Anyone have any reviews for these? I'm planning on starting a 29 gallon walstad

This thread has a whole bunch of different topics and one of them was equipment and reviews and stuff so I just put it here. So to the mods feel free to move it if neccessary.
These are the main equipment things I am looking at for the tank:
-Coralife 24" or 30" Aqualight T5 Series Fluorescent Lamp Fixture
-my current aquaclear 150 gph filter... (I figure this might be enough since the tank is walstad)
-Marineland Penguin 550 (145 gph) Powerhead -for added water movement
-Marineland Visi-Therm Deluxe Submersible Heater (either 100 watt or 150 watt) or Aqueon or Ehime or Hydor... I'm not sure about heaters... anyone have one they like?

I plan to stock the tank with something like this:
10 CPD's
4 neon tetras
8 ember tetras
4 corydoras
3 ottos or 3 amano shrimp
pond snails (if ottos/amanos don't do the job)

Plants:
Microswords
LOTS of Java/Windloev Ferns
Compacta
onion
flame moss
some other plant I have that is doing well in my tank

I will have a substrate that is dirt on the bottom and I will cap it with either white sand, black sand, or pebbles... not sure what yet. The basic point of this tank is to have a low mainenance tank and to keep all my fish for when I go away to college. My parents won't do water changes and I can't bring my fish with me so I want a tank that will stay up and stay stable when I am away and then whenever I come home I can do a water change and clean the tank good. They would feed the fish and turn the lights on and off and stuff but no water changes. Does this sound like it would work and are walstad tanks as low mainenance as I have heard or is a walstad tank going to be worse than a normal tank? Also if needed I could cut the stock back like the cories and CPD's but I have 4 neons and 4 embers now and I don't want to get rid of them if possible, especially the embers. Any thoughts or reviews for the equipment and stuff? Thanks

 

As far as heaters go, I have come to really like the Finnex Titanium heaters that I get from Kens fish, If I need a heater from a local store I will only buy the Aqueon Pro heaters.

As for the rest I don't have anything good or bad to add, other than the fact that I love having power heads in my tanks.

 

Ok thanks. That was the main thing I was concerned with... other than if the walstads are as easy as I have heard. That and the lighting... anyone else have any info?

 

Anybody else who has a walstad tank that could let me know how they work and how they are maintenance wise?

 

Nobody has done a walstad tank?

 

Quite a few members have Walstad setups, and quick search of Fishlore returns numerous threads

You may want to check out Dena's NPT article:

 

Thanks

 

Anybody else who has a walstad tank that could let me know how they work and how they are maintenance wise?

They're a dream to keep IMO. If I didn't have such a love for silver dollars, all my tanks would be NPTs. My NPT are great... one water change a month, no gravel vacuuming, with no filters to clean or other equipment worry about. I just have an air stone running lightly in each tank and a heater in the tanks where needed. I wouldn't recommend a filter, but that's up to you of course. I don't run any filters, I don't see them necessary as I've never had a problem with water quality, and when I did try to run one at first all it did was repeatedly get gunked up.

I'd say you're taking the best route for easy maintenance through college. I'm going to college soon too and know I won't have to worry about my NPTs.

One thing I would recommend is MTS to help aerate your dirt. You'll still want to manually aerate your dirt for a while when you do water changes but I do believe they help. I'm not sure if pond snails do the same thing.

 

Thanks that is very helpful... yeah I like mts and I'll probably have pond snails too although they don't aerate soil.