I Created a Mini Ecosystem Fish Tank - 120 Days Evolution

A couple months ago, I created this

10-gallon aquarium and accidentally

spawned an entire ecosystem. It took me

months to stabilize it and get to a point

where things didn't keep dying and the

tank inhabitants just kind of look after

themselves. As you can see, things quickly

spun out of control, and maintaining the

tank has kind of been like a challenging

juggling act trying to keep everything

balanced. So in today's video, I'll show

you how I created this tank, the steps I

took, the mistakes I made, and the lessons

I learned. So when I first bought this

tank, I wasn't actually planning to make

this big ecosystem with plants and

different life forms. I thought I'd just

have one fish and a few plastic plants,

no gravel or substrate, and I'd keep it

simple. But after a while, I got bored and

I decided that actually I do want a

massive underwater jungle and ecosystem.

I had to make several trips to the fish

market to pick up things like gravel,

ornaments, and different types of plants.

And after a while, the tank started to

look more like a natural ecosystem. Next,

I would like to show you each of the

different species in my tank.

I have lots of snails. One day they just

started appearing out of nowhere. I

noticed they like to lick the glass. I

guess they're eating algae that's stuck to

And then we have little cherry shrimp. No

tank can be complete without cherry

shrimp.

I started off with 5, but now I have over

30 because they had babies.

And finally, I have 8 neon tetra fish.

In the beginning, I only started off with

this one betta fish, and I also bought

some plants from the fish market, and then

I also added in some neon tetra.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the

betta fish hated other fish and would also

start eating my shrimp. So after I

witnessed the betta fish eat one of my

shrimp, which was very savage and brutal,

I decided to move the betta fish into a

new home. As As soon as I moved the betta

fish out of the tank, everything else in

the tank seemed to be much happier. I

guess it is a pretty nice feeling not

having to worry about being eaten anymore.

I had to lay down a layer of gravel so I

could hook the plants into it and they

could form roots. I didn't buy enough

gravel at first, so I had to keep going

back to the shop to buy more gravel. I

think in total I used about 2 kilograms of

gravel and had to wash it to get all the

dirt and grime off of it and make it safe

for the tank. Everything was going well,

but then when I looked at the neon tetra

closely, I could see tiny white spots on

them. Apparently this is some kind of

parasite, a disease called white spot

disease. So I was very worried about their

health, and I went back to the fish market

again and had to pick up some white spot

medicine, and I added that to the tank.

And after a week or two, the white spots

disappeared from the fish. The treatment

makes all the water go blue, which was

kind of scary at first, but I think this

is completely normal. Make sure you keep a

close eye on the fish and check their

bodies to make sure they don't have some

kind of sickness. The plants I bought

bought. Initially I bought 3 of them. I

don't know what species they are, maybe

someone knows, but when I bought them they

were much smaller, and then after a few

weeks and months they just exploded in

growth, and there's now so many leaves I

sometimes have to snip the leaves to clear

up some space. And a lot of the leaves

start rotting and they get eaten by the

snails and the shrimp, which is good as a

food source. So basically the snails and

the shrimp eat the leaves and then they

poo, and then the poo gets processed by

the bacteria in the tank, and plants use

the poo as fertilizer to then grow more

leaves. It's a nice little cycle actually.

