Reaching A Balance

[§tudz]

Hi,

I was doign some thinking today, yes it did hurt , and was wondering what your views would be on this:

Scenario:
You have a planeted setup, it has a CO2 injector for the plants, and it filtered extremely well.
The tank has been running for 12months and the levels are:

Ammonia: 0ppm Nitrate: 0ppm Nitrite: 0ppm

These values have been steady for 6months and you have done NO waters for the last 3months, you have only topped up the water that has evaporated.
The fish are healthy, and are doing very well. The plants are thriving ad you are havong to cut back and trim the plants every other week, as they are growing so well.

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Now, if your tank was as this scenario states, is there any need to do water changes?

NOTE: This is not a setup I have, its just something I was thinking about.

 

[karlp]

There are natural tank setups that use this sort of approach. Lots of planting to use up nitrates and phosphates and to keep things healthy and low fish stocking levels, so that the bio-load doesn't overwhelm the delicatley balanced eco-system, but enough to provide ferts for the plants via waste.

Don't use CO2 injection though. Without topping up the hardness of the water with water changes, the water could lose it's buffering capacity eventually and suffer a ph crash and you wouldn't want the lighting too bright (maybe 1.5 W per gallon)

 

[annka5]

I think you'd be making a mistake to try it - the water is likely to start lacking some minerals etc. The tank is a closed system and to me just needs to be refreshed with clean water periodically.
You're more likely to be able to run a tank successfully with no filter (use lots of plants, few fish, and I wouldn't like to try it) than without water changes. Am not saying it would be impossible, but I just don't think it's likely to work.

 

[timmystood]

I don't think there is any replacement for a clean bit of water every now and again...

 

[§tudz]

I don't think there is any replacement for a clean bit of water every now and again...

lol, you are mssing the point I'm not going to try it, I was just wondering about it.

You say lacking minerals, ok what if plant food was added?

again I am not going to be doing this

 

[Jeff000]

There are tanks like this, A family friend (the reason I first got into fish my first time several years ago) has a150 gallon tropical tank, and I remember all he did was add water, feed the fish, and replace the fish when he noticed a dead one or when it looked like a space had opened up, he had over 100 fish (would be over stocked to most of you I am sure) with bogwood and plants, lots of plants.
He had a spil over filter (I think thats what its called, where there is a "second" tank underneath that is the filter) and he would do something with it every couple month, and trim the plants.
He wouldnt even take the dead fish out. And he had ran the tank like that for 8 years (when there first son was born, he neglected it, and it still did good, so he just left it like that).
That was 6 or 7 years ago now, he has since moved and the tank is now saltwater. But it ran itself for a good 10 years. I would say that is impressive.

PS, there isnt much for minerals or anything "good" in city water anyways, not here anyways.

 

[timmystood]

Bigger tanks tend to be more stable...