Here’s a quick update on my filterless, heaterless Bloody Mary Neocaridina shrimp bowl, which is 156 days old.
The bowl uses Fluval Stratum aquasoil as the substrate, along with a small piece of corbo catfish wood and two small rocks for the hardscape.
For lighting, I originally used a 20-watt Sansi grow light, but it was to be far too powerful for this setup.
I’ve since switched to two small houseplant grow lights for the time being, although I’ll probably move to a 10-watt Sansi puck light once I find a permanent rack for this bowl.
Here’s the full plant list for the bowl, and thankfully, none of these plants struggled during the winter months when the room temperature dropped to around 18°C, or 64°F.
As we move into the spring months, temperatures are starting to rise, so plant growth should begin to increase, and the Neocaridina shrimp should breed more frequently.
The Rotala rotundifolia in the back left of the bowl is the key plant for this setup, as it’s the main source of water purification. It helps remove toxins from the water and keeps the shrimp colony safe.
The rest of the plants are mostly decorative and grow too slowly to provide any real water-purifying benefits.
When it comes to feeding, I’m currently adding a single Fluval Bug Bites Green Label granule three times per week, as the shrimp colony is still very small.
That said, the majority of their diet comes from the algae and biofilm that naturally grows in the bowl and overfeeding can easily cause water parameter issues in a setup like this, so it’s always best to keep feeding light and play it safe.