One problem is there's so many leaves and

plants near the light because that's where

the light source is. It kind of blocks out

the light reaching the other plants,

which is further to the right side of the

tank, and also the tank looks kind of dark

because there's this thick ceiling of

leaves. I need to clear up more of it

really. I don't know why there's so many

snails. I didn't buy any snails, and for

the first few weeks I didn't see any

snails until maybe a month later. Later I

saw very tiny ones start to appear, and

now there's loads. There's probably like

30 to 50 snails, and they've gone pretty

big, and they keep multiplying. So I don't

know what I'm gonna do when there's

hundreds of them. I might have to start

taking them out, but for now they seem

like they're doing a good job at cleaning

up algae and rotting leaves. But they also

eat the live leaves as well, which I'm

okay with at the moment because I do have

way too many leaves. It's kind of funny

because when I put in the fish food, the

shrimp and the snails love the fish food

as well, and they straight for it. It's

funny because the fish food contains

shrimp, so the shrimp are like eating

themselves. Sometimes I put a carrot in

there as well. They really love the

carrots too. I blanch the carrot to soften

it up. I don't cook it too much, but I

notice if I add a raw carrot, they don't

really seem to touch it much. So I boil a

carrot for maybe a few minutes to soften

it up, and I put a slice of it in there,

or sometimes a strip of it, and they just

eat it over a few hours. Sometimes I leave

it in there overnight and it's gone by the

next day, so they eat it pretty quickly.

So you'll notice there's quite a few

smaller shrimp as well. They had babies.

Actually, as soon as I added the new

shrimp into the tank, they already had

eggs, and after a few weeks, the eggs

started to hatch, and the tank was full of

these tiny little shrimp that took me a

while to actually notice. I started off

with 5 adult cherry shrimp. One of them

got eaten by the betta fish, so 4 cherry

shrimp turned into about 30 baby shrimp.

I think there's about 30 of them now.

It's been a few months and they've gotten

pretty big now. When they start breeding,

30 cherry shrimp could turn into hundreds

of new baby shrimp. It's interesting

because some of them are bright red, but

then some of them are kind of orangey

looking and very see-through. You can see

all the internal organs and the guts, and

you can see the poop moving along their

One day I saw this snail do something kind

of strange. It completely came out of its

shell and it was doing like these spins

and twirls. And then it managed to

re-enter the shell and land gracefully

onto a leaf. I've never seen a snail do

this before, and I didn't even know a

snail could come out of its shell like

this. When I zoomed in with my camera,

I noticed these tiny little worms around

the gravel, and at first it kind of scared

me. I thought it would be dangerous for my

fish, but it turns out they're actually

beneficial for the fish tank. They eat up

poo and rotten stuff and make it safer and

cleaner for the tank to digest.

When it comes to cleaning the tank, I

don't really do much to clean it compared

to when I first started the tank. I used

to use a pump to siphon out the gravel

because I thought all of the poop building

up in the gravel would be bad for the

tank. It turns out that after months of

not siphoning, actually nothing has

changed and the inhabitants of the tank

seem completely fine. The only thing I do

is I take a small sponge on the end of a

chopstick and I wipe away the algae so I

can see inside of the tank more clearly.

I think if you have a good ecosystem of

bacteria and cleaner creatures like

shrimps and snails to keep things under

control, the inhabitants of the tank sort

of just keep things clean and under

control by themselves without you really

needing to do anything. I had a fish tank

a couple years ago and I was changing the

water every few days. I would siphon out

the water and then put in new water, and I

was doing this every few days And it took

me years to realize that you don't really

need to do this, and actually doing that

is more harmful for the tank. The fish

will eat food and then poop, and then the

bacteria that should be in the tank will

help break down the poop so it's safer.

And then the cleaner creatures like the

shrimp and snails will then help clean up

rotten stuff, and then the plants should

absorb the leftover poop and use that as

fertilizer and create oxygen in the tank.

So really you don't even need an air

filter. Everything takes care of each

other. The only thing I have to do is

topping up the tank with more water

because it keeps evaporating. I found out

that there's no need to keep taking water

out of the tank. I find that the shrimp

are the most interesting things to watch

in the tank. They're very busy all the

time, always looking for food, and I

really like watching how they scurry

around and try and swim about. They're not

very graceful swimmers, they do it kind of

clumsily, but they're much more

interesting to observe than the fish or

the snails. The fish don't really do a lot

apart from swimming around, which I guess

is the only thing they can do. So I do

enjoy the shrimp much more than the fish.

So I think that's all for today. Thanks

for watching my video, and I hope you

enjoyed it.