Javascript Disabled Detected

You currently have javascript disabled. Several functions may not work. Please re-enable javascript to access full functionality.

Unfiltered Aquariums

Started by Guest_steve_* , Feb 18 2012 10:25 AM

Prev

Please log in to reply

35 replies to this topic

#21 Guest_EricaWieser_*

Guests

Posted 20 February 2012 - 12:58 AM

lol about the coffee table. I've been eyeballing the front window for a while now, maybe for a 200 or so gallon tank. It's next to an external wall, so the floor could take it XD When you get that coffee table one up, please share a picture

About the second portion of your post,

On the snails; if snails remove nutrient from the water column, that would force the plants to switch to substrate feeding. If the water column has been scrubbed of suspended detritus, waste and nutrient by snails, does starving algae stand a chance again against plants feeding on a rich substrate?

Supposition: In the plant vs algae war, in heavily planted, snail infested dirt tanks, plants still eat heartily from a rich substrate, while algae starves in the snail cleansed water column.

Yeah, I honestly have no idea what ratio the plants get their nitrogen from the water column or the substrate. I had assumed up until you said that that the plants got all their nitrogen from the ammonium and nitrate in the water column. But you know what they say about assumptions. So, since a quick google search failed, I joined the plantedtank forum and posted a question. Maybe they'll know. Link: http://www.plantedta...rce-plants.html

Edited by EricaWieser, 20 February 2012 - 01:03 AM.

Back to top

#22 Guest_steve_*

Guests

Posted 20 February 2012 - 01:46 AM

I've lately been reviewing my ideas on fish load in heavily planted tanks. When my nephew's 20g tank ran fine all this last year with a very heavy fish load, it made me think about inches of "fish" per gallon guidelines vs. inches of various -species- per gallon.
The fish in his tank were primarily vegetarian, mollies, platties, flagfish, so the waste was low protein and easily broken down.
A tank full of an equal mass of sunfish would be producing a veritable protein soup of waste, in comparison.
I've kept a lot of sunfish species over the years and they've always seemed to be "dirty" fish. I can only successfully keep about 1" of sunfish for every 5-6 gallons of water. My nephews 20g was at 1" of veggie fish for 1 gallon. Was the difference as simple as veggie eating fish vs. sunfish, or something else?
Snails!
Most larger sunfish eat 99% of the snails in any tank, and in a heavily planted "unfiltered" tank, snails are a very important part of the natural chain.
Snails convert waste (fish poop, dead plant material, extra fish food) into snail mass and plant fertilizer.
No snails = reduced capacity to handle waste, and leaves large waste for solely bacterial breakdown.
I've realized that my tanks with very low snail populations are also "slow" tanks, wrt good plant growth.
Coincidence?

I managed to post up pics of a few of my tanks in the Nanfa gallery, btw.

Rick

Rick, those are some wonderful looking tanks. Thanks for sharing the pics. Living artwork is an awesome thing. Those are some good points on number vs. species too. I decided to get the filter media out of the other tank and start the filter back up on my 75 this evening. I added some SRBD to the tank and brought my fish number up to around 25, and I'm not sure how many hours I'll be able to run the lights tomorrow so I thought it best to not chance an ammonia spike.

As far as snails, mine have taken a thrashing since I introduced a pair of greenside darters about 3 weeks ago. I really like having the snails in there, but I doubt they stand a chance now.

Thanks again.

I would like to hear more about your set up Ken. I like filtering with pants... but also like re-creating the riffle environment in a tank... this seems to be a way to do both... tell us more... show us pictures... draw a diagram...

Ken, I'd also love to see some pictures and hear more about your algae scrubber too. I thought about asking for pictures earlier, but felt guilty asking since I don't post near as many pictures as I should, but since Micheal asked, I'll second the request. Thanks again.

Still hoping to hear from even more folks out there that are using some type of unconventional biological filtration for aquariums. It's sure been interesting so far.

Thanks,
Steve.

Back to top

#23 Guest_EricaWieser_*

Guests

Posted 20 February 2012 - 02:26 AM

On the snails; if snails remove nutrient from the water column, that would force the plants to switch to substrate feeding. If the water column has been scrubbed of suspended detritus, waste and nutrient by snails, does starving algae stand a chance again against plants feeding on a rich substrate?

Supposition: In the plant vs algae war, in heavily planted, snail infested dirt tanks, plants still eat heartily from a rich substrate, while algae starves in the snail cleansed water column.

Mkay, so, I thought about this a little bit more and came up with something. Snails don't 'remove' nutrient from the water column. They just delay it. It's not really 'removing' waste to eat something that was going to be turned into ammonia and after a day of digestive track processing excreting it as ammonia.

