Eco Sphere Fish Bowl: AMAZING NO WATER CHANGE & No Filter Aquarium (AQUASCAPE TUTORIAL)

Today I'm making a fish bowl and the reason my head's in here because I know you horrible lot are gonna say does your bald head fit in it? It does. Imagine if I couldn't get it off. So we're gonna pull this bad boy out again. Dave, Dave's, Dave made this. Anyway, first thing I need to do is clean the bowl. Can you see the mineral deposit marks on the ring? Does it come up on camera Steph? It's quite hard to see but yeah, yeah I can see them a little bit. So that's like ingrained in the glass and usually I can use a razor scraper to get them but because it's curved you can't so much. But when it's filled up it'll be pretty much like you can't really see it. I'm just going to try this scourer pad and just see what I can do. To be fair that is actually working. Is it? Yeah as far as I can tell. Always looks better when it's wet but oh that's worked. Oh brilliant. Ideal. Yeah so these perfect for glass. Polishing your bowl. Yeah or I suppose it's going to work on any minerals then in the tank. So I've got these special ones that are actually for aquarium which are a lot less abrasive which have worked really well for algae and that but for like stubborn stains this seems to be brilliant. I wouldn't recommend these if you've got an acrylic bowl or acrylic tank, it would just look misty. Even that will scratch it so glass only. So shiny. The final polish. So with any aquarium I like to start if it's planted with a substrate system and this is even more important in this one than usual because there's no filtration, it's going to be like a self-sustaining bowl. Obviously I'm going to feed it because why not, it's enjoyable but other than the odd little sprinkling flake it's going to just look after itself. So to create our substrate system I've got two components to start with. We want a gravel or a coarse sand depending on how you look at it but yeah like a smaller gravel. I'll get it out in a sec. Then I've got the Dennerle substrate. I've been using this loads in lots of projects and it works so well. I've never used it in a bowl. I'm expecting good things. So the first thing, pour in your gravel. Good job I didn't pour too hard that would have smashed it. I'm actually going to take out these larger pieces of rock that I've got in there. In fact I'll use them in a bit as well for decoration. So you can see the amount there. I'm going for about a 50-50 split of gravel to soil ratio. That would be one to one. Yes. Mix it all in. So there's options here. You can bank it up like you would an aquarium to create a bit more depth if you want but I actually want to keep it flat in this and just have it as like everywhere is a viewable angle if you like. So yeah I'm going to keep it flat. Obviously I need to lock down all that soil now so I'm going to cap it with some sand. Yes we have sand. Open bag. There we go look. Nice little capping done. That's everything locked down. That's going to provide a lot of nutrients. If you want to you can add in some root tabs as well which I will do. I'll use the API ones but that's more for like long longevity just to make sure it's got everything to be honest. But if you if you can only afford to get some of the substrate stuff then that's absolutely fine as well. It might just like require later like a reboost but maybe not you know it depends on what the fish you've got in there, how much they're pooping, how much they're adding to the soil, how much plants you've got. If you've got a lot of plants it's going to use so many nutrients so it just depends on like every single tank it's not a set rule at all. Everyone has his own ecosystem of his own needs. It's time for hardscape to add in. Now whenever I'm doing an ecobowl and this isn't anything new I've done these before I just really like doing them. So I like to start with a little bit of hardscape. You can go full plants if you want but I find that having a little sort of eye-catching feature in the middle of the jungle is just it just brings out the plants even more like gives a little bit of contrast with them. So I'm gonna go for the MD classic pebbles. I love them. So we can either go for multiple smaller ones or we can just go for like a couple of big ones. I'd prefer to go for like three or four larger style and then one feature piece of wood as well. I'm gonna go with that to start with and work my way around that. Let's put it in. So I'm kind of going for a spiral look as well because you know what I mean I'm going to place the hardscape in a sort of circular fashion so then I can view it from pretty much any angle and it will look good. We'll get on to lighting at a later date but I'm assuming you can see that fine stuff. Yeah yeah. We don't need to add a light now? Presumably not yet. Do you leave an edge around that isn't planted? Lilyopsis brasiliensis which is like mini chainsaw people call it. That should work really well in here. Fingers crossed anyway. Even if it doesn't I'm going to make it so it looks good if it doesn't carpet. Let's try these pieces. It might not work. This rock's got like quite a little bit of algae on it. I think it looks quite nice. Leave a little gap. So the whole point of this is me showing that you can go get a couple of pieces of hardscape and still make something that looks good. At the moment