Bonsai in an encapsulated environmental system: Paludarium Yasutoshi(azumamakoto.com)
azumamakoto.com
Bonsai in an encapsulated environmental system: Paludarium Yasutoshi
https://azumamakoto.com/3705/
20 comments
Looks really cool. They even play music for the plant!
I'm running several aquariums at home between 17 and 240 litres that I try to run with as little intervention as possible, so I'm quite interested in self-sustaining minuature "ecosystems". In aquariums the plant growth is usually the one thing that requires intervention, as some plant species (especially stem plants and floating plants) will completely overrun the ecosystem within weeks if not trimmed back, and they often will shade the other plants causing them to become stunted or die off entirely.
Aquarists or aquascapers (which is a trend that in its modern interpretation also originated in Japan) will often take pride in being able to grow rare or demanding plant species in their tanks. In some cases this can require holding a lot of parameters in balance: Light, micro- & macro-nutrients (in the water and in the soil), water hardness, PH and temperature.
I'm running several aquariums at home between 17 and 240 litres that I try to run with as little intervention as possible, so I'm quite interested in self-sustaining minuature "ecosystems". In aquariums the plant growth is usually the one thing that requires intervention, as some plant species (especially stem plants and floating plants) will completely overrun the ecosystem within weeks if not trimmed back, and they often will shade the other plants causing them to become stunted or die off entirely.
Aquarists or aquascapers (which is a trend that in its modern interpretation also originated in Japan) will often take pride in being able to grow rare or demanding plant species in their tanks. In some cases this can require holding a lot of parameters in balance: Light, micro- & macro-nutrients (in the water and in the soil), water hardness, PH and temperature.
It's crazy how much and how little maintenance a high-tech aquascape needs. I just got back from a six-week trip and all the stems and carpet are completely overgrown, but algae is still minimal and the fish and shrimp are none-the-wiser.
What do your shripm and fush eat?algae, dead plants exclysively? I'm just changing the water in onne of my low tech aquariums as we speak. I have RCS, Boraras and Otos in them.
My one experiment in setting up a natural ecosystem in a small aquarium went horribly wrong, with organic sediment floating all around in the tank.
Natural freshwater aquariums that are setup properly look beautiful compared to the majority of aquariums for freshwater that are just gravel, but setup and water changes take much more planning, access to materials, and talent than I found that I have.
Natural freshwater aquariums that are setup properly look beautiful compared to the majority of aquariums for freshwater that are just gravel, but setup and water changes take much more planning, access to materials, and talent than I found that I have.
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I only change water at the beginning when setting up a new aquarium, once it's stable I do a water change maybe every 3-6 months. The small tanks have a lot of evaporation as well so every week I add 2-4 litres of fresh water to them, so additional water changes are not really needed. If you have a large number of healthy plants in the aquarium and enough filter surface there's usually no problem with nitrate/nitrite buildup. I know people that run their aquariums for decades without a water change (replacing evaporated water of course), so it's definitely possible. You can't agressively use fertilizer though in that case. Most aquascapers use "estimative index" fertilization method where they usually strongly overdose fertilizer to ensure no plant has any nutrient deficiencies, this then makes regular water changes necessary as inevitably there will be a buildup of organics or nutrients otherwise. Personally I found that with most plants you don't need to do that.
In most of my aquariums I also don't use organic soil and instead put a combination of volcanic (anorganic) rock and gravel. Works quite well for most plants and if you have enough fish in the aquarium they will produce almost all necessary organics for your plants to thrive.
In most of my aquariums I also don't use organic soil and instead put a combination of volcanic (anorganic) rock and gravel. Works quite well for most plants and if you have enough fish in the aquarium they will produce almost all necessary organics for your plants to thrive.
