Walstad/similar methodologies - your experience

[Daniel]

1 hour ago, RovingGinger said:

This may be a stupid question but I haven't seen it really addressed by anyone going no-filter: don't you need a filter to generate some sort of water movement? Or a pump of some kind? Or can you literally set up a soil water box and some plants and have still water aside from the movement any critters generate?

Airstones. I love airstones. I think the main thing they do doesn't have much to do with oxygen (I may dig out my dissolved oxygen meter and measure this to be sure). I think the main thing they do is move water around as @RovingGinger says.

I am about to have a tank without an airstone or a filter or any water movement when I get my 1930s tank going. So we will see just how important water movement is.

I don't have filters in my Apisto tanks but I do have airstones in them because I have heaters there and I want the water to move over the heaters and around the tank. Last week I think I had the airstones unplugged for several days before I noticed the lack of bubbles. I also don't have a filter associated with the 500 gallon angelfish tank, but I do have a pump that makes the water go in a circle. The water movement makes the lights shimmer in an attractive fashion.

I am not sure why people are big on the sifting (probably de-chuckification as @Brandy says), but when I have lifted entire shovel fulls of bog sod and added that to an aquarium, with the included sticks and rocks and worms, none of that has caused an issue other than green cloudy water and algae.

Edited August 4, 2020 by Daniel

[Brandy]

1 hour ago, Daniel said:

I am not sure why people are big on the sifting (probably de-chuckification as @Brandy says), but when I have lifted entire shovel fulls of bog sod and added that to an aquarium, with the included sticks and rocks and worms, none of that has caused an issue other than green cloudy water and algae.

I think sod would be different--embedded chunks would stay embedded. I think sifting is for loose stuff. However, not everyone is lucky enough to have emmersed aquatic plants growing along their driveway... 😆

[RovingGinger]

5 hours ago, Daniel said:

Airstones. I love airstones. I think the main thing they do doesn't have much to do with oxygen (I may dig out my dissolved oxygen meter and measure this to be sure). I think the main thing they do is move water around as @RovingGinger says.

I am about to have a tank without an airstone or a filter or any water movement when I get my 1930s tank going. So we will see just how important water movement is.

I don't have filters in my Apisto tanks but I do have airstones in them because I have heaters there and I want the water to move over the heaters and around the tank. Last week I think I had the airstones unplugged for several days before I noticed the lack of bubbles. 

I’ll be interested to see what you find. So far both the Walstad book and another book I have on planted tanks seem to come down heavily anti-air-pump anything. Very anti bubbles. But I have to think the fish may disagree. 
 

I have a 6 gallon nano set up with pool filter sand, Monte Carlo clippings, java moss, and najas/guppy grass. The only occupants so far are snails, mostly MTS. I am not sure if I will chicken out and add a filter or test it with a few male endlers without a filter. Most of my tanks run sponge filters. 

[ChefConfit]

I keep coming back to this thread because I love my dirted tank and I thought I'd better actually contribute. 

I originally chose to do a dirted tank because I wanted to have a very heavily planted tank, but am on a tight budget and can't afford any of the expensive planted tank substrates. I also spent several months researching different methods of doing a dirted tank before trying my first one.

I've done 2 dirted tanks. My current one is a 29g hex(currently running a little over 2 months) the first one was a 5.5g that I ran as a test for over 6 months before I committed to dirting my display tank. 

Here is my method for setting it up. 

Part 1 making mineralized soil:

From my understanding mineralized soil is essentially soil that has had all the organics broken down into nutrients and minerals. This helps prevent ammonia spikes in the aquarium from organics in the soil decaying. From my understanding most planted tank substrates are made from mineralized soil bound with clay. 

I started with the cheapest organic soil I could find that didn't contain anything to help retain water(it wound up being a miracle grow product) and sifted it to remove any large debris that wouldn't break down during the mineralizing process. I then put the soil in a large shallow container then filled it with water and put it in the yard. The next day I poured off the excess water along with anything that had remained floating and allowed the soil to dry out in the sun which took a few days. Once the soil was completely dry I added water again and repeated the process for about a month. You now have mineralized soil! Some people chose to mix in clay or other soil amendments at this point but I did not. 

 

Part 2 setting up the tank:

First I built a boarder around my tank with the sand I chose for capping the dirt(this helps so you don't see the dirt through the glass. Then I added a tablespoon of osmocote plus sprinkled across the bottom of the tank. Next I added my dirt(roughly 2in in front and 4in in the back) wet it down and pressed it to make sure there were no air bubbles. I then capped the dirt with 1-2in of sand. Next I placed my hardscape and filled the tank then drained it as completely as possible. Next I planted very heavily. Fast growing water column feeding and/or floating plants are important to soak up the large amounts of nutrients that will leach from the soil early on. 

