing thread. I've used
I've shown you how to just stuffing it in little cracks and of course using superglue, in a gel form. All pretty much simple.
But I don't want to tie the moss on with
with thread for this, simply because this is to minut it's gonna be too visible and,
super glue is gonna be pretty easy to do anyways. Alright, so let's start off by applying the background here. Now again,
this is pretty straightforward. You do want to start off
You do want to start off with a clean background. I just like to add a little bit of water and wipe it clean.
It doesn't have to be perfect. You just don't want anything
between the glass and the actual film, that could cause air bubbles or anything like that.
Then apply a little bit more water and in this case that we apply it a lot of water.
Now, if you get this stuff on Amazon, all you're looking for is
Frosted Window Tint
or window tint. You'll pay maybe $10 for about
I don't know, 60 square feet. You'll be able to do many tanks with this. Now once I put the water on here...
basically, it's like if you've ever tinted windows in a vehicle or tinted windows and anything or even applied the decals that I sell.
It all goes on the same. have a little bit of water there, spread it out, the waters gonna drip everywhere,
but in
a minute we're gonna get rid of any air bubbles. Then take any sort of flat object
you know, the backs of the driver's license, credit card, things like those that works really well and
you're just gonna squeegee out all the water.
It's also...
removes all the air bubbles. Adding to the water to it allows you to reposition it temporarily and ensures that
you get a perfect seal. Now, I cut mine to be a little bit bigger than the tank itself
and then I come back with the razor and
trim it up properly.
See now of course,
We're left with a tank with a pretty neat background on it, add some depth to it.
It's not distracting, yet it's going to block out anything behing it.
It doesn't black out the background, but it certainly does offer a unique look to it.
Next thing I'm going to do is go ahead and add the substrate in.
Being a nano aquarium, you don't need a ton of supplies.
So you can go ahead and use some really good supplies
for the Nano tank and you know you're not really out a whole lot of money. However given the size of the tank
It's definitely proportionately more expensive than you might imagine if you're just to set up a tank with regular gravel or whatever.
Now I'm not looking to set up an impressive scape. I've never been an amazing aquascaper.
I just think it's fun to play around, try new things and simply
experiment with you know different types of things that I was thinking about.
So keep that in mind, that this is not a tutorial on the only way to do this.
I've never done a tutorial on the only way to do anything.
I've only shown you guys some things that I've done and the way I've done it and some things that have worked for me.
And when it comes to creativity, I can't make you creative,
but I can certainly try to inspire you.
So, I'm thinking of doing here is almost creating a little hill
for the
tree to kind of sit up on.
Kind of want the roots to go into the soil there, I might use a little bit more.
Something like that.
If you don't have a lot of soil like planted tank soil what you could do is you could take some cheaper gravel
build up your mound with that first and
then of course,
put your soil on top of that.
I was thinking about doing that but this is again, this is such a small tank
I don't think I'm gonna need to. oh yeah, I like that!
Pretty basic
Now for almost done, you know I knew this is gonna be pretty simple, but how simple I wasn't sure .
How quick I guess. Now, I want the Cuba to last. I want to be able to spread it out.
Now this is all tissue culture plants, big fan of those!
There's no snails, pests, anything like that and there's a ton of companies out there now making tissue culture plants,
so feel free to use whatever supplier you like.
But with no snails, no pest, no algae,
nothing being introduced into your tank to begin with, just gives you an opportunity for greater success. You basically start with a blank slate.
I like to cut them up and
start off
with a bunch of portions,
instead of, you know, just planting the whole thing.
You can make it go a lot further,
especially if you're on a budget. This stuff is gonna spread out on its own anyway.
I've never grown this plant before, I've never kept it. It's actually quite common with a lot of planted tanks
but
again I've never, I've never had it and I'm really regretting that I didn't. I think you guys should try this stuff out is it
ever cute! So it's got these tiny little leaves on it,
which is adorable! Like I said, it smells really good. I'm gonna have to eat it. I got to try it!
Doesn't tastes horrible. Smells delicious, smells like broccoli, that's what it smells like!
How many of you guys eat your plants cuz they smell good!? I'll taste anything that smells good!
All right, we should start on the branch itself.
So this stuff is coming in,
you know, it's not clump together, it's all like individual, and it's wet, so I'm gonna dry it off.