How would you approach setting up and maintaining the following nano-aquascape, with an outcome similar to the Walstad method[1][2]:
* freshwater 11.3L natural tank, ranging 9.5L - 11L through evaporation
* no powered filtration, aeration, and optimally without a water heater
* little if any sunlight
* water temperature in tank may range 18.3C to 24.9C through each year
* 1 or more aquatic creatures, preferably one creature living a few or more years, removed within a day if they die and replaced within 3 weeks
* no water changes after 2-3 months of stabilization initially
* no more than a few hours of initial setup
* little maintenance required to sustain itself as described other than topping tank with inexpensive bottled spring water
* high probability of sustaining itself within these constraints for many years
I read and experienced that smaller tanks are harder to setup with 10cm of sand possibly needed for Walstad method that size tank[3].
In "Ecology of the Planted Aquarium" and on her site, Walstad writes that she had success with 3.8L and 7.6L tanks using her Dry Start Method[4] to setup the plants, and then hosted shrimp. However, as interesting a shrimp are, my experience with ghost shrimp was that they were inexpensive, looked lively, and then died suddenly within weeks. She speaks of red cherry shrimp, which I've not found locally. I recommend her site[5] which has a lot of information about Planted Aquariums along with the latest corrections for her book; she also describes how she bred guppies in 12 gallon plastic tubs without any filtration or aeration[6] outdoors 15.5C-25.5°F.
[1]- https://amazon.com/dp/B00DB94K5I
[2]- http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/wiki/Walstad_method
[3]- https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/setting-u...
[4]- https://dianawalstad.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/shrimprcs20...
[5]- https://dianawalstad.com/aquariums/
[6]- https://dianawalstad.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/small-scale...
* freshwater 11.3L natural tank, ranging 9.5L - 11L through evaporation
* no powered filtration, aeration, and optimally without a water heater
* little if any sunlight
* water temperature in tank may range 18.3C to 24.9C through each year
* 1 or more aquatic creatures, preferably one creature living a few or more years, removed within a day if they die and replaced within 3 weeks
* no water changes after 2-3 months of stabilization initially
* no more than a few hours of initial setup
* little maintenance required to sustain itself as described other than topping tank with inexpensive bottled spring water
* high probability of sustaining itself within these constraints for many years
I read and experienced that smaller tanks are harder to setup with 10cm of sand possibly needed for Walstad method that size tank[3].
In "Ecology of the Planted Aquarium" and on her site, Walstad writes that she had success with 3.8L and 7.6L tanks using her Dry Start Method[4] to setup the plants, and then hosted shrimp. However, as interesting a shrimp are, my experience with ghost shrimp was that they were inexpensive, looked lively, and then died suddenly within weeks. She speaks of red cherry shrimp, which I've not found locally. I recommend her site[5] which has a lot of information about Planted Aquariums along with the latest corrections for her book; she also describes how she bred guppies in 12 gallon plastic tubs without any filtration or aeration[6] outdoors 15.5C-25.5°F.
[1]- https://amazon.com/dp/B00DB94K5I
[2]- http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/wiki/Walstad_method
[3]- https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/setting-u...
[4]- https://dianawalstad.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/shrimprcs20...
[5]- https://dianawalstad.com/aquariums/
[6]- https://dianawalstad.files.wordpress.com/2020/08/small-scale...
10-12L is too small. Get a 20 or a 40L, use aqua soil instead of all gravel, heavily plant it, work less. I prefer to keep shrimp, boraras some otos and one or two clithon snails (one per 20L).
I have a 17L tank that effectively has maybe 10L of water, in which I keep small guppies (offspring from my larger tanks) until the outgrow it. It's sitting on a bookshelf in the hallway, completely unheated. I use a regular Philips 13 W 4000 K LED (around 1.500 Lumen) mounted in an Ikea desk lamp as lighting. For filtering I use a backpack filter (AquaClear) filled with ceramic filter material with high surface-to-volume ratio and some fine polyester wool. I prefer these types of filters for small tanks as they hang outside of the tank and dont't use up any space inside.
