Water Changes in Planted Tank

[ChloroPhil]

Ralph,

Check out "The Ecology of Planted Aquaria" by Diana Walstead. Her tanks are all filterless and supposedly do pretty well, though I'd certainly never dare to house a discus in one.

Filterless tanks are certainly possible, but it would be much better to have a tank with only mechanical filteration. Most of my tanks get monthly or quarterly WC and I rarely, if ever have changed the filter media, with the exception of the polyester batting that I use in the small tanks to keep the water clear. Any foam blocks may get a rinse 2x/year.

If you do try the filterless aproach make sure you use only fast growers like Rotala, Hygrophila, and Riccia and have plenty of light and CO2.

BTW, thanks for the kind words...the encouragement is needed.

Best,
Phil

[regal]

I have a filterless tank. I got the idea from a very sucessful reef tank I had. What you do is have a long sump and float styrofoam then poke holes in the this and push peace lilly's and pothos. Above these plants you need a very strong light. Also I have in the main tank alot of fast growing stem plants like wisteria, water sprite, and camboda with 2.5 wpg and CO2. I have has 40 cardinals, 6 ottos, a ram, and 4 SAE's for 3 months now with a zero nitrate reading. I recently added 3 discus. Still no nitrates. I have some algae and have been told that adding nitrate and phosphate would reduce the algae but I am uncorfortable adding "waste" to the tank

[ChloroPhil]

regal,


The levels you need are well below anything considered toxic. Ironically the addition of the "waste" helps your plants absorb what the fish put out.

It's funny you should mention your "refugeum" for the planted tank. When i get my fishroom up and running I'm going to have all my tanks running through some plant only tanks as a sort of filter just like in a salt tank. The only better use of cuttings is getting credit at the LFS.

[prew62]

I love the way these threads get started. My father kept fish in the 40's he said he used to go to an aquarium store that was owned by a german man who had all planted tanks (even the ones he sold fish out of) and his show tanks had no filters. Dad said they were incredibly beautiful.
I think the key word here is balance. If you look at some of the old aquarium books (Inness) they talk about this. While filters are certainly necessary, if you have the right balance of plants, fertilizer, fish and (snails) your tank should become a biotope and take care of itself. Whether or not this works for Discus is another story.

[regal]

If you are interested do a search on "aquaculture" Here they use hydroponics to culture fish in very high stocking densities. They use a think a type of cichlid. Breeding discus is currently a break even proposition. Something like aquaculture could make breeding discus a more efficient operation.