Planted tank - Walstad variation

Now that the new tank is in it's place, it was time to start the work on it. I was really attracted by the Walstad method and especially by the idea of not doing weekly water changes, so I said I have nothing to lose as the soil and sand were dirt cheap.



After 2 days of soaking the dirt, took the most of the water out as it turned out that the sand will seep at the bottom if water was still present. Now after finishing the setup, I hope not to regret this move as air was trapped by the soil. I got most of the air pockets out by poking the substrate with a set of planting tweezers, but many are still there. I also added 4 medium crushed shells and some crushed red soil (from a broken flower pot). I added two medium rocks collected from a nearby river into the soil and then added the sand around them, one of the rocks is almost covered by sand, but the other one is 2/3 still visible. I picked some branched from the same trip into the woods, but not sure if they're safe to use, I have to take some pics of them and let the experts decide on them!





After the sand was placed in, I carefully filled the tank about 3/4 making sure not to disturb the sand. Was really surprised to see that the water was still clear as I feared the worst with the very fine Argos sand. Because of work commitments, I had to take a break into setting the tank, so everything was left like in the pic below. Few plants were left floating in the tank that I had to trim from the donor tank.





Few days later after a water change to the donor tank, I had to remove almost all plants from it in order to split them into two parts to have enough for both tanks, so I had 2 busy days planting some plants stem by stem. I was lucky though that I had two ~50 cm Echinodorus bleheri and Echinodorus Rose which saved me a lot of planting time! Also, I washed the media from the established tank in the new tank to give it a boost, also some of the water from the old one went into the new one. I'm not in any hurry to introduce any fish, but I thought it won't do any harm.





And the plants in the donor tank:

So, after two days planting, finished the new tank and transfered the first habitants, some MTS in the hope that they will get out the remaining air bubbles trapped in the substrate.





At the moment, I don't plan to use any dry ferts as this will force me into weekly water changes, only Easycarbo and probably CO2 as soon as I can split the feed into two. Other than that, I hope the dirt will do most of the work regarding growing the plants.

Looking very good! nice to see someone making a journal, best of luck with ti all and I will be following closely! not sure if you mentioned earlier, but what soil are you using?

Thanks.

Just went to B&Q and bought a 70l bag of soil for under €5, capped by 2 bags of Argos fine sand, making it a whooping €10 to cover the base . There was no cloudiness from the sand in the tank after I poured the water in, but the biggest concern is the trapped air, hopefuly the plant's roots will get some of it out and the MTS the rest. I have about 10 of them in the tank and only two visible, so they should do the trick.

ahh that would be a slight worry to be honest with the air, as you say MTS may help but the cap and depth could be a little thick? also what depth did you put your soil at mate and your cap? just as anything deeper than 4cm I know ones have found to be anaerobic, especially with the fine grained playsand. Keep us posted on the early growth of your plants anyway! hopefully get a bit of a boom when the hit the soil

I'd say at the deepest would be 4-5 cm of soil and around 3 cm of sand. The plants should start growing soon as I dig them as deep as I could with the planting tweezer, almost every stem hit the soil as air was getting released from it. I'm not in any hurry to add fish, so no risk of losing them. First I want to see the plants growing steady and developing a root system and them maybe I'll be thinking about the fish.

Here are some updates on the tank. Although there's enough flow from the filter (Tetratec EX1200), the foreground plants were picking a lot of debris as I kept washing the media from the established tank in the new one, so I had to put in a wavemaker. Upon advice, I think I have to change it's position to direct the flow to the front glass in order to try to "wash" the foreground plants.

A couple weeks ago I added 10 small RCS as I got them cheap enough. After a week or so, the most I could see at a time was 6, so I guess they were doing fine. Two days ago I picked up 7 otos to try to keep the growing algae in control and yesterday I added 47 cardinals (they were supposed to be 50, but the chap couldn't count them properly, might go later to get the remaining 3 plus another 10) and that's the stock I was aiming for, except for future shrimplets

Here are some pics:
Week 1:


Week 2:


Week 3:


Week 4:


Week 6:


Week 7 (with all the new fish in it):

looks good
some growth your getting there mate, is that just with easycarbo or did you get the co2 to go in? is the soil making a huge difference?
i'll certainly be keeping an eye

dave

I'm trying to keep this tank going with as little maintenance as possible and as little juice as possible, so I'm not adding anything at the moment (easycarbo, ferts or CO2) and I don't even have a heater in, although the temp is somehow constant in between 20-22 degrees. I'd say the soil helps a lot as there is visible growth in the plants. As long as the plants are doing fine, except for the foreground ones for which I had doubts from the beginning, I'll continue doing what I did so far - that is nothing much, just enjoying them grow by themselves .

It's looking very well. A couple of onion plants in the background would look great for a bit of height



Mark

Have to say, that looks really good, the Amazon plant with a Purple hue to the rear will balance the whole set-up when it really gets going.

Kev.

Thanks guys. I'm hoping that the Echinodorus plants will get bigger in time, but also I'll love a Crinum or two if I can get them for cheap as I saw the prices of them in the shops and i wouldn't get approval from the boss.