The most important thing for a healthy aquascape is to have many healthy plants, with some fast-growing ones that will take up any excess nutrients. For an open tank I recommend water lentils (they can get out of control fast though) or swim ferns like Limnobium Laevigatum or Salvinia Auriculata (beware of the shade they create). In my tank I also keep Hydrocotyle Tripartita, which looks great in an open tank that can be viewed from above, grows fast and forms a nice carpet that doesn't grow too high(unless it doesn't get enough light, in which case it will grow mostly vertically). I also keep two Echinidorae Ocelot, which are really easy and form a dense system of roots. Finally, I have some Limnobium Laevigatum as a floating plant and a small carpet of Hemianthus callitrichoides Cuba (HCC), which is rather complicated to keep and requires good CO2 injection (I use a plastic bottle with a yeast-sugar mix and a small upturned glas bowl in the tank to set CO2 at 25 mg/l). Having some root-forming plants is important as the roots will keep the ground from becoming anaerobic, which can lead to a foul-smelling aquarium. As substrate I use volcanic gravel below and regular gravel (2-4mm grain size) above, possibly with some nutrient-rich soil above (this will help e.g. with HCC but isn't required). For a small tank I'd go for 3-5 cm of substrate at most. You can have more but you'll need to ensure you have root-forming plants in most areas that keep the substrate aereated. I fertilize with micro- & macro-nutrient fertilizers every couple of days. Lighthing is turned on for 11 hours. I feed the fish (12 small, not fully grown guppies) once a day and am careful not to overfeed. I also keep 10-20 ramshorn snails (they can reproduce quite fast but if you don't overfeed your fish their numbers stabilizes quickly).
Sakura shrimp are quite easy to keep as well and will reproduce without much effort, larger fish (even fully grown Guppies) will see the small ones as food though and stress the large ones enough to kill them, so beware of putting them in a tank with fish.
In the first 2 weeks you'll see a lot of brown silica algae form everywhere, which is normal, usually followed by some green algea. Which types of algea you'll get depends heavily on your water parameters though (hardness, mineral content and contaminants), I have hard, nutrient-rich water and get mostly green algea, other people see brush or black algea instead. After 4-6 weeks they should mostly disappear as the plants start to grow rapidly and take up most of the nutrients in the water, starving the algae.
So to summarize:
- Use lots of healthy plants, at least some of them should be fast-growing (you can remove these later if you don't like them). There should be as many plants as possible, while making sure they don't shade each other. Great fast-growing plants are e.g. stem plants like Hygrophilia Polysperma, Rotala Gia Lai / H'Ra (one of my favorites) or swimming plants like Hydrocotyle Leucocephala (which is not very suitable for small tanks though IMHO). A great carpet-forming plant is e.g. Marsilea Hirsuta, which grows quite well without CO2 and low lighting.
- Don't overfertilize in the beginning, start with 25 % of the recommended dose and work upwards.
- Start with 8 hours of lighting and work your way up to 12 hours during 4-8 weeks.
- Add snails or shrimp after 1-2 weeks and fish after 2-4 weeks (not too many at once). Be sure to select fish that are suitable for nano aquariums (opinions diverge here but IMHO you can easily keep e.g. smaller Guppies in a nano tank as well).
- If the tank develops a serious algae problem (e.g. blue algae) block out all light for 3-4 days, this kills most types of algae and can give plants an advantage as soon as the lighting comes back.
- Only clean the filter when you notice the flow is drastically reduced. Don't wash the filter material with hot water or anything, just press it out in a small bucket/bowl of water from the aquarium until most of the coarse dirt is gone. The filter bacteria are the most important part of your tank, so treat them with respect.
- Have patience, the tank will usually look quite ugly for the first 4-8 weeks, so don't give up easily.
