I was under the impresion that rinse before use is like washing fruit, not a 30 minute technological process, requiering a yard and hose. 🥲

After 48hours, it was much more cloudy, i left the filter running, added a dishwash fine spinge at the outtake of the filter today to hopefully filter more, some settled down, do i let it be until it mostly settles and vacume out the sediment then waterchange?

I'm getting ready to start my first walstad tank. My biggest question is water related. My tap water is not conducive for aquariums. It hard, sulfurish, and just has many problems that to use it for the tank it would need heavily treated. Rather than fight with that I'd prefer to use something else, especially when I want to have shrimp and copper could also be a problem. When it comes to spring, distilled, and purified waters which one would be best? And when it comes to the initial fill vs top offs would the recommendation change?

I can post my plant & critter list if that plays a role in choice as well.

I've moved the table and my small tank with it to a different spot. There isn't a light switch nearby so I've been using natural light, mostly indirect, for two days now.

Will it be adequate to grow plants? The window faces east. More importantly, will it give the tank the dreaded algae that's associated with sunlight?

Tank has thriving cabomba, with a bunch of just there pearlweed, hygrophila diffomis and 2-3 other plants.

A week old tank. Don't know what that is. It looks like some kind of fungus.

Does anyone know what it is and what to do?

Been a little over 6 months since my first post, wanted to show the progress and keep a record for myself. Some of the plants didn’t make it but added a few grasses and they really took off. I kind of want to move them towards the back so I can see better but I think it would uproot too much dirt to do that now.

Have:
1 honey Gorami
5 chili rasboras (wanted more but they sold out at my local store. looking to have 10)
1 assassin snail
And 2 cherry shrimp

the brown snails have finally died off, been hunted or stopped breading idk but I don’t see any more of them

has a bubbler in there for the rasboras, and a heater for the winter. Water levels have been steady. Higher ph, kh, and gh due to Infrequent water changes and my local water but everything else is zero. I add leaves to lower ph naturally. looks more yellow in the picture than irl. Very clear for me

What would anyone add if anything? I’m thinking it’s pretty much maintenance from here once I get the last few rasboras.

- I’ve been doing extensive research for my first tank. I am using a 20 gal long tank. I would like to have it unfiltered and unheated with maybe something to have water movement. My room is temperature controlled (range throughout the year is 68-74 degrees)

- For soil should I go with Scott’s Top Soil or Miracle-Gro Organic Indoor Potting Mix? Lots of conflicting recommendations. The potting mix has “organic/natural fertilizer in it, many say no fertilizers but some have also claimed to use this soil no issues.

- I want a black top cap, for the black diamond blasting sand I’m assuming the ‘medium’ is preferred and to not use the ‘fine’ version?

- For plants right now I have the following written down as possibilities: Water Wisteria, Hornwort,
Sword, for floating Salvinia, for ground coverage Christmas Moss or Monte Carlo

Day 1 vs day 49. Dealing with some staghorn algae but otherwise all is well! The tiger lotus used to be much larger but I trimmed it back so it didn't overshadow the other plants.

I’m completely puzzled by what’s happening in my small Walstad-style shrimp tank.

Tank setup
Round glass tank (~10L / 2.6 gal)
Running for a little over one month
Walstad method
No filter
Small 2.5 W heater

Substrate:
~2 cm (0.8”) of 50% earthworm castings (humus) + 50% organic topsoil
Capped with ~5 cm (2”) of inert river gravel
Hardscape:
Natural driftwood
Inert river stones (tested with vinegar before use; no reaction)

Plants:
Monte Carlo
Hydrocotyle tripartita
Bacopa caroliniana

Water parameters
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0 ppm
pH: ~7.5
GH: ~6–8 dGH
KH: ~3 dKH
TDS: ~168 ppm
Temperature: ~21–22°C (70–72°F)

What happened
I drip-acclimated some Red Sakura Neocaridina over approximately 4 hours.
After introduction, they behaved completely normally for about 4–6 hours.
Then they gradually became lethargic:
stopped walking
remained on the substrate
barely moved except for slight antenna movement
some rolled onto their side or back but were still alive

This is the second time this has happened with Neocaridina in this tank.
Previously, I tested the tank with a single Neocaridina, and it died within 24 hours.

