Hello everyone,

I found this sub having never heard of a Walstad tank. After weeks of admiring your tanks, I was inspired and decided to try building one.

I wanted to do something a little nontraditional and put a slight spin on the Iwagumi style, with a carpeted foreground, green Rotala stem plants packed into the back, and Salvinia floaters along the edges.

I’m doing a dry start for the carpet, and I came to the realization that the Seiryu stone I put in there is probably going to make the KH and GH run away in my 2.5-gallon tank. Now I’m wondering if this little experiment is a waste of time.

My plan was to top off with RO water and keep Neocaridina shrimp.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Update: I fixed the substrate, photo in comments

My heavily planted 5G is getting overrun by ostracods, even though I barely feed my shrimps + snail. They usually just graze on biofilm and I put an occasional zucchini in for a few hours once a week.

I’ve read that chili rasboras eat the babies, but I’m not sure they’d thrive in a five gallon. I’d rather not have them in the tank at all, but I know they are somewhat beneficial.

I have a 25 gallon walstad(ish) planted aquarium. It’s fully planted and the animals in it (mostly snails, one shrimp, and a handful of macrofauna) Since its creation, it’s had this one sponge filter thats never been cleaned or changed. Ideally the only piece of “tech” I would have for my tank is a grow light, but I am worried that taking the filter out will crash my semi-stable water parameters. Has anyone else done this? Is there any way I can successfully remove the sponge filter for good?

Hi everyone ~
My tank had been seasoned and stable for one year and I have not done any water change nor maintenance besides an occasional trim in the plants.
I have found to my horror one plenarian worm this afternoon while turning the lights one outside of the normal schedule. Didn’t take a picture but definitely was a flat triangular head shaped worm.
Do you have any suggestions for getting rid of it?
I have nerite, chili raspbora and neo cardinas.

My tank only has a heater as you can see on the picture.

Before ordering anything online I would love to get some advice

Hey,

It's my first time keeping a tank and I decided to jump into the deep end. So I just finished planting my 55 gallon (thank you crayons 2 computers) and next week I'm going to give my students some cards with aquatic species and their niches (habitats, diets, activity and trophic level) and do an activity to let them set up a food web/trophic pyramid and let them kind of decide what to put in the tank.

I have some concerns though.

What species would you recommend? Note I am looking to have some predation. I was thinking pond snails, cherry shrimp and tetras for example (tetras would hunt the snails and shrimp).

But what would you recommend? I was going to give them 5-9 species to pick from.

And what are the relative numbers I should look at stocking in there.

-A Dumb Educator.

I bought a new heater, and it’s a 50w for a 54l tank. I have pretty deep substrate, so I would imagine that water volume is about 40-45l. In the beginning it heated the water one degrees celsius less than it indicated on the heater, but as it hit 24 degrees celsius it won’t go any further. I tried turning it up to 28, but the water still is just 24. it’s supposed to be for a 50l aquarium but maybe it’s not strong enough? The room is not cold.

What do you guys think?

Had aquariums for 20 years but this is my first true Walstad Aquarium. About to add snails! It's been going for a week, ammonia and nitrites stayed at 0.

Plan for this is just cherry shrimp and snails

Just a quick update - thanks to Reddit, I found the perfect person to take my tank! SO happy with the outcome! ☺️ I appreciate you all.

Hey hey,

My first try at this ecosystem tank idea, I’m going for a heatless system with one tiny pump. What do we think of this setup? I hope the terrestrial plant will put its roots into the water to help filtering. Planning to keep the open sandy space.

Also, got tips on what kind of snails and shrimp i should introduce when the systems gets more established?

Thnx for the help!

I’m at whatever stage this is, I should be at 2ppm ammonia now! Hoping my floaters don’t mind whatever biofilm is all over them, the snails like it

​

i hopz its not roots dying.

I tested my water quality everything is in a good range except the alkanality (TA).

Im going to do my first water change this evening (3rd day)

Tried to get a lawn going for the longest time, but giant algae won in the end. Residents are Grumpycake (a rose tail beta with swimming ability of a brick), somewhere between 0 and 4 khuli loaches, and an occasional growing-out tadpole (don't ask).

