1 Gallon "Pond in a Jar" Aquariums

Hi I'm BucketPonds and I run a lot of jar aquariums. Today we are looking at my 1 year old, 1 Gallon tanks. Which have been outside for quite a while! 

This was one of my first large jar tanks. Setup using my best methods at the time. 

Each of these jars is over a year old but these photos are from when they were first setup. 

I don't keep fish in these gallon jars. Some people might but to me it's just cruel. You cannot host a breeding population of any kind in such a small tank. 1 gallon just isn't enough

But! You can keep TONS of tiny pet invertebrates inside. Bladder Snails, Aquatic Worms and Ostracods (aka Seed Shrimps) are some of my personal favorites. 

Over the last year I admit, I neglected these tanks. I actually put them outside about 4 months ago, to free up space indoors for my other aquarium projects. Let's look at them now, current pictures after I brought them back indoors to get warm. 

This is Spikerush and it has done EXTREMELY well when kept outdoors. This isn't a big surprise since spikerush was one of the first plants I collected from the wild. It should handle the weather here pretty easily. 

You can see a significant mulm layer has built up in this one. Last year I hadn't yet mastered the ability to culture aquatic worms. Mulm was an issue. Nowadays I just use my worms to clean that stuff up. Yes, these tanks will be retrofitted soon, with their own worm populations. 

You can see the spikerush here. It normally grows on sandy soils. You've probably seen it quite a few times if you live in an area like mine. South USA

Spikerush can grow on soil like normal but it can also grow when planted underwater, as a floating plant (it takes on a slightly different form) and it even grows as an emergent plant. Reaching up and out of the jar aquarium.

Overall these 1 year old jar aquariums have done great! I have fed them some cucumber once every 20 days or so. Not enough for the tanks to flourish but definitely enough to maintain some animal life inside. 

Over the course of 2019 - 2021 I have learned a lot about these nano aquariums. Experiments have shown which of my aquatic plants and animals do best in setups like these. I've learned more about how to properly set up a tank like this and I've gained enough experience to confidently build more of the jar aquariums. Jarariums, if you will. 

Using what I've learned since setting up those first few gallons jars, I've built a new one. Feast your eyes on this! 

This is my brand new 1 gallon "Pond in a Jar" aquarium. As you may know, I've recently opened up the BucketPonds - Etsy shop. Selling Nitella macroalgae and jar aquarium kits. 

This new Jararium is a miniature farm tank. Modeled after my existing Nitella farm aquarium. My goal here is to harvest Nitella once every other month or so - and sell it in my shop. 

My farm tank is doing great! But demand for my algae was higher than expected :) so I needed more space to grow more Nitella. 

You can see a drastic difference between this tank and the originals. Nitella in my experience, is the only filtration you need in a tank like this. The spikerush has done great though and I'll likely keep some growing for other projects. 

I have 5 recycled pickle jars as aquariums at this point. The old and the new. I also run 20-30 smaller nano Jarariums but that's for another post! 

All things considered, 1 gallon seems to be the optimum size for a "Pond in a Jar" style aquarium like mine. If you're intrigued, you can find my kits for sale on etsy.com/shop/BucketPonds along with my LIVE Nitella Characeae Algae for sale and some hardscape items as well. 

You can also find me, BucketPonds, along with these tanks and so many more on my YouTube channel linked below. 

https://youtube.com/channel/UC2MMA5bFTnae9bwqPBSw8AQ