Wandering Jew Sustainable Aquarium Garden

I have been growing in my aquarium gardens a Wandering Jew plant (Tradescantia Zebrina), also known as the Inchplant or Spiderwort.

 A nice looking plant you may recognize from my previous videos ;)

 Here it is in my Zen Aquarium Garden. 

It grows fast! 

Let's do some experiments to see if this plant is suitable for sustainable aquarium gardens.

 I use a 1 liter mason jar with a lid to set up a new aquarium garden. 

Let's put a rock and a seashell.

 Add dechlorinated water. A Marimo ball, duckweed, and some Frogbits should do to start with.

 Add a couple of pond snails. 

Also, I add some seed shrimp. 

A very basic setup as you can see. 

Make a cutting of a Wandering Jew plant. 

The leaves of this plant will rot in water very quickly. 

So, let's trim off the bottom leaves. 

I put the cutting in the aquarium garden on December 1st, 2019. 

5 days later on December 6th, the cutting already has nice roots.

 December 16th 

Another 10 days passed and the roots reached the bottom. 

Let's make a new cutting with the top 5 leaves. 

This cutting goes in the same garden.  

And now I am going to add 5-6 scuds into this nursery. 

I want to check how scuds will survive in this aquarium garden without me feeding them.

 Scuds get busy right away checking the roots of the Wandering Jew plant and exploring the aquarium. 

In my previous experiment, adult scuds prefer plants over algae.

 Here they can choose from algae, Marimo ball, or the roots of Wandering Jew plant. 

And snails or snail eggs! 

January 2nd, 2020 

It's been one month since I set up this garden. 

New branches grow on the old cutting.

 Snails and scuds are doing fine. 

Scuds devour all small secondary roots of Wandering Jew plant.

No fluffy roots left, in other words. 

Apparently, scuds love those. 

It's time to add water. 

Fill up a cup with cold NYC tap water and let it sit out in the open overnight. 

The next day I add this water into the aquarium garden.

 Make sure the tubes of the planter always stay above the water.

 February 16th

 In the past month, I made another cutting. 

All three cuttings have strong roots and look good.

 Now, I remove a bottom leaf of one cutting.

 Let's cut the bottom part of the stem without leaves and push it in the aquarium.

 I want to see what is going to happen to the leafless stem with roots underwater.  

A scud rushes to chew on the young roots of this cutting right away.

 March 4th 2020 

Dots of common green algae grow on the walls of this 3 month old aquarium. 

March 24th. 

I make two cuttings from the old plant. 

Let's put the old stem without leaves in the aquarium again. 

One of the new cuttings is replacing the old plant. 

And the other new cutting goes into another aquarium garden.

 I usually try my experiments in more than one aquarium to increase the reliability of results ;)

 May 19th.

 All Wandering Jew cuttings seem to grow fine so far. 

I think it's time to make a new cutting here.

 The new cutting goes in the same aquarium garden. 

I add dechlorinated water every couple weeks or so. 

June 5th. 

A half an year old aquarium garden looks good.

 Scuds dashing here and there in larger numbers. 

Snails are not so good. 

Scuds leave not much food for snails to feed on and scuds eat snails eggs. 

Also, pinkish water discoloration indicates that leaving the old stems of Wandering Jew in the aquarium is not a  great idea in this regard.

Here you can compare it with the crystal clear water in the other aquarium where I did not add old stems.

 This discoloration is permanent.

 Which leaves me no other choice but to change the water.

 First off all let's remove the old stems.

 Now let's drain the water keeping scuds in the aquarium. 

I drain out about 90% of the water. 

Some scuds get sucked in the tube anyway. 

I will put them back for sure.

 Add clean dechlorinated water.

 Let's move scuds back in the aquarium. 

Now I am going to add some decorations, gravel and aquatic plants to make this aquarium garden look the way I like to keep it - attractive! 

3 young ramshorn snails going in. 

Snails have a better chance in aquarium gardens with more aquatic plants. 

That's what I learnt from experiments in other aquarium gardens.

 A cutting of guppy grass goes in this one.  

6 months long experiment confirms sustainability of Wandering Jew aquarium garden with scuds.

July 2020. 

Sustainable aquarium gardens with different plants look gorgeous. 

I am ready for new experiments. 

Have fun and happy aquarium gardens :)