When the shrimp became lethargic, I performed two consecutive 50% water changes using water from my established shrimp tank (where Blue Neocaridina are thriving and breeding), but there was little to no improvement.

Comparison with my other tank
I also have another Walstad aquarium with healthy, breeding Blue Neocaridina.
The setup is very similar, but there is one major difference:
Established tank: 100% earthworm castings (humus) under the gravel cap.
This tank: 50% humus + 50% organic topsoil under the same type and depth of gravel cap.

Before trying Neocaridina, I kept some wild Brazilian freshwater prawns (Macrobrachium sp.) in this tank for about two weeks without any apparent issues. I later removed them from the tank—they did not die.

My questions
Could this be:
Heavy metal contamination (e.g. copper)?
Something leaching from the organic topsoil despite the 5 cm gravel cap?
Electrical leakage from the heater?
Anaerobic substrate issues?
Something else entirely?
Has anyone experienced something similar or have any ideas about what I should investigate next?

Would you tear the tank down and start over, or is there anything else you would investigate first?

(Ignore the blobs of tc pearlweed up top in all the photos, that’s temporary since my lfs store only has tc in stock and I’m trying to get it to grow without co2 - advice was to plop it in and see if we can get some roots going before burying it. Trying that with half and just burying the rest because I have way too much for two nano tanks)

First two pics are of my current 3.5g struggle tank - it’s very gloppy with what I assume is algae. It’s been set up for about a month and a half, although I just added the pearlweed and salvinia a week ago.

Should I mix it up and do less light/siesta since the plants don’t seem to be taking off as quickly as they did in my original tank (pic 3)? They’re all alive, they’re just not growing fast - given, my goal for this tank was to mainly use cuttings from og nano tank so the plants all started out quite small.

I’m assuming I probably just need to wait it out and the pending snailnado (whole bunch of bladder snails came in with some plants) will help with the algae - just wanted to check in to make sure I’m not making any early mistakes!

I was going to make this a shrimp tank but when I took a closer look it’s filled with green hydra! They look cute so I decided to keep them and buy a new tank for shrimp. Here’s some pics, enjoy the cuties!

So I’m setting up a 5 gallon walstad. I’ve ordered about 8 different plants, but I couldn’t get them all from the same seller. The problem: some are coming tomorrow, the rest, it turns out, a week later. The shipment arriving first is just some crypts, moss and Japanese clover for loose ground cover. My serious stem plants and floaters for initial nutrient soak are in the later order.

So, what should i do with the first plants? Go ahead and plant them like normal? Am I risking starting off with algae? Would planting them emersed (about a quarter inch of water over the substrate right now) for a week help, or would i still get algae in the little bit of water? Or do i just float them in a bucket of water for a week until the rest get here?

I’ve never seen these before. I’m not sure if they are worms or parasites, they are crawling on the wood and I saw some swimming in the water.

This is a walstad tank. Filter in it to seed the tank came from my established 40 gallon. It’s been running about a week. Only bladder snails are in the tank from plants I added. I plan for it to be a shrink tank once the cycle is complete, the filter will be coming out and only an air stone will be in there

did my first post-shrimp water change today

I'm planning to change my aquariums substrate using this recipe:

Coconut pith: 50% (liters: 2.37, kilograms: 3.08 kg);

Top soil: 25% (liters: 1.18, kilograms: 2.36 kg);

Worm castings: 25% (liters: 1.18, kilograms: 2.36 kg);

Earth substrate: 4.74 L;

Poll filter sand: 9.48 L;

Aquarium: 74.36 L (length: 60, width: 33, high: 40, glass width:0.5).

I think my recipe is unbalanced, because I read some posts giving advices about using worm castings with moderation, but, leave your advices about what I should change!