Back to top

#24 Guest_mywan_*

Guests

Posted 20 February 2012 - 04:09 AM

Years ago I had a 20 gallon that remained unpowered and without water changes for several years. It was set up with an undergravel filter that remained after the air pump was no longer used. I never run any test on it or monitored temperatures, but two silver dollar fish lived in it till the house burned down. Plants put in it never did well, nor did pond snails. The snails tended to die fairly quickly, but the plants just never grew well but remained more or less alive. These fish lived the entire time without even any feeding.

I intend on experimenting with unpowered system this summer.

Back to top

#25 Guest_EricaWieser_*

Guests

Posted 20 February 2012 - 05:05 PM

On the snails; if snails remove nutrient from the water column, that would force the plants to switch to substrate feeding. If the water column has been scrubbed of suspended detritus, waste and nutrient by snails, does starving algae stand a chance again against plants feeding on a rich substrate?

Supposition: In the plant vs algae war, in heavily planted, snail infested dirt tanks, plants still eat heartily from a rich substrate, while algae starves in the snail cleansed water column.

...Yeah, I honestly have no idea what ratio the plants get their nitrogen from the water column or the substrate. I had assumed up until you said that that the plants got all their nitrogen from the ammonium and nitrate in the water column. But you know what they say about assumptions. So, since a quick google search failed, I joined the plantedtank forum and posted a question. Maybe they'll know. Link: http://www.plantedta...rce-plants.html

I got a reply back from the plantedtank forum that makes a lot of sense. Hoppy the planted tank guru (that's their title) says,

Algae are very tiny "creatures". Collect a big gob of algae and dry it, and it virtually vanishes. So, it doesn't take much in the way of nutrients for algae to grow. In fact it takes way less nutrients for algae to flourish than for aquatic plants. Algae will grow in just about any water we could have in an aquarium - they never starve. The need that algae have is light -the more light the better they will grow.

Whatever is in the substrate and available to the plants will also, in some degree, be in the water. Dissolved compounds will always migrate from areas of high concentrations to areas of low concentration.

So there is little to no hope of having water so clean that algae can't grow. "Algae will grow in just about any water we could have in an aquarium - they never starve."

Edited by EricaWieser, 20 February 2012 - 05:06 PM.

Back to top

#26 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 20 February 2012 - 08:59 PM

This is a whole new level of internet craziness... some guy on another forum is now the expert that you are going to quote?

Between Steve, Rickwrench and some guy named Hoppy that I have never head of... I will go with the the NANFAs.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

Back to top

#27 Guest_EricaWieser_*

Guests

Posted 20 February 2012 - 09:15 PM

Here, I dug up some old pictures of my 10 gallon filter-less aquarium. The fish in the tank was Elassoma gilberti and the food waste load was very low. The tank was initially stocked with a large clump of hornwort, ceratophyllum demersum. http://gallery.nanfa...tially.jpg.html
Ceratophyllum demersum doesn't do too well with limited nitrogen. It don't have roots, so it's limited to only the nitrogen in the water column. The nitrate went to 0 ppm and the Ceratophyllum melted.
So the algae, which still grows even with nitrate at 0 ppm, started winning: http://gallery.nanfa...resize.jpg.html
I cleaned it out and there wasn't much plant tissue left. http://gallery.nanfa...resize.jpg.html

Edited by EricaWieser, 20 February 2012 - 09:43 PM.

Back to top

#28 Guest_EricaWieser_*

Guests

Posted 20 February 2012 - 09:32 PM

I found some video of that unfiltered tank.
In chronological order:
youtube.com/watch?v=h6iyHug-o6E
youtube.com/watch?v=C6B6-Bblb7Q
youtube.com/watch?v=5QNXjZNS5SY
youtube.com/watch?v=SMJLsihGZiM
youtube.com/watch?v=OrDys3JIbO0
youtube.com/watch?v=uF3Er1Px0Yo

You can see the gradual fading of the ceratophyllum demersum and the growth of the algae. That whole time nitrate was at 0 ppm.

Edited by EricaWieser, 20 February 2012 - 09:39 PM.

Back to top

#29 Guest_mikez_*

Guests

Posted 20 February 2012 - 11:52 PM

I've posted at length about my filterless plant tanks way back so I won't go on again...
Back when I worked with all big tanks and didn't mind banks of ugly shop lamps [and high utility bills], I had many filterless tanks. I always claimed shop lamps were my filters.
I never use test kits but my fish tell me my tanks were very successful without conventional filtration. I'm ashamed to admit how infrequently I change water so the plants carried the load.
One key was I had easy, high growth plants and harvested and tossed greenery on a regular basis. You export tons of unwanted nutrients when you are tossing lots of green.
Now that I went small scale for apartment living, plants are still the primary filtration in my freshwater fish tanks but I have added supplemental filtration to cover for small size and higher fish loads.
BTWI consider snails an absolute essential player in the breakdown of nutrients. i wouldn't try it without them. They are a cornerstone of my systems not just because of filtration but also nutrition.

