Natural planted tanks

please post a pic would be interested in seeing one - have read a lot about Diane walstad
and love planted tanks

I have found that the betta tanks thrive with some real weed in! Need to buy a few bunches from somewhere! parrots feathers is my favourite

You're welcome to put up any pics you have Brenda It's always interesting to see different ways of setting things up.

Its a very similar way of filteration to that of my Marine tank, albeit the live rock replace the biological filteration of the plants in freshwater.

What would you say is the difference in stocking levels between this and conventional filteration?

I stock very low and with small fish, school of long finned Danios and a school of Neon tetra, school of ottos as well as ghost shrimp to help break down/shred the larger organics and lots of MTS to aid in aeration of the soil this is in my 75g-total of 24 fish and who know how many shrimp now but I would say at least 30. The Danio and Neon spawn every AM with lights on, no fry due to they eat the eggs, the ottos started spawing yesterday so I moved a pair to a spawning tank, I would love to try and get fry from them as I have read that it rare to get home spawns.


55g, is more for the long finned albino pl*co pair I have hoping to breed, I have 10 other small fish that I will be rehomming first of next month. This is the tank I had the most problem with due to the use of sand from my stock pond (big mistake) that caused massive silts on the plants.


25g is all guppies, and my very first planted tank with potting soil and it worked great, it also get sun from an east window.


20g is a Red cherry shrimp only tank with a sponge filter, I just put about 30 or so Betta splendens fry in this one to grow out, have lots of yummy aquatic critters in their for food.


10g is a yellow shrimp only tank with a sponge filter, I placed about 15 or so of the larger Betta splendens fry to grow out as well.


10g-this is the tank I used for my spawning experiment that I did with a pair of Betta splendens to get multi spawns by keeping the pair together, I got a total of 5 spawns over about 30 days with 3 spawns being viable.


I have a 2.5g planted as well that I keep my older male Betta Splendens in that I spawned 3 years ago.


I get massive plant growth without any CO2 or added ferts, I don't use seaChem excel, I have some as well as the product by Mark Weiss, the excel melted some of my vals and killed some shrimp and to be honest I just can't remember to use the stuff more than anything else...LOL.....
Here is a shot of my room set-up, I am not very good at taking photos and have a poor quality camera to boot, some shots look green when in person they are not that color and all very dark...I will figure it out one day...laffs.....

I need to add that some of these pic are at least 3-4 months old and lots of growth has happened and some don't look this way and the last shot of the 55g is not how it looks at all now the first shot is how it looks today but with a mass amount of plant growth.

Wow, i bet that lot keep you busy :D How often do you need to carry out water changes using this system?

First I need to say that this type of set-up are not for everyone and that I have been in this hobby for well over 30 years..with that said I do water changes about every 6 months once they are stable. At first you do WC daily-to-weekly, then weekly-to-monthly an so on, water testing is a must too as well as watching the fish as they will tell you when something is wrong. I do weekly plant trims and water top offs all tanks are open top some have two light set ups on them so it looks like they have hoods. Fish food is one of the ferts a pinch for the fish and a pinch for the plants...not only does this feed the plants but the snails too, so I pull snail out on a regular basis. I will tell you what I do with them once I feel myself around this site to know how many people I will offend as I don't want to offend anyone.

It sounds like you have to be pretty meticulous especially at the beginning. Mind you, i like the sound of six monthly water changes

Very impressive tanks Brenda What is the low level plant that you used in the foreground of the first tank?

That is Echinodorus tenellus its spread by runners, I started with about 10 plants 6 months ago and it has nearly connected to make the lawn, just guessing....now I think I have around 40-50 E. tenellus in that area.

Thanks for that I've always wanted to have that effect in my planted but not sure if it would grow well as I have alot of duckweed on the surface that would block alot of the light out.

This tank gets 1.5wpg for 8h and then I turn on the other lights to get a total of 2.5wpg to complete 10-12h photo period. I have water lettuce and frogbit as my floaters but they stay more toward the back.
I have some baby tears (Hemianthus micrantbemoides) too for ground cover, it grows more up right and I have to tuck in down in the substrate weekly, it looks pretty nice around the base of the rocks, its just not spreading as much as I would like though.
I have found that spectrum plays a big role in my plant growth and I use 4 different bulbs; Blue spectrum being the one for photosynthesis/growth, green spectrum to make the tank look good to the eye and soft white CF. I am getting good growth even without CO2 that I will never use....
love the "low-light low tech=lots of fun" method...laffs......

The tank I have is 65ltr and has T5s, 2 white tubes and 2 purple tubes but not sure of wattage as I can't see it on there. My substrate is a mix of sand and gravel and so far I've not had much luck with the ground coverage plants but the others are growing fine. I may give it another go and see what happens.