The most important thing for a healthy aquascape is to have many healthy plants, with some fast-growing ones that will take up any excess nutrients. For an open tank I recommend water lentils (they can get out of control fast though) or swim ferns like Limnobium Laevigatum or Salvinia Auriculata (beware of the shade they create). In my tank I also keep Hydrocotyle Tripartita, which looks great in an open tank that can be viewed from above, grows fast and forms a nice carpet that doesn't grow too high(unless it doesn't get enough light, in which case it will grow mostly vertically). I also keep two Echinidorae Ocelot, which are really easy and form a dense system of roots. Finally, I have some Limnobium Laevigatum as a floating plant and a small carpet of Hemianthus callitrichoides Cuba (HCC), which is rather complicated to keep and requires good CO2 injection (I use a plastic bottle with a yeast-sugar mix and a small upturned glas bowl in the tank to set CO2 at 25 mg/l). Having some root-forming plants is important as the roots will keep the ground from becoming anaerobic, which can lead to a foul-smelling aquarium. As substrate I use volcanic gravel below and regular gravel (2-4mm grain size) above, possibly with some nutrient-rich soil above (this will help e.g. with HCC but isn't required). For a small tank I'd go for 3-5 cm of substrate at most. You can have more but you'll need to ensure you have root-forming plants in most areas that keep the substrate aereated. I fertilize with micro- & macro-nutrient fertilizers every couple of days. Lighthing is turned on for 11 hours. I feed the fish (12 small, not fully grown guppies) once a day and am careful not to overfeed. I also keep 10-20 ramshorn snails (they can reproduce quite fast but if you don't overfeed your fish their numbers stabilizes quickly).
Sakura shrimp are quite easy to keep as well and will reproduce without much effort, larger fish (even fully grown Guppies) will see the small ones as food though and stress the large ones enough to kill them, so beware of putting them in a tank with fish.
In the first 2 weeks you'll see a lot of brown silica algae form everywhere, which is normal, usually followed by some green algea. Which types of algea you'll get depends heavily on your water parameters though (hardness, mineral content and contaminants), I have hard, nutrient-rich water and get mostly green algea, other people see brush or black algea instead. After 4-6 weeks they should mostly disappear as the plants start to grow rapidly and take up most of the nutrients in the water, starving the algae.
So to summarize:
- Use lots of healthy plants, at least some of them should be fast-growing (you can remove these later if you don't like them). There should be as many plants as possible, while making sure they don't shade each other. Great fast-growing plants are e.g. stem plants like Hygrophilia Polysperma, Rotala Gia Lai / H'Ra (one of my favorites) or swimming plants like Hydrocotyle Leucocephala (which is not very suitable for small tanks though IMHO). A great carpet-forming plant is e.g. Marsilea Hirsuta, which grows quite well without CO2 and low lighting.
- Don't overfertilize in the beginning, start with 25 % of the recommended dose and work upwards.
- Start with 8 hours of lighting and work your way up to 12 hours during 4-8 weeks.
- Add snails or shrimp after 1-2 weeks and fish after 2-4 weeks (not too many at once). Be sure to select fish that are suitable for nano aquariums (opinions diverge here but IMHO you can easily keep e.g. smaller Guppies in a nano tank as well).
- If the tank develops a serious algae problem (e.g. blue algae) block out all light for 3-4 days, this kills most types of algae and can give plants an advantage as soon as the lighting comes back.
- Only clean the filter when you notice the flow is drastically reduced. Don't wash the filter material with hot water or anything, just press it out in a small bucket/bowl of water from the aquarium until most of the coarse dirt is gone. The filter bacteria are the most important part of your tank, so treat them with respect.
- Have patience, the tank will usually look quite ugly for the first 4-8 weeks, so don't give up easily.
Great advice. I've also had a great experience with fast growing plants such as Limnobium Laevigatum and Sagittaria subulata in the mid/backgroud of nano aquariums. Limnobium being a floating plant is easy to remove, no trimming required. It shades the rest of the aquarium, inhibits algae growth and biofilm because it uses up nutrients and grows like crazy. Sagittaria throws runners everywhere and will eventually fill up your aquarium if left uncontrolled. I cut runners in the foreground every time I change the water to give the other slower plans (crypts and dwarf hairgrass) a chance to grow.
I've used HCC without CO2 but it's rather high maintenance and I don't want to cut shrimp while trimming the carpet. If it's not maintained regulary it it will peel off and start to float, creating a mess. Micranthemum tweediei "Monte Carlo" is probably a better carpeting plant choice than HCC for beginners. My other Iwagumi style aquarium that once had HCC now has a nice "carpet" of Cryptocoryne Parva after several years. It takes a lot of time to grow but it's quite beautiful once established.