Anyway, happy enough on how the tank is developing so far except the foreground plants, but I hope the otos will keep them in good shape even if they don't develop into a carpet as they should.

stretnik wrote:

Have to say, that looks really good, the Amazon plant with a Purple hue to the rear will balance the whole set-up when it really gets going.

Kev.

That's an Echinodorus Rose and I took a gamble with it as in general the reddish plants are more sensible and more demanding than the green ones. Time will tell if the gamble pays off in the long run.

I'll try to take another pic next week once the cardinals set in properly. I added 10 more today and all of them started to be more confident around the tank.

As an aside, Given the cost of Plants, I can't understand why, given the amount of Greenhouses there are around the country, empty and unused, that Aquatic Plants couldn't be cultivated by some clever Entrepreneur.

Lovely sharp Photo, what Camera are you using?

Kev.

The price of some plants in the shops is unbelievable, so for the moment it will have to do with what I have already in.

Regarding the camera, it's a simple point-and-shot Samsung that I bought off adverts for €20 for my daughter as I didn't want her to mess with my own, but it turned out that it's much better than mine, so now guess who's the owner of the camera ? I try not to use the flash and the results are much better than my older, much more expensive camera.

Lovely, it's something I've said before, some of those little Compacts do a fabulous job.

Kev.

Crinum would look very well in there i got two bits off it off gav in FFF yesterday and have to great looks great in the tank

10euro each was not also give him a shout think he has more

sean

Thanks for that, I might pay them a visit when I'm in the area.

Wastland method with 50 cardinals?????????????????

3 ottos and 10 cardinals would probably be more suited to that tank, if no water changes planned.


Just my opinion on closed systems.......

That's why I said Walstad variation and not Walstad method. Following her method, one can get away without using a filter if the fish load is minimal as you suggest. I have on the tank a filter that works at it's minimum rate (it's rated 200-500L while the tank holds around 200-220L excluding the equipment) and plan to do small, seldom water changes.

I hope I put your mind at rest regarding the health of my fish

Filter/no filter is quite different to the volumetric ratio of flora and fauna.
Sufficient flora will give the surface area for bacteria to collonise equivalent to, or greater than a filter. This, along with the un-sanatised soil bacteria, is the basis for her eco-systems.
(In her tanks, it can be difficult to see the fish for the weeds.......)
However, the higher stocking density you propose will cause other problems with lack of dilution of hormones, and the slower break-down of some waste products, leading to them reaching toxic levels before they are reduced to less harmless compounds.
Hence, frequent water changes WILL be necessary.

(p.s.fish-meal makes good fertilizer)

I mentioned this before but I'll go ahead and repeat myself: I like the idea of a low maintenance tank (not in the detriment of the fish or plants), but what I'm aiming for is healthy plants and healthy fish first and foremost. If it's possible to achieve it with this method, OK, if not I'll do regular water changes as on my other tank. I'm well aware that it might not work due to the increased bioload, but on the same time I want to see fish and plants alike and not to spend ages trying to spot the fish from the plantss as in her tanks. Hope it makes sense.

PS: As of yesterday, there are 61, not 50 cardinals in the tank

Very nice indeed, the plants looks like they really have settled, happy looking plants!

Melander

You may need to up your water changes for a few weeks, as you may continue to lose some fish. Adding 50+ fish all in one go will not give the beneficial bacteria time to develop enough to deal with the extra bio load. Are you testing for ammonia in the tank?

That's what I intend to do, just did one today. I'll keep doing weekely water changes as I do on my other tank. I had the water tested a few days ago and had no ammonia, but that was before I added the cardinals. ANyway, so far so good, no lost fish yet

I'll be keeping an eye on this, interested to see how you do on such a big scale. I have a very small walstad tank, approx 30l, been running about 3 years now. I was a bit concerned about having any parts of the substrate unplanted, in case of gas build up, and thus planted very heavily from the get go. You're not concerned about the soil in the big empty area producing nasty gas pockets?

I already noticed some bubbles of air getting release even today during the w/c and it came from the central Echinodorus Rose when I moved a leaf which was on my way. I stopped for a moment to check the fish reaction as a few big bubbles came out, but I saw no reaction. Will have to check check them again in the morning

As for the empty area in the front, I was hopping any of the foreground plants will take over but I'm not too sure it will happen as they require more light and nutrients than I supply. I gess I could have waited a little longer before adding any fish, but it was depressing looking at a fishless tank . Let's hope my gamble pays off and don't lose any fish.

Being plagued by algae lately, started to add some Easycarbo locally on the most affected plants while trying to pick as much as I could and early this week I started to add CO2, at least until I get rid of the algae.

Week 8:


Week 8.5:


Week 9:


Week 9 with CO2:

I noticed a lot of bubbling/pearling from the plants since adding the CO2, wasn't expecting it so soon, just hope the plants will outcompete the algae. As soon as the algae are gone, I'm going to revert back to the basics - no easycarbo or CO2, but it's nice to see the plants pearling

Also, am happy to report that no fish died yet despite adding 61 cardinals at one time. The only casualties fo far were only a few RCS, but I hope they will start to breed soon .









Forgot to add the video I took yesterday:

The tank looks great. Yes, the plants are fairly bubbling there alright.
The cardinals for me are the business, i could sit watching them shoal like that for hours. (I used to have a community tank right beside my bed for 2 years!)