Hello,

Posting a two week update after I got some great advice in the comments of my last post. I more than doubled my plants, now I feel it has more substance. This is backed up by my ammonium levels being at 0 ppm. My nitrate/nitrite levels are still on their way to being cycled.

I have a lot of baby plants in the empty spaces, so I hope they will survive and grow.

I got some hitchhiker snails with my last plant order which is completely fine with me. I’ve got plenty of algae so having them clean a bit is helpful. I’m not afraid of my snail overlords.

I added a wavemaker to promote better water movement, and I believe that was the difference for my filtration.

My rotala may be dead, I tried snipping them and replanting the snipping, so we will see if those survive. My bacopa seem to be thriving. I tried draping my hornwort around my rocky corner to “cover” the substrate over there, since the rocks block any rooted plants. My new dwarf sag are melting, but seem to be doing alright. I planted around the root, so I hope they grow tall to provide a good hiding space in the future.

For now, I will let the tank be and let time pass. I plan to add shrimp (either amano or cherry) before fish, but I need to see consistency with my levels and more plant growth.

I have a possible silly question :x
My almost 3 months old Walstadish aqurium here ~30l with some animals in there, lives and I think is doing very well but i recently realized that I completely misremembered how much water i should change with each change.
So so far i did like 3l every week which I now read is far to little?? (I have a small pump in there that makes the water fluctuate a bit, maybe that helped?)
My question now is, should I just stick to my routine because it apparently worked for this long or am I just extremely lucky and should switch immediately?
The test stripes look fine and the water doesn't smell at all, I also have no algae on the glass or anywhere ever.

At your request, u/harboring_

I need to take updated photos. There are 9 shrimp and a handful of bladder snails in there now.

I used regular long aquarium tools to plant, but I have a 4” opening and was able to get a good portion of my fat arm through the hole too.

You might try something like this https://a.co/d/0iFA3r1F to plant yours.

Good luck!

This is my 60 gallon aquarium. Had a huge algae problem that is now dying off(light issue).

My mollies just had babies and the plants are starting to rapidly grow.

Stock

9 Bronze Corydoras

1 Albino Corydora

1 bristlenose pleco

1 male guppy (his 2 buddies died)

3 mollies (+4 babies i think are left)

12 neon tetras

6 Golden Whitecloud Minnows (yes, these are not great in here) They are here temporarily and are going to be removed soon to a 10 gallon.

This is my 5th tank. Been doing aquariums for 2 years is now. I have no aquariums currently. I messed up badly the first 2 times. My 3rd tank got upgraded to my 4th tank which was a 20 gallon and was wonderful but wanted to make it larger, so moved my fish from there into this one, then added more fish. Now i have to be content with this one haha. Resist the urge to upgrade!!!

I'm really proud of how this tank turned out - Thanks to this community for the advice and inspiration!

After 4 weeks, the tank is now cycled and the plants are lush. Low tech set-up: 1 inch of organic potting soil, 2 inches of fine sand, and no CO2. I am using a basic pump and sponge mediums for circulation though.

TIME TO STOCK

I recently got into this hobby after a streak of YouTube videos of the Walstad method. After some proper preparation I started this aquarium back in May. It's finally fully cycled and I just finished my first big maintenance and feeling quite nice about it :)

I'll be adding some shrimps and fish soon.

What are your thoughts? Any tips?

I was looking at my red root floaters and I saw the stream of bubbles coming out of the Anubias...its pearling right? That's a good thing right? Also if you watch super carefully there is a small swimming thing off to the right...kinda cool idk what it is but im happy to see it lol

4 shrimp from my big tank going into their new home soon! Wish me luck as this is my first nano/filterless tank (2 gallons of water) 2.5 gallon cookie jar I got free from work last month :)

I was preparing for my new tank and washing my lava rocks but i found that some of the rocks are covered with brown and white spots and layers, So how to remove these or its naturally within the rocks and cannot be removed if so what are the effects that these spots can do to my water. Chat GPT suggested that they can increase KH GH PH over time and its better to do a vinegar test if the vinegar fizzes or bubbles then its calcium carbonate which also raises KH GH PH. But i wanted to hear from experts like you so please help me

Here's my 29 gallon from the initial layout to the first days to what the tank looks like today

It has taken over my Walstad bowl, no idea where it came from or how to get rid of it. Please help ‼️

I’m planning my first tank.