After planting I refilled and drained the tank until the water was reasonably clear. I then let the tank run for 2 weeks with large frequent water changes before adding my first fish. I would have waited a full month, but I had seaded the filter with biomedia from another tank. 

Part 3 stocking and running:

I added my fish slowly making sure to check parameters very often. I saw small ammonia spikes after each new addition to the tank but it always returned to 0 by the next day. I do not gravel vac during water changes unless there's a major mess that needs it. The mulm is slowly turned over into the sand by my bottom dwellers and is how nutrients is restored to the soil as the plants use it. 

I never experienced any large scale algae outbreak and I believe that can be attributed to using mineralized soil instead of "raw" which would leach large amounts of ammonia when the organics begin the decompose. 

Sorry for the long post but I felt this thread needed a detailed methodology 

[Brandy]

Thanks @ChefConfit!

This is very similar to what I have done--chalk it up to dumb beginner's luck, and some intuition from other projects.

I did not make the mineralized soil on purpose, but I essentially did the same thing on a small scale in about 2h, wash, stir, settle, repeat (reserved the other stuff for planters). I didn't know that is what I was doing, it just seemed right--potting soil is not what is at the bottom of a pond. I skipped the osmocote, capped with sand, and left it to sit bare-empty for about a week, with some filter media from another tank and a healthy dose of Seachem stability to kick off the bacteria. BOY, did it kick off! 

After a week I added lights and my plants and I wish I had more plants. It needs more. But everything is growing gorgeously (algae included) so I am practicing patience.

After another week I added some pond snails, and finally a Betta. The ammonia has not been a problem. I think I missed it or the plants handled it. I saw a nitrite spike at one point before the Betta, but the BB seems to have caught up.

I am excited to hear that your 5.5g worked out well enough in 6mo that you decided to go with a 29g! I would like to make the same discovery.

[Diego]

21 hours ago, RovingGinger said:

This may be a stupid question but I haven't seen it really addressed by anyone going no-filter: don't you need a filter to generate some sort of water movement? Or a pump of some kind? Or can you literally set up a soil water box and some plants and have still water aside from the movement any critters generate? 

Similarly, why is sifting the dirt such a big deal?

These are all questions I cannot seem to find simple questions to in Walstad's Book Of Complex Chemical Things. Help, I was a marketing major...

The filter question is the most debated. In an established Walstad tank you don't need a filter but you need water movement for large tanks (>20Gal). An established tank is a tank where your plants are happy and act as a filter. If you buy some plants and put them in the tank, it takes some time for them to catchup (initial die-off). A biological filter might help that transition by keeping the tank cycled.

I usually run sponge filters at a low air flow even after my plants are fully functional: the bubbles break the bio film on the surface and they are gentle enough not to gas too much CO2 out. I usually place a sponge filter near the water heater to improve the heat exchange.

On a different thread we discussed about nitrite spikes due to over-filtering. Plants and filters compete with each others as they both consume ammonia, but while plants convert ammonia to plant matter, filters convert that to nitrite and then to nitrate. Plants like nitrate too but less than ammonia. So basically the more ammonia you take away from the plants via filtering the more nitrate you end up with.      

[Brandy]

So today I realized algae in my dirted tank has magically cleared up. While it is not remotely grown in yet...

Photo time!

The hair grass is the big win here. There is obvious new growth and this has been planted less than a month. 

Compare that to the stuff planted months ago according to the internet instructions of tiny clumps. Supplied with Easy Green, Eco-complete, ADA amazonia, and passive CO2.

Lessons learned: 

1. don't trust the internet

2. plants do indeed seem to like dirt. Or at least not having their roots shredded.

[Daniel]

When it goes, it goes! Poof! And your hair grass has little flowers at the tips of the leaves.

Edited August 7, 2020 by Daniel

[Brandy]

7 hours ago, Daniel said:

When it goes, it goes! Poof! And your hair grass has little flowers at the tips of the leaves.

I think they are actually little tiny seed heads! I love them. Not sure if the seed is viable submersed, but they sure are cool!

[Daniel]

Today I have been prepping the aquariums for the

• Gravel and crushed coral with root tabs for standard tank number 1 vs
• Eco-complete for standard tank number 2 vs
• Walstad tank 3

experiment.

But, I wasn't planning on catfish though...

[shkote]

I am getting ready to do a Walstad nano, and from what I read, the steps were organic soil...capped with sand. Nobody said anything about a cat! I'm not ready for this 🤦🏻‍♀️

[RovingGinger]

22 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Today I have been prepping the aquariums for the

• Gravel and crushed coral with root tabs for standard tank number 1 vs
• Eco-complete for standard tank number 2 vs
• Walstad tank 3

experiment.

But, I wasn't planning on catfish though...

My little sweetheart likes to pee into anything remotely resembling a box with gravel/litter/sand. I can’t imagine what that ammonia load would do...
 

Tanks in progress are highly guarded around here.