Cricket's Journey Into Planted Bowls

[Crickets]

[First let me apologize for subpar cellphone quality photos...My camera charger is lost in limbo :/]
So after realizing that I seriously miss the betta I had for over a year before it fell prey to an over excited puppy knocking it's tank over while I was out, I started looking into doing a planted tank like I had considered before, and stumbled on the planted bowls that seem to be popular on here haha. So I found a 2 gallon bowl and dived in. Though I'm probably sticking to just shrimp instead of getting a new betta. Maybe
I actually set it up several days ago with just some hornwort and gravel and peat for substrate but when I went to grab some water test strips, I spotted a surprisingly healthy sword plant that was flowering and grabbed it on impulse.

I've trimmed and rearranged it's more centered and completely submerged. I stirred up the substrate in the process and now the water is super cloudy oops.



I realize swords get really big, would it be possible to keep it a workable height with trimming?

Water test came to
GH/KH:30/120
pH: 7.5
NO2/NO3: .5/20
Still need to get ammonia test strips...but I guess that can wait a week or so.
The pH being where it's at is kind of surprising, given the peat in there.

I feel Iishould maybe find some nice stones....

[Silmarwen]

Unless I'm mistaken, people have grown partially emersed swords, too, which would be awesome-looking if you let it get huge and tower over the bowl! (If those aren't swords, someone please tell me what it is that looks like swords that I've seen in a ton of ripariums all over!)

[PaulG]

That's a peace lilly, will work with roots submerged but otherwise won't survive.

[PaulG]

Originally Posted by Silmarwen

Unless I'm mistaken, people have grown partially emersed swords, too, which would be awesome-looking if you let it get huge and tower over the bowl! (If those aren't swords, someone please tell me what it is that looks like swords that I've seen in a ton of ripariums all over!)

Yep lots of swords used in ripariums, will happily grow emersed.

[Crickets]

Originally Posted by PaulG

That's a peace lilly, will work with roots submerged but otherwise won't survive.

Aw geez, seriously? Will it be alright if I grow it outside of the bowl until it's large enough for the leaves to be above the water? Most of them are already just barely submerged...