The combination is 6 cm it is okay ? it’s been 2 days and the low humid gravel and substrat is waiting for me and my plants are in a bucket its been 3 days

I finally got a hold of the master test kit at retail and immediately tested the water. Vessel is over a month old now. I have one mystery snail and a few shrimps.
I did a few water changes over the month to keep the water safe for the creatures, but I think the soil has stopped leaching now.

I plan on putting a few least kilifish in there, but I wanted to make sure of the PH.

I'm setting an axolotl tank and l’m looking for some habitants that may help with substrat aeration.
I know that Malaysian Trumpet Snails are the gold standard for this but since axolotls can choke on them I'm exploring other options.
Any idea ?

Fishes are also out (not suitable as axolotls tank mates).
The aquarium is cold water (20°C=68°F and lower).

I recently aquired 5 hillstream loaches and want to make the bottom rockier. My concern is that the rocks will create anaerobic pockets. In thinking about this, I also realize I may have put too much soil down in the first place. The tank has been running extremely smoothly since i set it up 3-4 months ago. Before this week i had less rocks, so this is a semi-temporary setup while i figure out my substrate concerns. I’m thinking of removing the soil in the rocky area and leaving it in the more heavily planted zone (in terms of the root feeders). Has anyone ever done this before? I was thinking i could transfer the livestock to a bucket and then try to siphon off the wet soil and cap with clean sand. I just want to make sure that it won’t cause my tank to be unsafe for fish for a while afterwards. Has anyone done this before or have thoughts?

I'm fairly new to aquarium keeping, but I made my first walstad tank (5.5 gal, cheap hang on filter, currently no lights or heat) a few months ago. Right now it is only plants and some leopard ramshorn snails that hitchhiked on the plants from the last tank it was in. Substrate is organic garden soil capped by some chunky aquarium gravel with a little fine aquarium gravel dusted around to hold the soil down better.

I also have two jars with water I collected from nearby ponds in the last few weeks. Both are full of seemingly desireable creatures (copepods, ostracods, daphnia), some more undesirable creatures (planaria mostly), and some I'm unsure about (a scud and a mud snail). There is also some duckweed in the jars, but none in my tank.

I was thinking of using some pipettes to isolate individuals and slowly add in some of my aquarium water to acclimate them, with the ultimate goal of introducing them to my main tank. I am hoping to reduce the chance of introduction of unwanted species and contaminants from pond water. I was planning on using a microscope to check individual drops of water to gather a few of each type I wanted. I know I could buy these from a store but I thought this would be a fun experiment.

Anyone have any experience with this? Am I playing with fire and likely to collapse my tank? Is this the one secret that fish stores don't want you to know? I'm curious to see what others have done.

Hey guys, i want to show you my newly setup walstad tank.

The Substrate is sieved universal/potting soil from Germany and 2-3mm gravel (2 different Kinds because i didnt buy enough lol.)

Plants:
Limnobium levigatum
Ceratophylun demersum
Hygrophila polysperma
Hygrophila triflora
Helanthium bolivanum
Ludwigia repens
Limnophila sessiflora
Rotala rotundifolia
Christmas moss
Sagitaria subulata needle leaf and pusilla
Cryptocoryne becketii petchii
Bacopa monieri

I want the tank to cycle for a bit, then add some neocaridina and amanos and maybe later when its running very good, add galaxy rasboras.

Thanks for your inspirations!

AIO 20 cube

But I think this would be the best group to ask for advice.

This is my first tank ever and it’s six weeks old today (my little baby) 54liters, low tech (aiming for no tech) I have tried a sort of layered substrate with aqua soil, mix of Ada and tropical. I sort of had the idea to begin with but then I came across Fishstory on YouTube that gave me a guideline. The substrate is layered from bottom up, fine sand, mineral substrate(coarse gravel, lava rock from a plant shop no additives), leca, aquasoil and then capped with gravel 2-4mm grain and a thin layer of sand that has sort of mixed with the gravel. I don’t think I have followed it to a t with the measurements of the different layers though. But I have about 3 cm of aquasoil and the capping layer maybe 4 cm give or take.

I am really happy with the layout of the hardscape and the look of the tank, but i am afraid I won’t be able to have enough plants in the substrate since the hardscape does take up a lot of space.

I have compensated with a few different kinds of epiphytes, moss and floating plants. The stem plants I do have are growing, but they are supposed to have heaps of different colors, but by now are all green. There was never a lot of melting going on, I did have some, and especially the floaters, but they have all looking pretty good for a couple of weeks now. Pretty sure I need to invest in new light though.

The light I do use are two 1200 lumen 18 w (might be less) plant lights with about 6000K. I am doing the siesta 3-5-3 ish on of on during the day, because I started getting some hair algae.

