Thining If I Should Start A Planted Tank

[Angelmama]

I currently have a 15 gal tank nothing in it except 10 RCS and a ball of moss. im thinking i should start a planted tank.. I currently have some christmas moss and some pella moss in my 55gal, but even thought its baseball sized i think a planted tank may have some benefits..I've read the stickies and such.. but i think i need more convincing- guys enable away

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

Planted tanks look very nice. I never had real plants until a few months ago, and they look so much nicer. The plants will help with filtering nasties out of the water. Plus they help oxygenate the water.

I started with some pretty 'hard to kill' plants and saw how I got on, turned out I quite liked them and I now have 4 planted tanks lol. Try and pick hardy plants to begin with (I'm lucky I have an LFS that sells bunches of plants for 50p a bunch).

 

[stevereade]

Do it, do it, do it, planted tanks are so beautiful and if you have cherry shrimp they'll love it too. Look in the journal section and the pics will prob convince you.

 

[mbsqw1d]

ive recently learnt that it is possible (with the walstead method) that u will never need to do a water change again once set up! as the plants work with the fish and food waste to create the perfect biotope! and you dont need a filter. how cool is that!?!? also, plants just look ace, and fish like them too....

 

[UNV_Rasta]

ive recently learnt that it is possible (with the walstead method) that u will never need to do a water change again once set up! as the plants work with the fish and food waste to create the perfect biotope! and you dont need a filter. how cool is that!?!? also, plants just look ace, and fish like them too....

I'm sold!!!!!! Just have to figure out now which is the best type of substrate to go with.

 

[the biffster]

there's been people messing
about with this for a long time
it sort of works with very heavily
planted tank and lightly stocked with
fish i once run a four foot tank for
months with out a filter you need power
heads to make a flow also i did a lot of testing
while keeping a tank like this and still had to
moderate to large water changes to keep the
tank within parameters i don't think there
is a total water changeless tank not unless
you go automated but that's only my opinion


the biffster

 

[RadaR]

ive recently learnt that it is possible (with the walstead method) that u will never need to do a water change again once set up!

Maybe once a year. You still have to top up the aquarium due to evporation.
This method only works if it's low light and non-CO2. More light and more CO2 means faster growth. With faster growth comes more waste produced by the plants, in which case you would have to perform water changes.