it doesn't but when there's all plants around it it should do. So what are you looking for now? Just something to creep through the rocks. I think that'll work and then this piece can as well. Now the aquascaper in me, if there is such a term, wants to fiddle with this a little bit now but I'm not going to because I'm going to show you that it's still going to look good once it's all planted and sort of settled and started growing. So yeah I'm just going to leave it. A couple of twigs, main piece of wood and three rocks. Obviously we're going to add more now but like you know as a basis of your initial hardscape. Very simple. Nature will make it look good, not me. So that's the next phase. That is profound. So profound but it is true. Right next up I'm going to glue little glue points where the hardscape is touching the rocks and that will keep it all locked down because that will float otherwise. What have you got there? Some detail stones that I just want to just like a mixture of different ones. I'm just going to sprinkle it around the rocks just give it a bit of extra oomph. Kind of want it everywhere for this one. I'm covering the whole surface in scatter gravel which I don't normally do. I just put it at the edges of the hardscape. I do want to give a little bit of a different look like it's like a section of a stream or something and if I just keep it in the middle it's going to look more artificial which might be the look you want to go for but I don't want to in this one. Right now we're really making progress and those pebbles that I pulled out of the sort of gravel from earlier I can now use them just to add a little bit more detail around some of these rocks. I want it to look really natural just like stuff has fallen in and smashed it. Risky. Love a good risk. I really like that. Looks awesome. See I'm not taking any care as well and some people might be annoyed at how sort of slapdash I am. I kind of do it intentionally. I think like if you look at nature it's all happened by accident and sometimes you can create that yourself and if you do it like continuously it tends to look really good. Right we're set now we can start getting some planting in there. This is the thing that's really going to transform it and I have got some plants here from Dennerle Plants. I've got some in vitro here and I've got some Glossostigma and Liliopsis Brasiliensis to give us that grassy look. These are going to look real natural. I'm going to start off with these plants then evolve from there. Okay so I'm going to I want some higher plants and in this tank here we've got some really nice Juncus Reppens so I'm going to pilfer some. This tank aka Dave's tank. Yeah there we go look great root systems they've got good height they give me that sort of real natural looking vibe as well. You're wrapping the roots there? Yeah just so I can make sure they all go into the soil and none of it sort of sticks out the top because it's not going to be useful to get nutrients then is it? So now it's all going to go in there it's all going to spread its own way. And that's fine for the plant? Yeah I've done I always tend to do it and it's always been okay so I'll just assume it is. Proof is in the pudding. And the uh hello guys the Rainbow Dwarf Sag is going to save the day again because it's going to go really well with the other plants we've chosen so far. Different texture again which is really good in a tank like what we're doing. Oh there's a lot of mulm there look at that though great roots. So now we've got really good sort of plant density at the sides uh we've got the foreground plants as well which keeps it nice and open otherwise it can just look like a solid bowl of plants. And now I'm going to go for fast growers. Dwarf Sag is quite fast once it gets going but it can take a while. But if we put stem plants in they're going to instantly pull nutrients from the water column they're going to grow really fast they're just going to make everything like cycle faster and everything like that and they look great as well. But as always when I'm planting stems I like to fill the tank up first and then I can place them in at the right height and they can just look great straight away. I was about to fill this up and realize we're not putting it here. Oh yeah we're moving on its space. Yeah so the light that I'm going to use for the tank is this really old kind of rusted and jerry-rigged Chihiros light. They don't even make this one anymore it's moved on to much better versions. I lost the thing that holds it up. I've taped it in places but it's going to do a really good job. Seems a shame not to use it because the lighting's so nice on it. Wow it really is quite old isn't it. Hasn't been used for a while. Something out of the Adams family. See how the greens pop really nice with it. Yeah can't wait to see it filled up. Let's do it. Now the key to this part is very very steadily. To start with we do not want to disturb all that substrate underneath. Put my ball valve on. Beg your pardon? Really too much. There we go. Just take your time with it. Let it flow in. Once you get a bit more water in you speed it right up. Right there we go. Look at that. So the beauty of using like the sand and the capping and the gravel on top means you tend to get a really really clear fill up like that. Which I mean even like that it looks good