So here it is, the two-week-old Walstad, all native plants but for some Vallisnerias I got. It has a small pump moving a bit of water, pointed at some lava rock I had as filter media. I dumped the filter contents in a hidden corner and aimed the pump to keep some of the bacteria alive, at least while the plants gather momentum. The light is a cheap LED 10watt floodlight. Also, a heater. The fish do not need it, but the plants appreciate it, I think.
Substrate: backyard topsoil, capped with medium gravel. Given a year or so of maturing. Sprinkled pond mud for inoculation of bacteria and diversity of aquatic organisms.
Hardscape:
regular yellowish rocks from a construction yard
Quebracho wood pieces from old train tracks. Really old.
Mystery snail shells collected from a couple of different sources.
The fish are Jenynsia Lineata, called overitos here in Argentina, and the shrimp are I believe Paleomonetes argentinensis. There might be a Macrobrachium Borelli, but it's too small to tell yet.
There are too many males vs females, I noticed recently. I will dump some males in the river and net some females, to avoid the stress.
A tentative plant species list would be:
Alternanthera (reineckii? perhaps)
Echinodorus cordifolius/urugaiensis
Hydrocotyle bonaerensis
Lilaeopsis brasiliensis
Vallisneria spiralis
Peace lilies (the roots)
Ludwigia peploides
Then there are other, unidentified species. I did what I could identifying them, only got me so far, they all look similar.
The Ludwigia should eventually reach the surface and become a sort of "floating plant". I definitely do not want duckweed here, but I might stop by the river and get some Pistia Stratiotes one of these days.
I cannot remove the spoiler thingy. Sorry, not sorry.
This tank has been running with no fish or plants for a year, just the substrate. Before that, it looked like this, but I had a trip and then I moved and had to neglect it.
This time around it's better, I think. If a couple of new natives I found grow properly, I'll replace the foreign Vallisneria with them.