Any One Care To Explain This To Me?

[Dwarf-P.]

yea but what sort of plants would grow in this type of set up, it looks like they have hairgrass, ??

 

[Dwarf-P.]

?

 

[OldMan47]

You might try looking into a type of planted tank called an El Natural in some places. It is quite simply a tank with house plant potting soil on the bottom covered by a layer of gravel or sand to keep it from floating. In theory it can be heavily planted and fish added the first day. As has been said, the fish food and fish wastes provide the fertilizer, the plants remove the ammonia and you don't use a filter. You circulate the water using things like a power head and you ensure that the tank gets about 1 1/2 to 2 WPG of light. It is common to get a bit of an algae bloom at first but it settles down as the plants start growing. Another feature of the typical El Natural is that it has duckweed or a similar plant floating on top of the water to use atmospheric CO2 for fast growth and to absorb any excess nutrients from the water quickly. It is a topic that takes a whole different approach than most of us use to have healthy fish but I can say from my own experience that it works. Diana Walstad has a nice book out called Ecology of the Planted Aquarium that presents much of the science behind the approach.

 

[guidedbyechoes]

You might try looking into a type of planted tank called an El Natural in some places. It is quite simply a tank with house plant potting soil on the bottom covered by a layer of gravel or sand to keep it from floating. In theory it can be heavily planted and fish added the first day. As has been said, the fish food and fish wastes provide the fertilizer, the plants remove the ammonia and you don't use a filter. You circulate the water using things like a power head and you ensure that the tank gets about 1 1/2 to 2 WPG of light. It is common to get a bit of an algae bloom at first but it settles down as the plants start growing. Another feature of the typical El Natural is that it has duckweed or a similar plant floating on top of the water to use atmospheric CO2 for fast growth and to absorb any excess nutrients from the water quickly. It is a topic that takes a whole different approach than most of us use to have healthy fish but I can say from my own experience that it works. Diana Walstad has a nice book out called Ecology of the Planted Aquarium that presents much of the science behind the approach.

This is something I would be interested in. I already have some duckweed. It multiplies faster than guppies.