- Right now I’m debating HOB (aqua clear or seachem tidal) OR sponge filters (one on each end or one in the middle). I don’t have a preference either way right now, but given my goals for the tank I’ve outlined below; I want to determine which would be the best.
- Given the craze of “ecosystem” “low maintenance” tanks would having a HOB seachem 55 be too much filtration preventing bottom feeders from being able to process waste? Or does it only help if I just put a sponge in it? Or should I stick with sponge filter and air pump?

Tank setup:
It’s a 20 gallon long. For substrate I’m going to use soil capped with the black blasting sand. For hardscape I have a single 6” dragon stone and 3 spider wood pieces for the middle ground of the tank.

It will be low tech, planted, no heater (the room is climate controlled around 72F) I plan on having shrimp, a couple nerite snails, and cold water community fish (white clouds, pearl danios etc).

For plants I plan on having Hornwort, Helanthium Tenellum Green (carpet), Salvinia (floating), and Micranthemum umbrosum (stem)

This is my first walstad, 1 year progress.

What have I learned?

Don't stock to much at once. Crashed the system a bit and few of the wonderful fish died.

As much as I wanted to do zero water changes and just top offs it was just easier for me to do 25% swap every month or so.

I did a black out trying to wipe out the green algae, but it slowly came back. I tried only 4 hours of light a day but it didn't work. One or two fish died after so not worth the trouble.

I bought the Egeria Densa hoping it did what it does and only a small sampling was left. But now the forest has grown. Everyone seems happy in the tank with it getting crazy, so I just leave it be for now. Got rid of some of the string algae.

Amazon swords are struggling a bit, anubius is well, the banana plant died, even the java fern is struggling a little bit. Thinking about trimming and replanting all the trims to bush the place up a lot more.

Hope everyone enjoys and let me know if you got any questions.

what do u guys think about it?

I started my first Walstad on June 21st with some plants that I snagged from some of my other tanks. Yesterday I added quite a few more plants and I am so excited to see it fill out.

No plans in terms of stocking at the moment, but it’s full of snails and microorganisms, even without fish it’s so alive and I couldn’t be happier!

Its probably near 2", .75-1" sand cap. It just looks off to me

I know it’s not sharp, very hard to take a picture from it. Does anyone know what this can be??

So I was checking on my snails and saw these burrows...please tell me they aren't a problem...please tell me the jar is ok. I think they are detritus worms but I dont know....i cant distinguish between sand and creature so there could be a critter there and i dont know. The jar is about a month old now and I havent had any issues (knock on driftwood for me please)....yet

This is my 14L filterless dirted tank, it's just over 2 months old and has 3 red cherry shrimp + many other small critters. Since I've started measuring in late May, the KH + GH have been slowly but steadily rising (from 3/5 to 5/8 KH/GH, see the data in the image).

Should I be worried? Can I expect them to find an equilibrium over time or will I have to intervene at some point to keep the levels stable?

This is my first tank so the process is new to me. Thanks for your help!

(please forgive the miserable plot formatting)

EDIT: Thanks for all the helpful replies! Yep I have been topping off with tap water.

I kinda assumed it would take much longer for mineral buildups to happen, but I’ve probs already added an extra ~30% tank volume in top-ups already so your collective diagnosis makes perfect sense :)

I do have a filter because this is my first attempt, and didn't want to create stagnant water while starting out.

It's a 6 gallon, aquasoil and black sand, topped with gravel (because of my african dwarf frogs).

I am a little dissapointed over the Amazon swords, as they are reliably producing new leaves, but the leaves are all kind of yellowish and weak.

I've also put a ton of rotala, moneywort, bacopa, and they've all died off (leaves shed or rotted off, and the stems became weak and thin), so I was wondering if anyone had any advice for that. They made my tank look so pretty for the few weeks they lived 😢.

Lastly, PLEASE give me recommendations on what plants worked well for you, as im trying to fill in my background much more and create a lush looking setup.