doesn't it. But we're going to go like next level now. Add in some nice stems at the back. We cover up any glue spots we can see as well with some mosses. So you can see there look I've deliberately left all that space at the back for stems to be able to sit in. Let's steal some Ludwigia. I am going to steal some of the stem plants from George's tank here because I just noticed at the back they're looking really good. Again lots of different textures. We've got Siamensis 53B there. Got a really nice Rotala. I think that's a hay trial but it's not been in highlights so it's kind of gone a bit mixed. But that is what I want. I want a mixed look. It's a really nice Rotala Willichi down here as well. Let's steal some of that out. One thing I won't be adding is the pearlweed because it's too small and it's going to just overtake. I've made that mistake before. Looks good initially but uncontrollable in that small space. And this was an experiment wasn't it because it's been grown on the mesh. So now it's probably very rooted in. Look at that. It's made of carpet. But if I want to remove it nice and easy. Yeah. So what I'm going to do now is just separate them all out. Stems at the bottom or the bottom of the plant at the bottom. And then I'll use some plant weights to group them together push them into the sand. There we go. Look because I've got water in there now I can see exact height to put it up. And still we can see the stems all nicely. Look at the discus. They're well interested in what's going on. Front colour pop of the Willichi. If I can get that in. Might be a bit tall actually. Yeah I'll take it out. Trim it down a bit. So I think that looks really good so far. I just feel like the middle section above the wood is missing something. I think Limnophila will work well because it spreads quite widely but you only need a few stems. And we don't want to go too crazy with the stems because they're just going to take over really really quickly. And as you can see here in the ecosystem tank we've got a lot of really nice tall stems. This is definitely the one to use and I can choose the height I need it to be as well. That looks about right. Loads of snails. Loads of baby snails on it all as well which is brilliant. That'll be brilliant for the water for the whole ecosystem. A bit more Rotala to go in here. So when you think there I haven't actually put that many plants in. Just a few sort of trimmings from other tanks. Obviously if you don't have that you can just buy say five pots of different plants and you can do exactly the same thing and within like a month or two it'd look this full. As long as you've got that substrate system sorted it's going to do well and you can see the tank is a little bit misted at the moment. And the good thing about a bowl like this is you just whip the water down and fill it back up again with dechlorinated water of the right temperature and you know that's it's the easiest water change. You don't have to spend a lot because there's hardly any hardscape. Not that many plants. Mine are just more established but it just looks great straight away doesn't it. And this is what I was saying don't worry too much about the hardscape. The plants will make it look amazing. I think it does need a little bit of floating plants though just to help the start up with it because then they're going to absorb any nutrients in the water column. Also it's quite a powerful light for something that hasn't really well established yet. If you've got a lower level light you'd be fine probably just to sort of let it go and even the most basic of lights would work with this. Little desktop one anything like that yeah be great. Right let's get some floating plants. Right it's the next day. I'm showing you this so that if you experience it you don't need to panic. It's a nano tank where you just whip the water down and fill it back up again. There we go they're all filled up looking so clear. How good does that look? It's like a glass world because it's round. Anyway we need to put some floating plants in. So the rainbow tank over here it's got a ton of awesome red root floaters. Get under here Steph. I was looking at these the other day. And they just took off like to start with they weren't doing too great. And it's something to do with the water chemistry. Some people say low nitrogen or low iron something like that really does allow for it to go proper red. Anyway I want some. I don't want too many. Just a couple. A little handful. Just like that I think. And that's because we've obviously got the little red pops going on at the moment. So I want another little red pop. I know that they'll stay really nice with this light as well. Just see a little hint of it. Not at the moment because it's gone to the edge but yeah there we go. And then there's cool shrimp tank we've got here. It's got some amazon frog bit. I'm going to get some of the smaller ones so we've not too long roots coming down because that might spoil the look a little bit. Oh they're all pretty long to be honest. Just a few because it grows so fast like just cover the surface. There's not a huge amount of surface area so yeah plonk them in and they'll continue to grow and split. Just make sure there's no duckweed in them. No we're good. Look at that. I love the way they grow outwards. And then from the front look you can see just