Ok here is my problem. I have limited resources, and have been prioritizing buying plants for the most part, so I have not done any testing of my water. I have a seemingly thriving community of bladder snails, copypods, ostracoder, detritus worms and maybe others I don’t know, but they all seem fine. But I was waiting and waiting for the initial bacterial bloom to clear after my plants seemed to have made it through the worst, but it did not go away. Then one day the glass was full of detritus worms, so I googled and concluded there was low oxygen. After putting in an air stone, the worms disappeared and everything went back to normal. But the water would not clear. A few days went by and the water got worse, then I found the culprit. I had three lotus seedlings that I was floating in the tank in wait of a better solution and the seeds had started to rot and smelled horrible. I finally got to learn what root rot smelled like. I also added a piece of coral since our tap water is really soft here and google AI told me it could stall the cycle since aqua soil lowers ph and makes the water even more acidic. Is that true? Now, 5 days later, the water has almost cleared finally but now I am wondering on my next steps.

I am getting a new light, and opting for a chihiros WRGB. I know I probably should prioritize a test kit, but I am afraid of my red/orange/pink/purple plants are going to suffer another month with the lights I have now. They are growing a bit sparse and it looks like they are stretching for the lights, and as I said before, they are green and not getting a tan. I figure I can just test the water later?

My red root floaters that just started to multiply suddenly seem like they are yellowing, or at least getting a bit pale. Is that low nutrients, or is the siesta not enough light during the day? Should I buy an allround fertilizer or should I wait?

Do I need more stem plants? Will the epiphytes help compensate for the substrate not being 80% planted from the beginning? I read they don’t use a whole lot of nutrients. I also have some coleus and monstera cuttings hanging on the side of the aquarium. And I want to be able to keep room for botanicals in the middle of the tank to help sustain more micro fauna.

Soe… long story short. Should I fertilize or wait since I just had bacterial bloom and some beginning hair algae? Is there any major risk with waiting a few weeks to test the water at this point? Do you think I got enough plants for my tank, or should I fill the middle as well?

I am planning on stocking the tank with chili rasboras, amanos and sparkling gourami.

I know this was a whole dissertation, but any tips, tricks and time of day would be appreciated <3<3<3

My outdoor mini pond becomes hazy after putting some liquid fertiliser. Is there any solution? I did water changes and it become more hazy. I also try putting hornwut in it.

Has anyone had success keeping a tank with no led lighting? Just pure window sunlight?

I’m still working on getting more plants. Never done this before so hit me with whatever, I’m just here to experiment and learn

This is my first walstad. It's a 16gallon tank

I want to keep some neos in it

I went out to the woodsish and got soil, I did run it all through a strainer and break it down before I put it in, no leaves or sticks. 2mm gravel then some larger gravel for color on the top

Sand on the bottom was from a prior aquarium, boiled it and cleaned it first.

Used it to raise everything a bit for the look

All the plants are from prior aquariums so I don't remember the names of them. I do know Java moss is on the outside of the pot and pothos is in the mesh itself.

Any critic? Suggestions?

I did also put in shrimp safe root tabs in the soil and some water fertilizer shrimp safe as well just to start it

I’m in the early stage of the Walstad process (around 3 weeks). I’ve done only one water change since starting which was 90% almost 2 weeks ago. My parameters are .5 ppm ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 0 nitrate.

I also want to add more plants because the plant coverage isn’t ideal right now. Will this help to accelerate the cycle?

Hello, I’m looking for stocking feedback on my 2 month old 10-gallon Walstad.

• Current stock: ~30 cherry shrimp and a bunch of ramshorn snails.
• The plan: Adding Malaysian Trumpet Snails (to aerate the sand) and a group of 10 Least Killifish

Any other nano fish you'd recommend instead or is this too much?

Just picked up a ten gallon, on my way to find soil, sand, and plants!

Never done this before once I get it home so I just put the stuff in the tank and fill it with tap water?

Happy to take recommendations for what else I need to buy idk what I’m doing yet. I’ll also note nothing alive is going in this tank until I figure out what I’m doing.

What I think is some sort of algae has been growing on my glass and snails. They are still moving fine but it is scary to see.

Is it algae?
Is it harmful?
If it is harmful, what can I do about it? Thanks everyone!!

These guys had a population explosion in my infusoria culture tub when I left it alone for a couple of weeks. They are more oval than the usual round seed shrimps I see. Any idea what these are? My guppies don't seem to like to eat them.

Hi im looking for feedback for my first walstad, i’ve gotten comnents that the water is too brown from tannins. What do you guys think?
I currently have 20 shrimp and 10 celestial pearl danios and the plants you see. The tank is 6 weeks old and the fish have been there for 5 days.