wow syphoneria, that really does appeal to me actually, just a couple of days back i asked in TD section about info on the subject.
[URL="http
/www.fishforums.net/content/Tropical...nyone-Got-One-/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/Tropical...nyone-Got-One-/[/URL]
with the added info youve gave i am even more determined to try it!
thank you so much!
what i havent came across yet though, is there any particular plants which are better than others for this?
i have tons and tons of ancharis (sp) which i could use, its nice and soft
also have duck (pond weed) do floating plants contribute to the system or is it just planted plants?
By George, you've already got it!
Floating plants are highly important - and duckweed is a wonderful ammonia sucker ( the tiny duckweed variant that came with my shrimp grew roots a good inch long) - and emergents (having a heck of a time remembering which will grow emergent, though) as well, if you can get them.
I've seen a lot of discussions on these, though too lazy to dig for them right now, and, of course, some recommendations are on the sites posted earlier.
Anacharis should be absolutely perfect, though prob best to have a few other things, if poss.
I know Diane Walstad recommends the addition of as many different plants as possible, to see what will do well, as one never knows what may be great in one tank but expire in another.
Among the billions of things I know nothing about, plants get rather lost in the shuffle.
I can say what I've done, and hope you learn by my mistakes, because somebody ought to, and it evidently isn't going to be me, lol.
That first little 5 gal. I redid (waaay too thick substrate) seems to be OK although now has only rather a lot of Cardamine, one crypt, 4-leaf clover throughout, some floating Pennywort and a tuft of an aquatic grass I actually got from the same friend's country field spill-over ditch that my Central Mud Minnow came from.
The egeria densa I'd put in had starved early on, as I was too chicken to put a fish in for the first 6 weeks, and more recently I removed more plant mass than I wanted, taking out the unpotted Water Wisteria crowding the larger of the two crypts I'd put in (took the other one out to use elsewhere, as both had survived) and then realized I couldn't float any of the Wisteria to make this alteration more gradual as I'd block too much light.
So, between that reduction in plant mass, spilling earth on the gravel (I was going to cut the roots, but they just came up as I touched them - and it was the last of 5 small plants that carried up the dirt...) and doing a lot of extra, plant-starving water-changes getting some of that spilt earth off the top of the gravel, it did wind up with some algae, but it's happier now, and the fish (one 'feeder' guppy and a young male betta) have, most importantly, continued to do well.
So it seems that having only a few plant types can work fairly well, although it started off with more...
But I also had a snail shortage - and you need lots of small snails, Ramshorns being ideal as they'll eat even cyano bacteria and Malasian Trumpet Snails being highly important as they work through the substrate, like more attractive earthworms.
Figures, as I'd chucked so many snails arriving in plant purchases in the past and then more recently couldn't even get a inadequate few pond snails for a long time.
If I didn't want them, nobody would eat the few snails and eggs I finally succeeded in getting, and I'd have thousands by now...
I'm sure you have this URL, but in case it's handy:
http/www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/el-natural/
I'm afraid the postings there lately seem to be of people doing cross-over/mixed/experimental methods, but I, at least, had a great time over months going through old posts and links, and the stickies have some of the most essential info.
Started looking for some of the pertinent posts, but, duh, you'll be doing that...
My memory seems to be missing of late, (think it eloped with my brain) so, keeping a salt-shaker handy, and bearing in mind that whatever I do may well cause the informed Walstad person to run screaming:
A fair number of the initial plants should be fast growers, as you know, and the sturdier the better, with a variety of stem plants recommended.
But of course fast growing standards like Water Wisteria and Water Sprite will rapidly take over a whole earth-nourished tank, and it's not so easy removing plants from a soil-based substrate without releasing earth onto the gravel where the wild algae will roam - or yanking up the entire bottom with a well-rooted plant - so if you use them, and if there's any way of potting/blocking them when you set up, to restrain the roots and allow other plants to survive, that's a good thing to do.
I'm financially challenged and tend to make do a lot, and in the 15 gal. I last set up, I mended a broken low, longish, oval china serving-type dish with aquarium glue, (and after several days hardening time, got the layer of moistened earth into the bottom, and covered with the wetted gravel I was using,) in which to plant the Wisteria I added, and placed that directly on the tank bottom.
Since it was then hidden by the (wetted) gravel covering the (dampened) earth on the rest of the tank bottom, (with a small rising hill and some rocks required,) it didn't matter what the aquarium-safe container looked like, but the Wisteria roots and shoots hopefully now won't be able to choke out smaller or slower-growing plants.
And I wish I'd had something small enough to do that in the little tanks...
Things like Pennywort - which can grow both from the ground or floating - are good, various hygro varieties, some people have had great success with different rotala varieties, think indica was one...
So much depends on light, too, although that's another thing I know nothing about. (I'm well-rounded that way.)
Being among the broke/cheap, I get second-hand incandescent canopies and use CF bulbs.
My parents got me a nice 25 gal. kit. a few years back (paid a fortune, and could have got something excellent second-hand for the cost, but what a lovely surprise) with a useless 20 watt (I ask you!) flourescent hood light - you'll laugh, but I got a used 10 gal. incandescent hood and CF bulbs, and switch it from one side to the other through the day - prior to that, it was sharing for a while with a 15 gal. across the room.
Wanted to do the shop- or architect light thing, but haven't managed that yet.
Don't know what your financial state is, but for those of us whose wealth flows into fish food and meds, a lot of jury-rigging is required.
And this might be helpful to someone else - the ranks of the impoverished grow annually.
I don't know what'll suit you, but nearly all of my tanks, even the tiny ones, have a flat rock or piece of slate somewhere handy up front on which to feed and pour water over without (hopefully) uprooting anything or, Heaven forfend, disrupting earth into the water column.
With one 10 gal., (not a Walstad but with a very light-weight, messy, enriched substrate,) I just pour water from jugs into the back of the HOB, but in my case, as I still have tendon problems up to the elbows in both arms, it ain't fun or, always, very controllable.
But that might be preferable for some.
It's recommended to work out your hardscape first, and I just put gravel under things like that, in avoiding compressing earth under objects where it won't be oxygenated by roots.
Of course, mine work out more as semi-Walstads, between a thin layer of (wet) gravel added first around the tank edges, so that the soil's not exposed through the sides to iron-releasing, algae-encouraging light, plus gravel under anywhere anything other than plants will go; large rocks, slate, a box filter in some - so some tanks have strips and sections of earth, rather than the proper wall-to-wall earth-bottomed Walstad.
But most people just put things on the bottom, and use a thinner layer of gravel.
And I always start off with specific plans that tend to last only as long as my arms do...
Being the chicken that I am, I always put a thickish (usually too-thick) layer of gravel over top to hold the dirt down as well as possible, as some of the people with thin layers do sometimes find soil's easily stirred up - but that's just what I'm doing to try to avoid some problems, which creates others, like less remaining water volume.
And if the earth is thoroughly moistened prior to being placed in the tank bottom, you'll get far fewer 'belches' from under the gravel - and (hopefully) won't get soil burped up all over your tank.
I didn't do this in the first one, and it bubbled for weeks...
No real problems, though - so far - in any Walstad.
Don't know if any of that helps, and any worth-while tips you've likely come across already, but I must say the Walstads seem to be less trouble, (read algae-prone, generally from plant-melt, like developing now with, according to my LFS's owner, no Flourish or suitable water-column ferts supposedly available anywhere in Western Canada???
) than the inert gravel tanks - even though I'm perpetually fouling them up with nutrient-draining waterchanges and have no proper lighting systems at all.
And it's a very cool system, lots of fun.
