I've decided to make an indoor mini pond in my kitchen from things I'm going to re-use that were otherwise going to be chucked away.

The pond will have quite a few house plants growing from it such as:
Pothos
Peace Lily
Lucky Bamboo
Possibly Anthurium
Some mini floating Water Lily's
ZZ Plant

I also would like to create an eco system within the water, I'll be adding some water snails and dwarf fresh water shrimp plus water beetles and water lice etc that will live of the algae and plant waste.

I have most things. I have the tank and a wooden box to make it look more like an indoor pond rather than just a fish tank in the kitchen. The tank is slightly too large for the wooden box so I will need to modify the wooden box to make it fit. Some of you may remember seeing this same wooden box in another thread of mine that I was going to use for my indoor planter for my livingroom but it didn't really go well with the theme I have in there so I will make a new box for that planter and use this one for my mini pond instead.


I have an antique light fitting that I've rewired and tested and a vacuum cord which I've cut to the length I need.

I always find vacuum cords very useful as I do a lot of electrical work so its always useful have plenty of wire. Many get thrown away so when I see them dumped I salvage the cords.

Time to break out the soldering iron and get the wires tinned before I connect them into a junction block. I find its much better to tin the ends of wires before clamping them down into a connector. I was going to use solder and heatshrink without the connector but I'm out of heatshrink so a junction block will have to do. Now because the light fitting is metal I should really have it earthed but I only had two core cable so I will just use that. This cord came from a vacuum cleaner with the plug, vacuum cleaners use 13 amp fuses so I will replace the fuse with a 3 amp as its now going to be powering the light fitting.

I will be using 7watt L.E.D 6500k color temperature bulbs with the defuser caps removed, from just one of these bulbs I can measure close to 4000 LUX at 1 foot although these light meter apps are never 100% accurate its good enough as a tool to get a rough idea of the light brightness. I've have chosen low light tolerant plants for this project and from my research, most of these plants mentioned above can do well in 1000 lux which is considered medium light.





The tank and wooden box

The light fitting

I began to dismantle the wooden box so I can make it the correct size to make the tank fit inside. It wasn't straight forward, easier said than done. The wood isn't in very good shape and kept splitting apart and the nails were so rusted the heads would break off a lot of them or they would snap when trying to pull them out with the claw of the hammer.

Its looks a real mess right now and at this point its probably better to build a new box with fresh wood however I don't have very much wood not only that but this wood is nicely weathered despite being in poor condition. I'm always short of wood so I will have to use what I've got. I will piece this box back together and I will add minimal new wood which I will have to use modestly. It will be a bit of a jigsaw piecing these broken back together so a little more work than expected.





I will go out later and see if I can find any dumped timber.

Why not purchase a small rubber pond liner to fit inside the box? That would have filled the space easily without the work.
None of the plants that you mentioned are really pond plants, they are houseplants in the broad use of the word. With the exception of course of pond lilies.
Water lilies require not only good sunlight to bloom reliably but warmth as well. What is your plan for keeping the water warm enough. And water lilies are not floating plants. They are anchored in pond soil or the muck on the bottom of the pond.
I had an outdoor pond on Long Island for over 35 years. I grew pond plants, lilies, iris, Cardinal flower, water lettuce, water hyacinth. But I am a little unsure of your goal.
My Tropical water lilies went dormant when the water in the pond remained below 70 degrees F. I overwintered them in my greenhouse where they barely survived due to 58-60 degrees at night.
Native lilies flowered in cooler water, 65-70 degrees F. but required great light. I had to keep things pruned around the pond in order to keep the sun as strong as possible and even at that they were never prolific bloomers.

BigBill said: Why not purchase a small rubber pond liner to fit inside the box? That would have filled the space easily without the work.
None of the plants that you mentioned are really pond plants, they are houseplants in the broad use of the word. With the exception of course of pond lilies.
Water lilies require not only good sunlight to bloom reliably but warmth as well. What is your plan for keeping the water warm enough. And water lilies are not floating plants. They are anchored in pond soil or the muck on the bottom of the pond.
I had an outdoor pond on Long Island for over 35 years. I grew pond plants, lilies, iris, Cardinal flower, water lettuce, water hyacinth. But I am a little unsure of your goal.
My Tropical water lilies went dormant when the water in the pond remained below 70 degrees F. I overwintered them in my greenhouse where they barely survived due to 58-60 degrees at night.
Native lilies flowered in cooler water, 65-70 degrees F. but required great light. I had to keep things pruned around the pond in order to keep the sun as strong as possible and even at that they were never prolific bloomers.

Finding things in the UK can be very hard as a lot of the stores just sell the very basics now and often don't sell what your looking for but not only that, the wooden box wouldn't have been strong enough to hold a pond liner full of heavy water.

Thanks for the advice on the water lilies... lighting is an issue so I may not be able to grow pond lilies but perhaps there are some low light tolerant water lily's out there?

Because of the lighting situation I'm not going to have bright sunlight which is why I've selected low light tolerant houseplants plus they are a lot easier to grow in low light indoors and they look just as nice. Keeping it warm isn't an issue as my house is always warm.

I have now began the reconstruction of the wooden box. I'm using different wood for the base as that wont be seen leaving me with more of that weathered wood for the sides.

The box will be made longer and stronger and now fits the tank.

