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Bottled Plants

2K views 12 replies 5 participants last post by  ao 
#1 ·
Hi All,

I am looking to make a few "bottles" with just plants in them. However, this means no artificial agitation of water BUT also no regulated temp control so the water will move naturally as the temp changes throughout the day. Will this be enough for plants to survive in terms of water flow? I still plan to dose flourish comprehensive AND flourish excel weekly so nutrients in the water wont be lacking. These are sealed environments for the most part. Emersed plants will not get excel

Will this work? Currently, I'm looking to bottle the following plants:
Crypt parva
Java Fern (emersed)
Moss Ball
Amazon Sword
Rotala Indica
Java Moss
Crypt petchii (I think) (emersed)
Dwarf Subutula

Does anyone know if these will work in a bottled environment?
 
#3 ·
Even in a sealed environment? The tops of the bottles are completely sealed, no gas exchange except when I go in to fertilize or change the water. The bottles are tiny only approx 10 ounces so the excel I dose is less than a drop per bottle due to the strength of the liquid carbon and size of the bottle.
 
#6 ·
I thought about soil, but ended up voting against it because I had tried this previously and the soil was basically nutrition overdose for the bottle and algae went nuts. Trying to clean algae off the side of a bottle with a small opening is a nightmare. Perhaps I should just start dosing excel every other day? Another thought i had was just to take aquarium water every week and use that isntead of dosing nutrients, doing 100% water changes weekly. However, not sure if the crypts can handle that kind of change weekly.
 
#7 ·
I keep plants in bottles with soil under a layer of pea gravel on my windowsill and they do great. I use large juice bottles, small jars, anything. They're sealed, I don't fertilize, and I don't change the water. I have a few snails in the largest jar, and they do great.

I think it depends on the type of plants, also. Slow growers may not do so well, they can't use up all the nutrients fast enough. I grow anacharis/elodea, ludwigia, and hornwort in jars just fine.

If you want to grow crypts and the like I'd add a few fast growing stems to prevent algae, and maybe add a small snail.

I also have two one-gallon jars with an amazon sword each, potted water sprite, and a few other plants and the growth is excellent, not even a smidge of algae.
 
#10 ·
Pest snail as in pond snail? I'm actually short on pond snails right now... only got trumpets.

This actually gave me another idea, can I just feed snails in the bottles to generate carbon for the plants?

Is it animal abuse to stick a trumpet snail in such a small space? they're really small, 10 ounce bottles half filled with substrate is a really small amount of leftover open space...
 
#12 ·
Well it was filled with tank water from the start. Then I did a 1/2 drop of flourish comprehensive and 1/2 drop of excel earlier this week. None of them have shown any growth yet. I ended up with a thick substrate because I wanted big healthy root systems for the plants. I'm hoping to start a shrimp tank in the near future and wanted a huge focus on low tech plant growth so I figured strong established roots would be a huge contributing factor to the success of plants in a new setup.
 
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