I do have one totally filterless, and lightless mini-tank which is not a fish tank. It's a 2.5 gallon, running close to 3 years, started as an invert tank, it is still infested with various tiny inverts, cyclops being the primary. The substrat is wild pond bottom. It's very lively. The plants are java moss and fern so no roots in the pond mud. The big rock is petrified wood and is an aquatic handmedown from my Dad's tank back in the 60s. The java fern has thoroughly colonized it. There is some live wild driftwood. Pond snails break down what very little waste, mostly leaves. There are four northern two lined salamanders in there which were put in as tiny larvae over a year ago. They thrived and grew great but still have never transformed to non-gilled adults. I think they intend to stay as they are.
There is no filter, no lights. It's in a window and gets lots of sun. I never change water and i very rarely feed the salamanders. The snails are their primary diet. i basically do nothing at all. The little lite on top is just for me and is only on when I sit around in the evenings.
Posted Image

Back to top

#30 Guest_LittleBuffalo_*

Guests

Posted 21 February 2012 - 10:00 AM

I'm a little confused by the use of the term "unfiltered aquariums" in this thread. My understanding is that every surface of an established aquarium becomes colonized with nitrifying bacteria, including gravel, rocks, wood, even the glass. If so, every cycled aquarium is biologically "filtered" to some degree. From what I can tell, the OP is really asking about "unpowered aquariums". External/UG filters provide additional carrying capacity by providing added bacterial attachment sites as well as mechanical and chemical filtration, but if one is willing to accept a low stocking rate, put up with mulm accumulations and do occasional water changes there's no reason why a natural, unpowered tank isn't possible, and in fact was the norm in the '20's and '30's.

My aquaponic system has not had a water change in over 10 years due to a heavy plant load which absorbs nitrates, and I have gone as long a six months without feeding the fish (which remained fat and healthy) due to a stable biosystem with a rich biofilm and lots of earthworms, zooplankton, and other food sources. It is powered however by several fractional horsepower submersible pumps. It could be manually operated though, with a strong back and a 5-gallon bucket, and in fact was designed for use in developing countries without dependable power supplies.

Back to top

#31 Guest_steve_*

Guests

Posted 21 February 2012 - 08:47 PM

The nitrate went to 0 ppm and the Ceratophyllum melted.

Hornwort has a much higher affinity for nitrate than most aquarium plants. No surprise it doesn’t do well at 0ppm nitrate. The algae may very well have been outcompeting it for the rest of the nutrients. With rooted plants in a good substrate it’s a whole different ball game.

A large part of Diana Walstad’s book, Ecology of the planted aquarium, is dedicated to discussing the competition between plants and algae, and how plants can actually outcompete algae. I could give many quotes from her book that explain this and the fact that intense light isn’t necessarily what algae thrive on, but, alas, I fear this just becoming a he said/she said argument with no real value that’s attached to a thread meant for something different. That said, these snail and algae discussions would have made great threads all on their own.

Years ago I had a 20 gallon that remained unpowered and without water changes for several years. It was set up with an undergravel filter that remained after the air pump was no longer used. I never run any test on it or monitored temperatures, but two silver dollar fish lived in it till the house burned down. Plants put in it never did well, nor did pond snails. The snails tended to die fairly quickly, but the plants just never grew well but remained more or less alive. These fish lived the entire time without even any feeding.

I intend on experimenting with unpowered system this summer.

That's really interesting. What do you think the fish were feeding on?

I've posted at length about my filterless plant tanks way back so I won't go on again...

Thanks for adding here Mike. I've read some of your older posts and really enjoy them. I love the account of your 2.5 mini here too. I've wondered if I have enough daylight during the winter months in Ohio to try something like this, but it seems like if it can be done in Massachusetts then it should work here as well.

I'm a little confused by the use of the term "unfiltered aquariums" in this thread.

Yeah, I apologize for the confusion, I probably should have called the thread something like, "unconventional filtration", as I was really wanting to start a thread for discussion of filtration beyond just a the conventional filters that most of us use for home aquariums where the nitrification process goes from ammonia to nitrate and is then diluted through water changes. I agree, no matter how we keep our aquatic life alive, the water is filtered by some process. Your aquaponics system is definitely something that would fit here so I've added a link to your thread on aquaponics for relevance for future searches.

http://forum.nanfa.o...287-aquaponics/

Thanks,
Steve.

