Does anybody keep an aquarium like Diana Walstad?

[Bignose]

Are there any members who keep an aquarium based on or excatly the same as Diana Walstad lays out in her book Eoclogy of the Planted Aqurium? That is, planting soil substrate instead of sand or gravel, heavily planted, no CO2 injection, good but not super-bright lighting, allows the sun to hit the aquarium a few hours a day. And, perhaps to many, most astonishing at all, no filters! The plants uptake all the ammonia the fish produce. Which means she does very few water changes. Another surprising thing compared with most of the advise given out on the forums.

So, I am curious if anyone had completely followed her book? When I move late this year I am so tempted to restart following her guidelines, and I want to know about anyone else's experiences. Thanks

 

[glolite]

No

 

[pnyklr3]

It is an interesting idea. One would be tempted to start with a small tank so that there is little in the way of preparation. However, the bigger the tank, the more stable the water. I think I'll do some reading and see what she has to say on the subject.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I have heard about Diana Walstads aquarium theory and experiments and the such like but i heard the somwhere that the tank has to be around 50gal minimum to work properly and you cannot stock the tank very full at all in comparison to a filtered tank- it also takes ages to "cycle" it properly too...
Personally i'd prefer to go for a biotope tank although the idea is interesting and conciderable.

 

[Ethos]

Its very intresting..........It might be fun.
You'd need to be very, very acurate.
Hours of endless studying, months of cycleing, all to end up with 2 platies, and 2 guppies.
Sound very rewarding

 

[Bignose]

Have you guys read the book? She does not lightly stock, in fact some of her tanks would be downright overstocked by most standards. e.g. in the pictures I count 20 blue guppies in a 29 gal tank, and several Red and Bosmani Rainbowfish in a 50 gal tank.

And, there is no "long time to cycle" as the plants do all the "cycling." The plants take up the ammonia directly -- no bacteria that convert the ammonia to nitrite then nitrate. In fact, plants have to expend energy to change the nitrate back to ammonia so they can use it. The only time she waits between filling the tank and adding fish is about 1 day so that the can test if the heaters are working properly and so the substrate completely settles.

This may come off rude, which is not what I mean, but I would like comments if you had read or even better put her ideas into practice. Not "have heard about...", but actually read. Thanks

 

[sinistral]

I'd be interested in reviving this discussion once I've read the book. There was an active discussion on thekrib about her methods (it got into chelated iron and whether to vaccuum the mulm or not). Also, looking on amazon there are quite a few comments from fishkeepers, though they don't go into much detail (one person comments that her tanks look "overgrown"). There are some photos of her tanks on aquabotanic...you'll never mistake them for Amano tanks

I've placed an order for the book, so hopefully I'll have more to contribute later.

 

[noelberg]

She has an online forum: http/aquabotanicwetthumb.infopop.cc/eve

I'm reading bits and pieces, but its concentration is on plants ... there are definitely species of fish that wouldn't do well without filtration. I'm interested to see what biotopes she suggests.

thanks for this post Bignose! interesting stuff

 

[henry2703]

i have a friend who has a micro tank... those 1 feet X 1 feet X 1 feet planted tank with just 3 fishes in it....

His tank is... well i would say 2/3 planted.... with a bit of gravel and no filter, no air pump and just clip on lights and definitely no sunlight on it daily.... no CO2 as well.

It has been a year since he last change water.... the water is still clean, and the fishes are still alive.. in fact it bred a couple of times... but due to space constraint the babies were given away.

Well, i guess nature has its own way to get rid of waste.. or cycling waste to be exact.... just have to let it adjust itself....

 

[vantgE]

The fish may survive a year but that proves little, sounds extremely unhealthy to me your friend is only lazy, and there is no way a caring fishkeeper can not have a filter

 

[Opcn]

does she feed them atleast? or does she have bugs in there that eat the plants for the fish to eat, how about good old fashioned air pumps?

 

[Dubby]

I have tried to follow her ideas (not brave enough to switch off the internal filter). I have a heavily planted tank (60l), use clay + vermiculite + sand as base, around 2W/gal lighting and allow sunlight to fall on the tank during the day. This happens for a couple of hours and the plants go berserk pearling.

I tried to go without water changes but this does not work after about 3 weeks - nitrates are fine but the filter gets clogged

 

[Bloo]

mmm to me it sounds a bit like "you never have to wash your hair - eventually it will start to cleanse itself"
Sorry, but it's something I had to do once (not voluntarily) and could not wash my hair for almost a month. It was absolutely gross (to say the least!).

Basing my opinion on that (it may not make sense) it's not something I'd never be keen on trying.

 

[Bignose]

opcn, yes she feeds the fish (in her own words) "heavily twice a day." Again, as she says, the fish food is the fertilizer for the plants. I do not recall if she said the uses air pumps or not. On the other hand, there may be a filter just for mechanical filtration, or maybe a powerhead. Some surface distrubance is obviously hugely beneficial for gas exchange.

bloozoo, to be frank I think that is a pretty terrible analogy. In many, many ways Walstad's ideas are trying to recreate nature much more closely than many of our other tanks do. Nature does not have filters, etc. Nature does have plants that take care of the fish waste.

 

[Tempestuousfury]

I believe I read that book and I thought she provided evidence that plants are not good at taking up nitrogenous compound from the water... (Or do not take up that much ).

Perhaps it wa another book.

Anyways, it is possible provided you have the adequate equipment and keep good records. It would be interesting to see it in action.