Just damp it, get all this water off of it,
so it will be easier to handle.
So each one of these branches
or each one of these bushes, I hope to be able to put a bit of this moss on and
eventually it spreads out and it all becomes one.
You know, you got to have vision with this stuff and try to understand what it one day might look like. Now, I've got...
I've got so little here and so much to go so one two three four five six seven eight nine
One two three four five six seven eight nine branches that I got to cover. I'm gonna make nine piles.
I think that's the best way to go,
so that in the end
if I'm running low, it's not all that bad. And this is gonna be tricky because
it doesn't seem like...
The branches are so tiny on this!
That is going to be really difficult to actually get the glue on there and have them stick,
so I'm just going to add a little bit of glue everywhere on it.
This wood is dead, so I'm not too worried about you know
anything becoming...
being killed or anything like that. Little bit here and there, nothing too crazy.
Oh, this is gonna look
really
silly at first!
It's not gonna have enough on there to give you guys an idea of what it will one day look like.
We're just gonna have to be patient.
Look at my little bush!!
End a video, this is ridiculous!! This is the most pathetic little tree ever made!
Hey, you never know, it might turn out okay. I'm gonna have to start stealing a little bit from you sorry!
I've got three branches left and only two piles
of moss. This didn't go to plan,
but
it's not that bad. So that's it.
I mean, I wish I had a better a lot more moss to give you guys a better effect upfront,
but as you can imagine, this stuff will grow, it'll become bushier. It'll spread out and it'll kind of droop down
I think it's gonna look pretty awesome myself. Let me know what you guys think.
All right, so now back to the tank itself.
What I like to do is...
I think this is where how we had it, kind of on an angle,
just like that.
I think that looks good. The next thing I want to do is actually put water in this and
kind of fill it up slightly.
Maybe up to half, just to get
the substrate wet, because it's easier to plant in. So I filled it up to right above the soil here
And I know a lot of people might be thinking, why didn't you use a like a smaller grain soil?
Simple answer is, I didn't want to buy any and I already had this stuff.
So, I thought you know let's just go ahead and use that.
Now I'm gonna take some tweezers here and
just kind of push it into the substrate
until it doesn't float.
Well,
that was annoying!
I didn't like planting that stuff at all. I did my best to spread it out as much I could
but it doesn't like to go in the substrate. I definitely should have used a finer substrate but
It's in now! It's good to go!
Now it might look pretty sparingly planted with just tiny little clubs everywhere,
but trust me, all of this stuff is
eventually going to grow out and spread and as you can see I'm kind of just making it look like it's grass with a cool
tree they're. Very simple scape.
What I'm gonna
do now, is I'm gonna go put it over on this table, because that's where it's going to be for the next little while,
and then we're gonna fill it up. so I guess that's it for today. I mean it's gonna take some time for the
carpeting plants to really fill in the bottom, but if you could imagine that'll fill it with a lot of that green
Cuba, and of course that Weeping Moss is going to really fill out that tree.
I think this will look pretty amazing or at least that's the plan
eventually! I know you probably asking yourself what about
filtration? What about stalking? Well, I got a couple of options here. I'm thinking about going with a more naturally
stable tank where there is no filtration. The filtration is the bacteria growing on the tree and in the substrate and
Because this ammonia is going to release or because the substrate is actually going to release ammonia over time
it's actually gonna kind of cycle itself. I just got to wait a few weeks and during that time
you know I might even add some co2 to the tank just to encourage plant growth rather quickly.
However, I am thinking about doing it naturally and very, very low stocking. Maybe a few
shrimp or
maybe a betta or a few tiny little tetras of some sort but
something that a natural aquarium can actually handle, whereas filtration that we typically add can
substantially increase your ability to stock and aquarium much higher, but in something where it's like natural like this that I think I might do
stocking levels of course have to be much, much lower.
But I'd like to know what you guys think about what I should potentially stock this aquarium with in the near future and
maybe in a month or two, we'll circle back and we'll do an update on this aquarium
I'm sure we'll probably do something before that. But anyways, I'm pretty excited about this tank!
I think it's a pretty neat little tank, a cute little scape and I hope you guys enjoyed it as well. Perhaps
you might want to set something up like this, but if not
I hope at least the video was enjoyable and you got to see me eat some plants!