My 50 gallon tropical community tank

[MrWaxhead]

Well the 5g change per week is basically a test I am running to see if fish bio load (I am currently a fair chunk overstocked, but dual filtered and each one can run my tank on its own) can feed my plants my macro's ie stop ferting my npk etc. I have been doing this now for exactly a month tomorrow. Before that, I changed 10g of my 50g weekly with a normal stocking and had to heavily fert my macros to feed my plants. Now I only dose Iron and micros and let the fish well poo my macros. I am going to slowly turn my filters down and watch my water parameters very carefully until I find a perfect balance of fish feed the plants, plants filter the tank level I am hoping.

So far even on my weekly change I have no signs of ammonia, nitrite, and have a healthy level of 5 to 10mg/l of nitrates for my plants. So basically I am going to push and see how low I can run my filters and how little I can change before my plants can't maintain a healthy cycle and bacteria load.

For this to work, you need a heavy plant base, and basically not vacuum your substrate and let mulm build up and use the fish to feed the plants and plants to clean the tank. I have a good friend that is doing the complete natural approach and he does not even have filters on his tank, and he only does a water change every few months. He started reading Diana Walstad's book, Ecology of the Planted Aquarium and decided to try those methods, and his tank is doing very well. I am kinda trying a hybrid approach to that may or may not work in the end. But I have a few understocked tanks that I can rehome my fish into if this approach does not pan out in the end. So far its working great, I am getting better growth then when I was full on fert dosing my tank, and I have not had any signs of stress on the fish, bad water or algae at all.

[Isabella]

GRRREAT LOOKING TANK !!!

[Cody]

wow that tank is amazing...you must of spent along time designing that...wow thats amazing......the fish must just feel like there still in the ocean ..nice job

[MrWaxhead]

OK this picture is going to look very odd, as its right after a big prune and a odd use of riccia, I took my riccia trimming and put them on a fan in the left of the tank. Riccia always looks very odd when you first tie it down, it takes a few days for it to start growing out of the netting or string. Within a few days it will look like the rest of the pearling riccia mounds, its very fast stuff.



I basically had to put the pic up today as its the 2 month bday for that tank hehe. I got it from my wife on July 11 for my bday, and set it up that day hehe. I had two filters, sitting in other tanks mature ready to go and it never missed a beat. Its been planted and stocked since the first day it started up, and has never had a mini cycle or dropped its cycle. The filters were very mature and I loaded in a very similar stocking to what they had been running so they kept on ticking.

[MrWaxhead]

Oh and I have a question too, how often do you all watch your tanks. I personally try to set aside 15 minutes twice a day on feeds, and the last 20 minutes of the tanks lighting for the day, and the first 10 minutes of moonlighting. It just happens to be right after I put the kids to bed (the joy of lighting on timers hehe). The last 30 minutes are my favorite too, as everything is in full pearl and the fish seem to know the lighting are going to go down as they all have a routine of where they go hide ou t for the night, and the last 10 minutes of light they just start to vanish, its very cool to watch. That is minus the ones that like the moonlight, I have a diy blue LED moon light that is on for 3 hours after lights out, and my corries and shrimp come to huge life in that period. Its a very neat transition of night to day life.

[armadillo]

Wow. The moonlight setting sounds awesome. I have one on one of my small tanks, but it's set to the same timer as the other one. So I must switch it on manually.

[MrWaxhead]

Ya I like having the moonlight as it makes a nice transition to total tank darkness so there is not a major snap from light to complete darkness. I run a few different timers, one for main lighting , one for my moon one and one for my red LEDS that comes on before my lighting kicks in (my sad attempt as sunrise in my tank, looks more like **** then sunrise though hehe, I should probably try amber LEDs instead) and another for my c02 as I like to run my c02 a bit longer then my lights it comes on 2 hours before lights on and stays on during lights and runs for one more hour after lights outs, balances my ph better that way. I also have my filters hooked up to a ups unit, so if my power ever goes out my filters will keep running for a while to keep my bacteria alive. I have a gen in my garage that I plug the whole tank into if the power ever stayed out longer then the ups can run the filters. I have only had to do that once so far (knocks on wood).