Water lilies are water lilies.
Ones that tolerate lower light are called "non blooming water lilies".

So again, if you are going to eliminate pond plants, you are left with houseplants growing near standing water.

Kevin, I am in agreement with Big Bill on this however I like the idea. I just have doubts as to whether it will work. Were it me, I'd set the tank up for fish and live plants. With proper tank lighting the plants will be very happy.

I do a lot of things that receive almost purely pessimistic replies. A lot of them work out, and a lot of them end up manifesting differently than how I'd originally imagined, as various choices are made along the way when reality meets idea.

Nothing ventured = nothing gained.

True, Tiffany. I like the idea of the reconstructed box with different wood being used. Good way to recycle. Was wondering if there would be a filter going to move the water around? or would that disturb the plants too much? I'm not sure I'm getting the whole idea of this. are these plants going to be anchored in some sort of base at the bottom of the tank {like gravel} or will they be free floating?

I will have some gravel at the bottom but most of the plants roots will be going in at the surface of the water and the pants will be secured from the top until they all grow and the roots form holding them up in the water. Only the roots of the plants will be submersed. I may add moss balls and some other low light plants like Sagittaria which can can grow under the water.

There will be no filter just some subsidized lighting. There wont be any fish going in just living organisms in the water and at the same time it will be like a science experiment to see how it turns out once all the plants and other life has got established.

BigBill said: Water lilies are water lilies.
Ones that tolerate lower light are called "non blooming water lilies".

So again, if you are going to eliminate pond plants, you are left with houseplants growing near standing water.

That is true except the plants roots will be growing in the water so they will be partly submersed. There will be other things growing under the water like algae and moss plus some Sagittaria. along with some living organisms.

There are some really neat, dwarf shrimp available these days. I think they would be quite interesting.

my concern is that this tank will start to smell. Without water moving and circulation I think that's a possibility? Plus as you've stated Kevin, this will be a low light project. It is a neat idea though. When I had the fish tanks going the live plants were a great addition. Loved the way they moved under the water until the cichlids bull dozed them up and destroyed the sea scape. this will be an interesting project to follow.

That is possible. I have had fish tanks in the past with fish in them fully cycled with no filter or pump just plants and they did fine for a long time and there wasn't really any smell. Sometimes there was a slight smell in air but it wasn't really that noticeable. Its amazing what plants can do.

The box is almost complete. I've had a lot to do today so I didn't get a hole lot done. I will try get a bit more done this evening.

I was out yesterday looking for slate and gravel for the tank, the slate will be used around the top of the tank to give it a more natural look and it will hide the tank within the box. I should have the box pretty much done by the end of today. I had a lot of other things to do yesterday with several other projects I'm also working on and had I to get materials for those so I didn't get to do as much work to the box as I hoped and by the time I got back from hunting for things at the stores it was evening and it was to late to be sawing wood etc etc so I have to hold off work until a more reasonable time otherwise my neighbors wont be to impressed.

The stores never had anything I was looking for... they only had gravel and slate in huge bags and were very heavy. I don't need that much and they don't sell it in smaller amounts so I will have to get some from my local park which might actually work out better.

I can get some sand and gravel from the lake and I will fill up some bottles of water from the lake, that way the tank is cycled and I may get living things within the water.

purpleinopp said: I do a lot of things that receive almost purely pessimistic replies. A lot of them work out, and a lot of them end up manifesting differently than how I'd originally imagined, as various choices are made along the way when reality meets idea.

Nothing ventured = nothing gained.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained... I'm totally with you on this. Some people will have these rules where they never think outside the box to where things have to be done one way and the only way. The rules can be broken opening the mind. Amazing things can be created. Plants are plants at the end of the day and a lot of plants can grow in just water. The only thing that makes a pond plant is that it grows in the water and you can do the exact same with some house plants.

The box for the mini pond is pretty much built I just need to do some finishing touches like staining some areas to blend the parts where I've cut.

I saved quite a bit of the wood and I may just have enough to put around the top. I left the back with just two structural pieces of wood so I have the option of putting a light behind it.
I was going to add some grey slate around the edges along the top but I think I like the look of the bare wood better.

I did try to re-fit this piece back in to place but a lot of this wood was split and brittle so I cut off the bad parts and savaged it just encase it had any relevance although I don't think this box is that old. I like to be creative and re-use what I can. The box is way stronger now put back together with screws and wood glue. There is a bit of wood that split and there are two rubber bands around it to hold it together while the glue dries.











I may have enough wood for the top.




Slate around the top idea but I may just leave them out. The bare wood looks better.

I almost forgot to show the salvaged part

I like the box. The tank will go in the box, correct? Not on top.

The tank is inside the box and I collected some river gravel so its a bit muddy at the bottom this will help get things cycled faster.

I have pieced and glued a lot of the left over broken bits of wood and I now have enough to make the top.

I researched that name that I cut out and its not anything of significant. Its probably just somebodies name who had it printed on the box which I really don't want so I will flip that over and use it for part of the top. I liked the lettering tho. I made my own with some letter stamps.

I used to have a fiberglass 130-gal indoor pond in my living room. I had a tropical water lily but even with a west facing picture window and additional halogen lighting it rarely flowered. I kept tropical fish and had a 'free range' chameleon living in the canopy above.