Some great accounts; more are always welcome.

Back to top

#32 Guest_mywan_*

Guests

Posted 22 February 2012 - 04:50 AM

That's really interesting. What do you think the fish were feeding on?

I assumed algae of one form or another. The plants that never grew well always maintained a fine layer of algae or other thin biofilm of some type. It never got very thick though. I figure the undergravel filter also remained active even if the water was not being pumped through it. I really not that sure what keep it going, which is why I want to try some larger similar systems and get a better look at the biofilms under a microscope.

Back to top

#33 Guest_LittleBuffalo_*

Guests

Posted 22 February 2012 - 09:54 AM

I have used a Reverse Daylight Photoperiod (RDP) filter, aka algae scrubber, on both salt and freshwater tanks, based on the design of Walter Adey who first installed one at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. The concept and design is described in detail in his book "Dynamic Aquaria".

I found it worked well on a reef tank both as a nitrate sink and as a refugium for zooplankton and it helped stabilize diurnal pH swings. i was less impressed with it on my heavily planted freshwater tank with CO2 injection and PMDD fertilization. When I removed it I saw no change in plant growth, algae growth or fish vitality. It may have provided more benefits on a lower tech tank without CO2/ferts. pH fluctuations aren't such a concern in freshwater so the RDP aspect would be of little benefit but it would help with nitrate management and serve as a zooplankton nursery. It also might be appropriate for an unplanted tank. Maybe one day I'll give it another try

Back to top

#34 Guest_steve_*

Guests

Posted 23 February 2012 - 02:15 AM

I have used a Reverse Daylight Photoperiod (RDP) filter, aka algae scrubber, on both salt and freshwater tanks, based on the design of Walter Adey who first installed one at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. The concept and design is described in detail in his book "Dynamic Aquaria".

I found it worked well on a reef tank both as a nitrate sink and as a refugium for zooplankton and it helped stabilize diurnal pH swings. i was less impressed with it on my heavily planted freshwater tank with CO2 injection and PMDD fertilization. When I removed it I saw no change in plant growth, algae growth or fish vitality. It may have provided more benefits on a lower tech tank without CO2/ferts. pH fluctuations aren't such a concern in freshwater so the RDP aspect would be of little benefit but it would help with nitrate management and serve as a zooplankton nursery. It also might be appropriate for an unplanted tank. Maybe one day I'll give it another try

The discussion of algae scrubbers on this thread has intrigued me to the point of doing a little research on them. Now I know just enough about them to sound really dumb while trying to discuss them, so please understand if my question doesn't make much sense. When you say that yours is "based on the design of Walter Adey", does that mean that it utilizes the turf algae like his design or does yours use the green hair algae like some of the newer designs?

Thanks;

Steve.

Back to top

#35 Guest_LittleBuffalo_*

Guests

Posted 23 February 2012 - 11:29 AM

For my salt water system I used turf algae screens which i purchased here: http://www.inlandaqu...d/tr_algae.html

For my fresh water system I used an aquatic moss. I don't recall the species but i bought it growing on screens just like the turf algae linked above.

I haven't kept up with the new algae scrubber developments so I'm not familiar with hair algae systems. My information came from the first edition of "Dynamic Aquaria". When I acquired my factory built unit it was the only one of its kind on the market but I see that Inland Aquatics now sells new units. Algae scrubbers were the craze for awhile and then seemed to lose favor but it appears there is a resurgence of interest.

I had fun tinkering with mine but haven't used it for some time and actually plan to sell it.

Back to top

#36 Guest_Rtifs_*

Guests

Posted 27 April 2012 - 01:51 PM

I have several small Walstad tanks with no filtration beyond the plants whatsoever (2.5g with 6 immature guppies, 6.5g with 1 male guppy, 1 gourami, 1 flagfish, 1 female beta).

I also have a 75 gallon tank without a filter (only filled about halfway to reduce weight on the floor. I wanted to set this up like a Walstad tank as well, but since it would have sunfish I needed something where they wouldn’t make a mess digging nests. So it has standard aquarium gravel and a small powerhead (no filter hooked to it) to keep water moving. I have the surface covered with Salvinia (Salvinia minima). It’s easy to manage since it grows like a weed, and I can just scoop them from the surface when it gets packed. There is a layer of algae on the gravel, but I don’t mind since I was going for a pond look anyway. Actually the algae probably hitched a ride as spores from the pond that I caught the fish in. This doesn’t eliminate the need for water changes, but I can get away with one 50% change about every 3 weeks. The fish are are 2 bluegills (about 4”), 1 large redear sunfish (approx 9”), 3 albino corys, 2 peppered corys, and 3 ‘rosy reds.’