Is it possible to do a Walstad Blackwater aquarium?

[Thermal]

I made my first aquarium almost three weeks ago, it's a five gallon planted tank. It's still running fine today and nothing really wrong with it, but I'm starting to want to build another tank. I don't know if I'm crazy but I enjoyed the process of making the 5 gal even though it stressed me out alot the first few days of the making. So I thought, why not do that again? But this time I'm going for a low-budget, low-tech tank because I've only got a limited amount of money to make another tank ;-;
I'm still going for it though.

My first choice was doing a walstad, I'm not sure if my current 5 gal counts as walstad? All it has is a soil-capped substrate, plants, and a heater.

But it would be boring if I just made another planted tank, so I thought about doing blackwater? I don't know if they're higher maintenance or lower, but would a Blackwater-style Walstad Tank doable?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I am not sure what plants will grow in stained water. For one it changes the spoectrums which penetrate the water. But it also lowere the intensity of any light the deeper the water. Here is one of my favorite vids about collecting Altum in the Atabapo, a tea stained river. if you watch it you will notice there are no aquatic plants, You will see algae and you will see a lot of lands plans in the water and especially their roots. During the rainy season the rivers overflow their banks and what you mostly see in the vid are submerged land plants.

 

[Thermal]

I am not sure what plants will grow in stained water. For one it changes the spoectrums which penetrate the water. But it also lowere the intensity of any light the deeper the water. Here is one of my favorite vids about collecting Altum in the Atabapo, a tea stained river. if you watch it you will notice there are no aquatic plants, You will see algae and you will see a lot of lands plans in the water and especially their roots. During the rainy season the rivers overflow their banks and what you mostly see in the vid are submerged land plants.

Yea the plant options are pretty limited for blackwater, which is a big setback if I try to do the walstad method. The only plants I can think of, that would do well in really low light and soft water are cryptocoryne, and maybe java fern. My best bet would be stocking tons of floating plants for the nitrates, but if it was only floaters and java fern then I wouldn't need to use soil. Would it still count as walstad if that was the case?

Right now I'm only thinking of slight tannin water, so there's still enough light passing through while still being blackwater. Lots of driftwood and leaf litter. But yea I'll try doing more research on this and watch the documentary. Tbh I just need a low maintenance blackwater, but I'm not sure if blackwater tanks are low maintenance by default.

 

[Lcc86]

I've never done a Blackwater tank myself but just happened to watch this video yesterday where he does just that. Not saying this is the only way to do it of course but thought I would share.

He does have plants, they look like pretty low maintenance ones but he didn't mention doing it as a walstad style tank.

I say go for it, even if you do need to do regular water changes if it's only a small tank it's not too much of a chore.

 

[GaryE]

"Walstad" is a misused term. I think if you are going to seriously venture into such set ups, you need to read Walstad's book, or work with some mildly complicated websites. It's not as easy as just having a dirted tank, and there is serious research behind the idea. If you're going to do it, do it right.

I tried once and did it wrong - that's where prepping properly entered my brain. I went for a pre-internet version of a half system someone suggested to me as a Walstad, and learned later that I'd missed a few key ideas Diana Walstad had studied.

I have a few black water, peat filtered set ups, and light gets through to the plants (though I have never seen plants in real blackwater streams). All the easy plants, valls, Crypts, java ferns, smaller Anubias etc are fine in those tanks. Aquariums are shallow and low water volume.