A Walstad Tank...

[connorlindeman]

I am planning a walstad filterless 10g.
It will be heavily planted. Very very heavily planted.
I kinda want to document the whole thing on YouTube. That way other people can follow the journey. I don't know, we'll see.

But this is officially the start of the road.
Lets see where it goes

 

[betta4ever!]

What fish will you put in it? l'm also starting a semi-walstad tank (won't follow the ''ecology of the planted aquarium'' book exactly, but l'll be doing something very similar. It's going to be a red cherry shrimp tank.

 

[connorlindeman]

What fish will you put in it? l'm also starting a semi-walstad tank (won't follow the ''ecology of the planted aquarium'' book exactly, but l'll be doing something very similar. It's going to be a red cherry shrimp tank.

I was thinking sparking gourami with shrimp.

 

[betta4ever!]

I was thinking sparking gourami with shrimp.

Aww nice! Sparkling gouramis are a favourite of mine

 

[Morganna]

I was thinking sparking gourami with shrimp.

Can you do the gourami with the shrimp? I know that sparkling are smaller, but I thought they were still predators to shrimp.

 

[connorlindeman]

Can you do the gourami with the shrimp? I know that sparkling are smaller, but I thought they were still predators to shrimp.

AS long as I add the shrimp first and let them grow to a healthy population, it should work. The gourami might pick off some baby shrimp, but thats ok.

 

[10 Tanks]

I am planning a walstad filterless 10g.
It will be heavily planted. Very very heavily planted.
I kinda want to document the whole thing on YouTube. That way other people can follow the journey. I don't know, we'll see.

But this is officially the start of the road.
Lets see where it goes

Hi connor. Good idea to branch out and try something different. Here is a list of fish that should work well in the new tank:

• Bettas
• Guppies
• Mollies
• Swordtails
• Tetras
• Danios
• Snails (Malaysian Trumpet Snails are great for aerating the substrate while clearing up leftover fish food!)
• Shrimps

Had a quick question. How do you plan to deal with replacing the water that's lost due to evaporation? Just curious.

10 Tanks

 

[connorlindeman]

Hi connor. Good idea to branch out and try something different. Here is a list of fish that should work well in the new tank:

• Bettas
• Guppies
• Mollies
• Swordtails
• Tetras
• Danios
• Snails (Malaysian Trumpet Snails are great for aerating the substrate while clearing up leftover fish food!)
• Shrimps

Had a quick question. How do you plan to deal with replacing the water that's lost due to evaporation? Just curious.

10 Tanks

Thanks for the ideas

I plan on just topping off as needed. I will also have some sort of cover on the tank to try to mitigate that as much as possible.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Cool idea. I love walstad tanks. My Sumatra tank is the first full Walstad I've ever done, and it has been a great success.

My sparkling gouramis are predatory toward shrimp. They'll even have a go at the Amanos which are twice their size. Pretty funny to watch. I wouldn't advise keeping them with small shrimp, or you're likely to end up with some expensive fish food.

I would steer clear of larger schooling fish in a 10g, as Walstad tanks depend on low stocking. Water changes should be done as usual. Walstad herself has kind of backed off from her original "no water changes" stance.

 

[connorlindeman]

Cool idea. I love walstad tanks. My Sumatra tank is the first full Walstad I've ever done, and it has been a great success.

My sparkling gouramis are predatory toward shrimp. They'll even have a go at the Amanos which are twice their size. Pretty funny to watch. I wouldn't advise keeping them with small shrimp, or you're likely to end up with some expensive fish food.

I would steer clear of larger schooling fish in a 10g, as Walstad tanks depend on low stocking. Water changes should be done as usual. Walstad herself has kind of backed off from her original "no water changes" stance.

Definitely not planning to do any schooling fish. Just really low stocking. Sparking gourami and maybe larger shrimp.
I will do water changes. Are weekly water changes necessary or is every two weeks or maybe monthly ok?

 

[connorlindeman]

First Entry:
Emptied out and cleaned up the tank that I'll be using. We now have a blank slate. Also got soil from lowes. Super stoked about this project.

 

[Morganna]

So you're doing a planted tank? What are you going to cap it with?

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Definitely not planning to do any schooling fish. Just really low stocking. Sparking gourami and maybe larger shrimp.
I will do water changes. Are weekly water changes necessary or is every two weeks or maybe monthly ok?

I would advise every week, but you can get away with less frequent changes because of the low stocking.

 

[connorlindeman]

So you're doing a planted tank? What are you going to cap it with?

I plan to cap with pfs or maybe small gravel. Not 100% sure yet.

 

[connorlindeman]

Entry #2:
Got a sieve to try to filter out some of the larger organics(wood ships etc.) and it worked very well!
On the left is the filtered soil and on the right is what was filtered out.

Close ups:

Added it to the tank:

Been videoing as I go so it's going a bit slower.
Now I will add a bit of dechlorinated water to get as many bubbles out as possible. Then I will cap it with PFS, and fill the rest of the way. I'll leave it like that for 24 hours and then drain all the cloudy water, add new dechlorinated and then get to planting!