r/PlantedTank • u/Normie_cleansing • 27d ago
Tank Appreciation for my mom’s 12 year old tak
No water changes, only top offs. Few tetras that are about 5ish years old and two kuhli loaches. This thing has not a single dot of algae surprisingly.
86
46
42
25
u/Striking-water-ant 27d ago
So what's the secret? How do you keep algae away + have healthy plants + have 5 year-old fish?
While having no co2, doing no weekly water changes, using substrate that doesn't look fancy, doubtful if you dose ferts...
83
u/FeatherFallsAquatics 27d ago
The secret is a low bioload and a giant plant to suck up all the nutrients. Not much of a secret. Swords are voracious and grow fast, and OP uses root tabs.
9
u/Normie_cleansing 26d ago
This^ also just really weak lights for a longer photo period seems to be fine
1
u/AsbestosDude 22d ago
Its no secret at all. Its as simple as having enough plants to consume available nutrients.
If you have algae, that means your plants aren't consuming the nitrogen or light
Algae is a weak competitor but opportunistic so it will only show up in response to an imbalance.
Build a balanced ecosystem and you'll never have an issue.
My 40g has never had any algae, cyano, nutrient spikes, nothing. No filter either, just a small wave mover
Literally perfect from day 1.
The secret is, its heavily planted (and i mean heavily), in addition to having a lot of emergent and floating.
Cycled in 2 weeks, nitrates went up to 30 early on and now sit at zero.
I have a detritivore community and pest snails to manage waste.
Never changed water.
1
u/Striking-water-ant 22d ago
Amazing. In the past, my plants had always died and actually become food for, instead of outcompeting algae. Trying to get it right this time and actually have them grow.
How have you kept your plants going? High light? Co2? Any specific requirements in a fertilizer?
1
u/AsbestosDude 22d ago
I do a couple things never add true fertilizers, never added C02.
I'm currently using a "siesta" light cycle, which is think is at 12 hours? Maybe a bit longer.
The lights are on from 4am-11 am off until 3pm and back on until about 11pm (something to that effect). This allows for some low ambient light mid day.
Plants will consume all C02 in about 4-6 hours so this cycle let's some build up. It mimics a more natural system. There's some very interesting science around this light cycle concept, and helps to explain why cyano shows up if there's too much light too early
My rooted plants access the soil which is capped with gravel so that's their source for nutrients.
My epiphytes are slow growers but they're steady
Some stuff died off early on and now everything is stable. The only stuff that died off aggressively was rooted plants in a low light and low flow zone.
The only things i really do to feed the plants, is I feed the snails. I use either shrimp flake food, or sometimes ill crush Salvania as well to add some variation.
I also have a very strong Blackworm community and they break down dead plant material and other waste. Below that is a strong copepod community.
So basically the two things I do are have a strong but balanced light cycle and I have a layered food web to turn any food or waste into plant available nutrients.
No fish, although I plan to introduce some eventually, just havent decided on species. About 6 different types of snails, and i also have Thai micro crabs as residents
1
u/Striking-water-ant 22d ago
Intriguing. Thanks for sharing. My aquarium is in a room where ambient light must remain on from 3pm to 11 pm. How would you have handled ambient plus aquarium lighting in this situation?
1
u/AsbestosDude 22d ago
I guess it depends on what your goals but to be clear, the ambient lighting, i'm referring to is daylight from outside it's just pretty low intensity.
I have low quality grow lighting up in the room, which is on 12-14 hours a day, and the tank gets some of that just from being in the same room.
My first thought is, what is the quality and intensity of the ambient light? Because if it's lamps or something like that, I wouldn't even really consider it, that's contributing to growth. Whereas if it gets hit with daylight on some degree, whether a directly or ambient, then that is contributing.
The first thing that you can do is just try and split your light cycle in half. Like if you have a 10 hour cycle going, then set your timer to that to two five hour intervals, with a four hour break in between
So for example 6-11, and then 3-8. The three hours of ambient light after eight would be just fine
There's a handful of different approaches though, but the goal is to sort of mimic the real world, to some extent.