some nice little you know roots coming down. Adds a little bit to it. Makes it a bit more mystical. Now because we're doing an ecosphere I want it to sort of run itself apart from feeding. So you know a little bit of flake every now and again. So we need to think about the inhabitants. Now there are some small snails already in there that have come off the other plants that you know we already planted. But I do want to put some more in as well. Right so I've got a snail breeding tank here which is what we want to add in. And if I lift up all of this algae which I like to keep there because it like captures food. And again that helps massively with the uh with all the snails breeding. I just took a load out actually for another tank so we are short of like big boys and girls. Oh that's nice big ones here. Okay so let's add in our adult ram's horn snails. These are my absolute favorite. And some people don't like snails because they think they take over. But as long as you don't overfeed the tank the population just stabilizes. I think they're a bit more interesting. You know you're going to have critters and things in small ecosystems. If you go in a pond and scoop up a load of mud you'll find an absolute ton of different things in there. And then next we're going to put some shrimp in. And we've got good news. This tank here that we set up about a month ago. Put our first sort of group of shrimp in. We've already got babies which is great. So you can see there on the uh on the filter sponge those are babies. They're not brand new but that's a good sign. It means that we've got growing babies. We counted like well over 20 as well. It's just there's just two there at the moment. Got really nice little collection of shrimp there. We've got males, females. Completely different colors. And yes they will breed some wild type looks. But some of them will be colorful as well. So I'm fine with that. So Neocaridina are very hardy. And the water in this bowl will already be similar to the tanks that they're from as well. So they'll be absolutely fine. Temperatures are all matching. Look at that. They look so cool. Like they're just floating in there. Now for the fish I'm going to be putting in the fish bowl. Now I know controversial idea but I know some places don't even allow it. But I've kept fish in bowls before and I can promise you you'll see it in a minute. They don't freak out. They're not bothered by being in there. They breed. I mean fish don't breed when they're like not happy. They don't even hide and they're not even spooked. You'll see. I don't believe that fish bowls are bad. I believe the stigma attached to it is because people put goldfish in them which is obviously bad. Goldfish get huge. But some nano fish in a bowl of that sort of volume I don't think that's a problem at all. It's up to you what you decide. So this tank is going to be changed soon. I've set this one up for some absolutely tiny Endler babies. Like these were literally they didn't have any color on them in anything when I put them in there. They were freshborns. I wanted to make sure they grow and they have now. So they're going to be upgraded into a larger volume. And they're some of them are nearly adult size anyway for Endlers but most of them have got a little bit of growing to do. It'll be the perfect spot for them. Okay it should be quite easy to catch. I don't need all of them. Good little number there. A few more as well. Don't want too many because these themselves are going to breed in the bowl for sure. Because there's even some extra small babies I can see in here as well. That's a nice male there. I've just got a nice male. Definitely want that one in. Definitely want that male in. Both of those. There we go look. Good little number there. You think about the volume of the bowl water. It's just enough I think. Now Endlers although they look like guppies are not guppies. They stay very very small. Look at this look. Look they're not bothered by me at all. And if they were scared and it was all magnified outside look I couldn't do this. They're just chilled. They already look good. I'm gonna love this bowl. Now obviously there isn't any beneficial bacteria generated at the moment because it's all brand new. So I've got some beneficial bacteria to add in and then also a fertilizer just to make sure that the stem plants are getting a load of nutrients straight away. Because their roots will take a little while to draw it from the substrate system. Also for the first week I would advise that you test the water every day. Now I'm very experienced so I don't really need to do this. What with the amount of plants in here and I'm just going to be doing the odd little water change to start with. But once it's settled after that first week I won't need to do any water changes or anything like that. Just water top-ups and the bowl will just continue to thrive. With such a low bioload in the tank any dangers of a nitrite or ammonia spike are incredibly low. Combine that with the amount of plants that we've got in here as well and the risk is negligible. But if you start with less plants you definitely need to be testing every day. And if you're experiencing any nitrite or ammonia spikes just whip the water down and whip it back up again with the chlorinated tap water and make sure it's of the right temperature. You should be golden.