I've used HCC without CO2 but it's rather high maintenance and I don't want to cut shrimp while trimming the carpet. If it's not maintained regulary it it will peel off and start to float, creating a mess. Micranthemum tweediei "Monte Carlo" is probably a better carpeting plant choice than HCC for beginners. My other Iwagumi style aquarium that once had HCC now has a nice "carpet" of Cryptocoryne Parva after several years. It takes a lot of time to grow but it's quite beautiful once established.
It has its learning curve for sure, but experimentation + reading is key.
I have been following this movement on YouTube. It looks fascinating.
A lot more interesting to me than the bonsai installation. I have an aesthetic and a practical concern. Practically pines (and many others) naturally have a dormant period over the winter, which is amongst the reasons why bonsai live outside. Some trees die without it. It also looks like a great environment for fungal growth!
Aesthetically this is more like seeing a person on life support than seeing them alive. Like bonsai tree in the matrix.
I guess this is just an art installation though, but I hope they don't kill the tree.
A lot more interesting to me than the bonsai installation. I have an aesthetic and a practical concern. Practically pines (and many others) naturally have a dormant period over the winter, which is amongst the reasons why bonsai live outside. Some trees die without it. It also looks like a great environment for fungal growth!
Aesthetically this is more like seeing a person on life support than seeing them alive. Like bonsai tree in the matrix.
I guess this is just an art installation though, but I hope they don't kill the tree.
Fellow aquascapers here! I went from Walstad mode to high-tech slow growing plants ADA style. Both are surprisingly low maintenance and algae free. I just change the water, do some ferts, and feed the fish. I think I can bypass changing the water if I want to.
Too expensive in terms of energy for most homes probably, but I could see it perfectly being hired as a tree hospital to recover valuable bonsai specimens in urban areas where maintaining and finding space for a bigger greenhouse can be complicated
Would be also a good anti-theft device. It looks heavy.
Would be also a good anti-theft device. It looks heavy.
My first association was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White, the second https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeforce_(film)
As in https://cdn.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/li...
:-)
As in https://cdn.flickeringmyth.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/li...
:-)
Apparently the oldest known closed terrarium has been sealed since 1972: search for "David Latimer" and "terrarium". Apparently they were popular around 1960 so I'm disappointed they can't find one that's been going since 1960.
I guarantee you that anybody could obtain the same results. Latimer's terrarium is not a very good example IMAO.
Why?, because is the opposite of a landscape. There is not design or arrangement possible. The plant just will fill all the available volume and kill any other species in the bottle.
The plant inside that bottle is Tradescantia fluminensis. A South American weed that is popular indoors. Can store water in the stems and stand dry periods. Will shrink and regrow and multiply later from tiny chunks of the stem. Is an invasive species in Australia and Europe that will be destroyed only by frost.
Why?, because is the opposite of a landscape. There is not design or arrangement possible. The plant just will fill all the available volume and kill any other species in the bottle.
The plant inside that bottle is Tradescantia fluminensis. A South American weed that is popular indoors. Can store water in the stems and stand dry periods. Will shrink and regrow and multiply later from tiny chunks of the stem. Is an invasive species in Australia and Europe that will be destroyed only by frost.
I'll save you a search: https://biologicperformance.com/sealed-bottle-terrarium-gard...
Funnily enough just stumbled across this the other day.
Funnily enough just stumbled across this the other day.
This is probably the most interesting thing I have seen in a long time. This just seems like something that simply shouldn't be possible. I tried looking up more info but most of the results are this guy.
Does anyone know if it really is as simple as putting some dirt and water in a pot or are there more specific requirements for it to work?
Does anyone know if it really is as simple as putting some dirt and water in a pot or are there more specific requirements for it to work?
Google maps with some more amateur pictures: https://goo.gl/maps/yP1XYay2fCKvFEV29