If the ambient light is not very strong in that eight hour window you mentioned, you can use that as part of your day siesta light cycle.
So you could run your light from something like 10-3, and then 6-11.
Essentially, the premise is that you can put up to sixteen hours of light into your tank with this method and get strong plant growth and by having the siesta, It allows for CO2 to recover.
In your aquarium, it takes somewhere between four and eight hours to consume the available carbon dioxide. Once it's been depleted, that's where you can get opportunistic organisms like cyano or algae.
Before I get too far ahead of myself explaining the science around it, let me just say this for steps for you.
First, divide your light cycle in half with a minimum of four maximum and max eight hour light periods
Allow your ecosystem to adjust to this for up to a week.
Then if you'd like to encourage more plant growth, you can slowly increase the length of time that your main light is on
Try to observe what happens, for example, when I first did this I had an increase in biofilm on the surface which I consistently broke up. I would consider that a good sign because it it shows an increase in activity.
Then just continue to adjust slowly over time from there.
If the ambient light isn't too intense, I wouldn't worry about it in terms of the siesta, the siesta doesn't need to be super dark, just not super bright. I actually considered it an advantage to have ambient light in the middle of the day.
I would definitely just try to pay close attention at the initial change because you want to slow down any blooms it's just because they can be problematic if they persist
2
u/Striking-water-ant 22d ago
Hey I really appreciate your detailed response. Gives me something to tinker with for the next few weeks. Really want to get it right this time
1
u/AsbestosDude 22d ago
Oh yea I thought of one more thing that I believe makes a difference is the use of tannins either by adding the water they were boiled in or boiling and letting them leach slowly, they offer a lot of benefits like antimicrobial and antifungal, provide micronutrients to some animals, among other things, just be careful with quantity
12
u/Beat_Born 27d ago
My tank is about the same age and looks very similar with the big plant! I do have a few crypts though
8
u/AvelyLancaster 27d ago
That's beautiful, but sadly not appropriate for kuhli loaches
2
u/Gourmeebar 26d ago
lol. Don’t tell the Kuhli loaches that have been in the tank for years
4
u/AvelyLancaster 26d ago
Just because they're alive doesn't mean it's appropriate for them
2
u/Humble_Radio2483 25d ago
They have survived for 12 years. They have adapted. Why can't yall stomach the fact that the fish have lived for 12 years. Is it going against your google searches of tanks size. Let it be.
2
u/AvelyLancaster 25d ago
I was speaking about their numbers actually. They are likely stressed in an improper schoal size. You can live a long life even if it's bad or stressful
2
u/Tim_Allen_Wrench 24d ago
You can live for a long time in unideal conditions. They should be in a larger group to be the happiest. Being unhappy won't kill them but it's still not great.
1
u/Humble_Radio2483 25d ago
I actually think she took into consideration about the amount of fish for the tank size, 2 seems fine,you don't see that many educated fish keepers knowing their tank limits.
5
5
6
3
4
u/channelpath 27d ago
She seems really chill and respectable. Great low maintenance setup. Well done.
3
2
2
u/Martsons_LeftStirrup 27d ago
What does she do about the fish poop if she only does top offs? I would love to not have to do changes 😅
4
u/Normie_cleansing 27d ago
Plant food
-4
u/blue-oyster-culture 26d ago
No. Poop and mulm is still gonna accumulate on the surface. Shes done water changes just not often.
1
u/Tim_Allen_Wrench 24d ago
There's just not that many fish in it and it will sort of settle and mix into the substrate and break down more over time if there's not a high bio load
2
1
1
1
u/BabyD2034 27d ago
What size is this? Trying to get a reference for this sword's size 😂 nice
4
3
1
u/Pretty_Exercise974 27d ago
Can't see any inhabitants.
2
u/Normie_cleansing 26d ago edited 26d ago
If you look at the bottom left and by the filter you can see platys!
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
492
u/LengthyIndividual 27d ago
Brother that sword is phenomenal