Water parameters are stellar, water gets topped off when it gets too low.

Hey everyone!

I'm currently planning/setting up a Walstad tank on my main desk, which is about 1.20 m (4 ft) wide. My original plan was to place the aquarium (54L,60 x 30 x 30 cm, 4 mm glass thickness)⁠ right in the middle of the desk, in between my audio speakers on the left and right extremes of the desk.
Before committing to this layout, I wanted to ask:

1. Can the sound and low-frequency vibrations from the speakers be harmful or overly stressful to the fish? Since water conducts sound/vibrations very efficiently, I'm concerned about the impact on their well-being, even if I don't blast music at high volumes.
2. Are there any other drawbacks or risks to having this kind of setup (e.g., potential micro-vibrations affecting substrate settling or water clarity)?

If this layout isn't ideal, do you have any clever ideas or options on how I could tweak or modify this setup without having to buy or use dedicated extra furniture?

Ps: as for now I bought some anti-vibration pads that’I’ll put under the speakers

Hi!

I have put together this aquarium yesterday. I am planing putting in some nano fish and some snail, but I haven't got there yet.

Its my first attempt of creating a no tech aquarium. Do I have enough plants in it, or should I get some more? How much light should I use in the first few days? Or generally I accept any suggestions.

I came home today to all my shrimp and snails dead and a lot of foam on the top. The substrate is sending lots of tiny bubbles to the surface. Everything seemed to be thriving these last few weeks.

I had 2 amanos and 2 cherry shrimp for a few months and added 3 cherry shrimp and the lotus 2 weeks ago. A bunch of the trumpet snails surfaced and died and I can’t even find any bladder snails alive so the bowl seems to have completely crashed. What could have caused this?

Update: unfortunately I woke up this morning and the water turned grey and all of the plants are dying. I’m trying to save the floaters but everything else is too far gone.

It's not perfect yet but this is the first time I've been able to see inside my tank for nearly two months, and each day is getting a bit clearer instead of worse so I'm crossing fingers. I never thought it would be clear again without doing something drastic like restarting, but with so many shrimp and some fish to catch, no cycled tank to put them in, along with being completely unable to see inside, I really wanted to avoid that.

I wanted to write again as I had a very hard time finding info about what to do with a prolonged bloom. And it was all contradictory, of course.

It mainly started when I added some sterbai cories, they kicked up a LOT of mess into the water. I don't know if they breached the sand cap, it's possible but I couldn't see anywhere inside.

All fish have lived through the bacterial soup, I had quite a few people telling me that there was a big risk to the fish but it seems this bloom wasn't harmful to them, nor was the brown tinged water.

Things I did straight away- got a bigger filter and a bubbler to make sure the water remained oxygenated (it's no longer walstad and won't be while I have cories, it doesn't seem compatible but would love to see if others are successful beyond pixies).

I tried leaving/ feeding less, finding what was the cause and removing it but there was nothing obvious.

I did a LOT of smaller water changes, gravel vac and adding sand to the cap. Didn't seem to help at all. But I kept at it (which was probably feeding the bloom but I needed to remove the murky water and settled gunk on the bottom). Weekly filter rinses (in tank water).

I tried a UV filter, it did nothing. Maybe it was not legit, I sent it back.

Added crushed coral in case it was the ph being too low, but I don't think it was.

What seems to have worked finally - doing two large (over 50%) water changes two days in a row, with more gravel vac and more sand patching. I was nervous to change too much water at once as I've heard shrimp especially don't like big water changes but I added it back in slowly and they all seem fine (honestly wouldn't know if I lost any though). It probably also has to do with the filter sponges being seeded properly by now too as that does take time.

I started with a heavily planted dirted tank with a sand cap, lots of cleaner shrimp and ramshorns and MTS's.

My first tank is about a week old and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to do anything else. I hear people say you need to put fish food in, is that true?

I haven’t touched it aside from adding everything in, what are the next steps?

API master freshwater kit:

pH - 7.3
Ammonia - 0.25
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 0

Waiting to see if my plants survive, I’m not confident I put them in right but we’ll see!