sirdarksol

Partly through design and partly through accident, my 90g has been running with no real filtration for the past couple of months, and it has been working well.

I first want to say that my aquarium is severely understocked, and I have plants that have been growing since I set the aquarium up last year. This is not something I would want to start off doing in any tank, and it's not something I'd want to do with a fully-stocked tank.

Second, I should point out that the tank is not entirely free of problems. I am having some algae issues (related to the higher light that is needed to maintain the plants), and I have lost several otos to unknown issues.

What is happening is that the plants are serving dual filtration purpose; first, they are consuming some of the nitrogen in the form of fish poo. Second, they are serving as surfaces which host the nitrifying bacteria colonies. I have three very large clusters of crypts which have been sending up runners in the past few months. I also have some Christmas moss in the tank, which is serving a similar purpose.

I do have an algae scrubber in the tank, now, but that's more as a test. It's too small to do more than keep a little trickle of water moving in the tank.

My next test, I think, is going to be to shut Ranmaru's filter off. He's got a huge water wysteria in his tank, and an airstone to provide some water movement. That one should be a prime target for lower tech.