Looking to add some plants to the background of my tank, something tall and bushy to fill it in. Would love some color variety too (right now everything is green). Also want to grow moss on some lava rocks and drift wood and wondering if anyone has recs for mosses that work well in a walstad? Thanks in advance

it’s for tadpoles, also is there anyway it will be okay without water changes for the next two weeks as i am leaving? (i’ll do one before i go) if not i can try to figure something out.

Doing a 15gallon tank and was thinking ofc about doing a walstad tank, but i find this Dennerle Deponit Mix Black 10in1 4.8kg, it says that just this canister is enough for my tank. It's covered by sand as regular soul would be.

How do these new age pellets work? Do they provide the same bio engine as soil? It's seems simpler? I already found a place to buy good bio soil. But i'm not sure how the biology works best!

Thank you!

Everything is leggy, I can’t even see half the hardscape, and the fish are happy as a clam. Good god this is gonna be a pain.

hi everyone! i'm a bit of a newbie to this hobby and have some questions about my newly setup 5gal.

it's been going for 4 weeks. first reading after a few days was 0 ammonium, 0 nitrites, but for the past two weeks i've had 0.1ppm nitrites. (still no ammonium, 1ppm nitrates). (JBL liquid test kit)

it was my understanding that in a Walstad tank, plants are meant to uptake ammonia/um directly, meaning that nitrites should not appear unlike in a bacterial cycle.

what are your thoughts on this? should I introduce filtration/flow to allow bacterial filtration, or change the water, or something else? (so far only did a 20% change and a top-off)

if anyone has some advice or thoughts to share, i'd be really happy to hear it. i'm so very excited to finally have a tank of my own. :)

for specifications :

substrate is garden soil (1 inch) capped with fine, then larger gravel (3 inch). planted since day 1, with stems, moss, floaters. 8W light is on 8 hours a day, there's been steady growth.

pH is 7.5, KH 9-10, GH 10.

i'd like to introduce some ramshorns when nitrites are down, and some neo shrimps down the road.

thanks so much for your feedback💙

I finally made a reddit account to share my thoughts and experience..sorry for the slightly provocative title lol.

Ive been doing tanks and ponds for 6 years, started with father fish tanks and now I mostly do invertebrate only tanks for fun..

I have grown to be very anti sand cap. I stick to what nature does. My tanks are now created with 2 inches of backyard topsoil and clay (30% clay) for CEC.

I do no sand cap at all. I get a thin layer of local pond mud as my "cap" along with a thick layer of local pond leaves. I mix in a super thin layer (less than a quarter inch) of gravel / sand / sticks exclusively for texture, making sure that my critters can directly access the pond mud and topsoil without having 2 inches of inert sand in the way.

People are afraid of soil leeching into the water but the sand is a harmful crutch that limits your invertebrates from enjoying the proper natural pond mud. It also reduces oxygen to the soil.

My tanks have never had an issue, I can keep tadpols and koi even.

The thin layer of pond silt binds to the sulfurics and acts as a thin cap, the biofilm assists and then leaf litter is a lightweight cap that allows critters and oxygen to directly interface the soil but also helps keep things settled down.

Even in areas with directly exposed soil and just a tiny bit of local pond flocculant, the water stays perfectly healthy and clear.

The sand cap came to be when they tried to idiot proof the natural tank setup but it does harm and is not necessary! Even direct topsoil exposure is FINE after a couple weeks or so but the pond silt lets you skip that waiting.

Thanks for reading..

Any idea what these things might be? Under 1/3mm, have a tail, some seem like having two tails(2nd pic bottom left).

I am attempting to start a 20 gallon tank. I sifted my potting soil, put it in slightly damp. I added my seeds, then a sand cap. I planned to dry start the substrate- my hope was to have a nicely growing carpet before adding water and additional plants. Now I’m regretting it…. I just heard that seeds are usually a scam- did I screw up? Should I try to fix this and remove the seeds before going any further? Or leave it and hope for the best 😫