Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
[werbevideo] I Built a Self-Sustaining Mini Pond Ecosystem Aquarium to see whether a tiny ecosystem like this could truly thrive with minimal maintenance. More than 500 days later, it completely exceeded my expectations. In this video, I take you through the original build, show you how the ecosystem evolved over the last year and a half, and completely rebuild the aquarium while sharing everything I learned along the way.
From building a custom waterfall filter to experimenting with emersed and submerged plants, this project became one of the most rewarding miniature aquascapes I've ever created. Some ideas worked better than I ever expected, others failed completely—but that's exactly what made this experiment so interesting.
If you've ever wanted to build your own mini pond, riparium, paludarium or ecosystem aquarium, I hope this video gives you plenty of inspiration and practical ideas for your next project.
▶️ Watch the original Mini Pond build series:
youtube.com/watch?v=zjrSUis1A8I&t=828s
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Chapters
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
00:00 Intro
00:34 Building the Mini Pond
00:54 DIY Waterfall Filter
01:03 Building the Hardscape
03:25 Adding the Plants
05:18 Day 1 Complete
05:40 500 Days Later
07:00 Removing the Peace Lily
07:48 Cleaning & Dismantling
11:30 Rebuilding the Hardscape
14:45 Replanting the Aquarium
17:05 Final Result & What I Learned
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aquarium
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
* UNS 5S Shallow Aquarium
* Dimensions: 14.17 × 8.66 × 5.91 in (36 × 22 × 15 cm)
* Volume: 16.8 L / 4.4 US gal
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Hardscape & Materials
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
* WIO Titan Stone
* Juniper Wood
* La Plata Sand
* WIO Elderly Gravel
* WIO Sable Gravel
* Tropica Aquarium Soil
* Acrylic tubing
* Hydraulic push-fit connectors
* USB water pump
* Filter sponge
* ARKA Poly Glue
* ARKA Gel Super Glue
* ARKA Ultra Liquid Super Glue
* Dry aquasoil powder (for invisible hardscape repairs)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Plants
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aquatic Plants
* Marsilea hirsuta
* Eleocharis acicularis 'Mini'
* Anubias barteri 'Mini Coin'
* Hydrocotyle tripartita
* Riccardia chamedryfolia (Coral Moss)
* Bolbitis heudelotii
* Hygrophila pinnatifida
* Hygrophila lancea 'Araguaia'
* Myriophyllum matogrossense
Emersed Plants
* Dwarf Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum)
* Decorative Asparagus Fern
* Various pond plants
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Livestock
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
* Red Sakura Shrimp (Neocaridina davidi)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Brands & Products Used
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
* Tropica Aquarium Plants
* ARKA Biotechnologie
* UNS
* WIO
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Follow me
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📸 Instagram
instagram.com/juri_js
🌿 MossCotton
mosscotton.com
🎥 Subscribe for more aquascaping videos:
youtube.com/@JurijsJutjajevs
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
#Aquascape #MiniPond #EcosystemAquarium #NatureAquarium #Aquascaping #Riparium #Paludarium #UNS #ShrimpTank #WIO
[werbevideo] I Built a Self-Sustaining Mini Pond Ecosystem Aquarium to see whether a tiny ecosystem like this could truly thrive with minimal maintenance. More than 500 days later, it completely exceeded my expectations. In this video, I take you through the original build, show you how the ecosystem evolved over the last year and a half, and completely rebuild the aquarium while sharing everything I learned along the way.
From building a custom waterfall filter to experimenting with emersed and submerged plants, this project became one of the most rewarding miniature aquascapes I've ever created. Some ideas worked better than I ever expected, others failed completely—but that's exactly what made this experiment so interesting.
If you've ever wanted to build your own mini pond, riparium, paludarium or ecosystem aquarium, I hope this video gives you plenty of inspiration and practical ideas for your next project.
▶️ Watch the original Mini Pond build series:
youtube.com/watch?v=zjrSUis1A8I&t=828s
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Chapters
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
00:00 Intro
00:34 Building the Mini Pond
00:54 DIY Waterfall Filter
01:03 Building the Hardscape
03:25 Adding the Plants
05:18 Day 1 Complete
05:40 500 Days Later
07:00 Removing the Peace Lily
07:48 Cleaning & Dismantling
11:30 Rebuilding the Hardscape
14:45 Replanting the Aquarium
17:05 Final Result & What I Learned
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aquarium
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
* UNS 5S Shallow Aquarium
* Dimensions: 14.17 × 8.66 × 5.91 in (36 × 22 × 15 cm)
* Volume: 16.8 L / 4.4 US gal
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Hardscape & Materials
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
* WIO Titan Stone
* Juniper Wood
* La Plata Sand
* WIO Elderly Gravel
* WIO Sable Gravel
* Tropica Aquarium Soil
* Acrylic tubing
* Hydraulic push-fit connectors
* USB water pump
* Filter sponge
* ARKA Poly Glue
* ARKA Gel Super Glue
* ARKA Ultra Liquid Super Glue
* Dry aquasoil powder (for invisible hardscape repairs)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Plants
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Aquatic Plants
* Marsilea hirsuta
* Eleocharis acicularis 'Mini'
* Anubias barteri 'Mini Coin'
* Hydrocotyle tripartita
* Riccardia chamedryfolia (Coral Moss)
* Bolbitis heudelotii
* Hygrophila pinnatifida
* Hygrophila lancea 'Araguaia'
* Myriophyllum matogrossense
Emersed Plants
* Dwarf Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum)
* Decorative Asparagus Fern
* Various pond plants
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Livestock
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
* Red Sakura Shrimp (Neocaridina davidi)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Brands & Products Used
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
* Tropica Aquarium Plants
* ARKA Biotechnologie
* UNS
* WIO
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Follow me
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
instagram.com/juri_js
🌿 MossCotton
mosscotton.com
🎥 Subscribe for more aquascaping videos:
youtube.com/@JurijsJutjajevs
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
#Aquascape #MiniPond #EcosystemAquarium #NatureAquarium #Aquascaping #Riparium #Paludarium #UNS #ShrimpTank #WIO