[COBettaCouple]

I'd love to add moonlighting to all our tanks and setup a master time for them all.. gonna take some money and the MTS is always calling for more tanks. :

[MrWaxhead]

Took a couple pics to show the riccia fan growing in after 72 hours of planting.
Front on, its tough to see new growth as its mainly filled out.


Bit of a angle to see the thickness increase. It was completely flat from the hairnet 72 hours ago.


And just a kinda neat pic of neons and cardinals.

[Callum The Cat]

its so green and red

Peace Out Callum!

[Neil]

Very beautifully, so how do u vacume the bed when its mostly covered?

[MrWaxhead]

I don't I let the plants eat the poo, it goes very fast.

[MrWaxhead]

Still running with next to no ferts iron and trace only and things still seem to be growing well under bio load.

Photos taken today Sept 21, I had to retie down a major clump of riccia as it got so heavy with oxygen bubbling it was tearing the java moss right off hehe. You can see its starting to happen again on the clump left of the anubis, I will have to tie that one down again real soon.


Side shot to show the riccia fan fatten up even more.

[COBettaCouple]

Your tank looks great!

[atmmachine816]

I'm very impressed with your tank. I enjoyed reading through your progress in your thread very interesting. Your tank is very pretty, though when I look at it, I'm instantly drawn to the left side with the bright riccia. Is that one of the species of hornwort next to it, or is it cambomba (I think that's the name, have been getting away from planted tanks), looks more like cambomba from the pictures.

On your question, I glance at my fish in the morning when I wake up before I go to school and make sure everything is in order. When I get home after sports I check on my fish first thing for about five to ten minutes per tank. I do my homework and studying in my room which is next to one of my tanks and I am able to watch it most of the night. I will also spend about ten minutes watching during feeding time and before I go to bed. So I usually incorporate at least a half hour total, usually more for observing my fish a day.

On your expierment, my tank isn't quite the way I'd like it but I have figured out a cycle in which I let my plants use up most of my fish poo and only do a small water change per week in my 29gallon low light tank. I shall be interested in following your progression in your expierment and your new tank that you hope to build.

[MrWaxhead]

Thanks very much, and yes the riccia is a bit overpowering, especially in photos where it catches the light so strongly, in person its not as overpowering. Every thing is still going very well on this experiment, I have yet to see any signs of deficiency on this tank. But that could slowly start to change if the plants are living on there reserves, but as of yet, any new growth has not started to canabalize the the old growth, and everything is still growing very strong healthy and fast. I still have all my old N P K ferts if I think I need to spike certain nutrients, but as of yet I have not.

And yes that is cabomba, I basically start all my tanks with a fair pile of cabomba and hornwort, until the other plants take hold and start growing strong. That little clump is basically the tail ends of it, I will be replacing it on Oct 11, the 2 months date of the fert test if all is still going well. Its a good fast grower that oxygenates very well. But with the riccia pearling like it does, o2 is not a major concern atm. Basically everything in this tank pearls, but the riccia is the strongest at it. It is in full pearl 4 hours into the light cycle, where everything else really only pearls in the 6 to 8 hour stage of lighting, and not nearly as stong.

I am thinking of replacing the cabomba with some green indica, I have some of the red variety in Rotala rotundifolia in one of my 29g tanks. But I think I already have a very large start red area, so I will be going with its green family member. My only concern is again its a very strong pearling species, so that end of the tank will be a 02 bubble fest, I may have to change things around abit.
here is a pic of the red version in my 29g, green indica looks the same but well green hehe.

[atmmachine816]

Ah looks very nice. yes cambomba does grow rather fast.

[Allie]

Awesome tank....hoping to have a 40-50g someday which is fully planted like that.