90 days without a biofilter

[Dave Millman]

I've been experimenting with different methods of CO2 injection. About
120 days ago, I began using a cannister filter. I took all the standard
precautions to preserve the biofiltration: preseeded it with mulm and
old filter material, ran the old and new filters concurrently, etc.

But I wasn't satisfied with the mechanical filtration. Then I remembered
the occasional advice on this list that biofiltration is just not
necessary in a plant tank. So over a week, I removed all the old media.
The tank has had no external biofiltration for 90 days at this point.
Yes, I know that any mulm sucked into the mechanical filter performs
biofiltration, but I am doing nothing to preserve the bacteria colonies
in the filter. Instead I am loading it for mechanical filtration and
completely changing media whenever necessary.

I suppose I should have tested ammonia and nitrite levels, but I haven't
tested those in a year and the reagents are probably bad anyway. But the
plants are thriving, and fish seem happy (that could be due to the fact
that half their diet is now live Grindle worms, but that's another
story.)

My question:

Given that biofiltration is now exclusively performed by plants and
in-tank bacteria, what should I be careful of? I try not to disturb the
gravel unnecessarily, and scrape only the front glass. The tank is
heavily planted, with a nice carpet of dwarf hairgrass filling in. I
haven't vacuumed in 14 months.

Thanks!

[Frank Mamone]

The way I understand it, whatever media you're using for your mechanical
filtration will be performing your biofiltering anyways. Unless of course
deliberately kill the bacterial colonies when you clean the filters on a
fairly regular basis.




"Dave Millman" > wrote in message
...
> I've been experimenting with different methods of CO2 injection. About
> 120 days ago, I began using a cannister filter. I took all the standard
> precautions to preserve the biofiltration: preseeded it with mulm and
> old filter material, ran the old and new filters concurrently, etc.
>
> But I wasn't satisfied with the mechanical filtration. Then I remembered
> the occasional advice on this list that biofiltration is just not
> necessary in a plant tank. So over a week, I removed all the old media.
> The tank has had no external biofiltration for 90 days at this point.
> Yes, I know that any mulm sucked into the mechanical filter performs
> biofiltration, but I am doing nothing to preserve the bacteria colonies
> in the filter. Instead I am loading it for mechanical filtration and
> completely changing media whenever necessary.
>
> I suppose I should have tested ammonia and nitrite levels, but I haven't
> tested those in a year and the reagents are probably bad anyway. But the
> plants are thriving, and fish seem happy (that could be due to the fact
> that half their diet is now live Grindle worms, but that's another
> story.)
>
> My question:
>
> Given that biofiltration is now exclusively performed by plants and
> in-tank bacteria, what should I be careful of? I try not to disturb the
> gravel unnecessarily, and scrape only the front glass. The tank is
> heavily planted, with a nice carpet of dwarf hairgrass filling in. I
> haven't vacuumed in 14 months.
>
> Thanks!
>

[Sherry Michael Weller]

> > My question:
> >
> > Given that biofiltration is now exclusively performed by plants and
> > in-tank bacteria, what should I be careful of? I try not to disturb the
> > gravel unnecessarily, and scrape only the front glass. The tank is
> > heavily planted, with a nice carpet of dwarf hairgrass filling in. I
> > haven't vacuumed in 14 months.
> >
> > Thanks!

I'm curious, do you have fish in there? What's the load like?

In an established tank, there is good bacteria everywhere. In the gravel
especially.

Funny, I kind of have the opposite view you have. Since having a wet
dry, I've decreased the amount of mechanical filtering and increased the
fish load. I only use a pad to catch the large stuff my filter sucks in.
I do frequently change water, but I hardly ever clean the gravel.

[Dave Millman]

Sherry Michael Weller wrote:

> I'm curious, do you have fish in there? What's the load like?

Umm...high. 8 adult angels, 70 fish total. 30% weekly water changes and a tank
full of plants seem to take care of that, although the Angels have paired up
and are making things uncomfortable for each other. I need to get rid of 4.
Can't keep Nitrates at 10ppm without adding 3/4 tsp KNO3 per week.

> Funny, I kind of have the opposite view you have. Since having a wet
> dry, I've decreased the amount of mechanical filtering and increased the
> fish load. I only use a pad to catch the large stuff my filter sucks in.
> I do frequently change water, but I hardly ever clean the gravel.
>
An established tank is a very forgiving thing!

[LeighMo]

>The tank is
>heavily planted, with a nice carpet of dwarf hairgrass filling in.

Sigh. Do you have any pics?

I love the look of hairgrass, but it won't grow for me. "Difficult" plants
like glosso and Lilaeopsis do, but not hairgraiss, which is supposed to be
easy.


Leigh

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/halloween/881/

[Moontanman]

I have a tank that has been set up for 6 years now with just a airstone. Of
course it has lots of plants. No filter is the way to go for a more natural
aquarium. It takes a little time and skill but anyone can do it.

Moon
remove nospam from e-mail to send to me, I grow trees in aquariums like bonsai.
I breed dwarf crayfish, great for planted community tanks. If you can get me a
shovelnose sturgeon fingerling (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus) no wild caught
please, contact me

[Victor M. Martinez]

Moontanman > wrote:
>I have a tank that has been set up for 6 years now with just a airstone. Of
>course it has lots of plants. No filter is the way to go for a more natural
>aquarium. It takes a little time and skill but anyone can do it.

What about mechanical filtration? You don't have any? What happens to all
the debris from plants, food, etc.?

--
Victor M. Martinez

http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv

[Moontanman]

>What about mechanical filtration? You don't have any? What happens to all
>the debris from plants, food, etc.?

Most of it accumilates on the bottom as detritus which is eaten by the clams,
the ghost shrimp, the dwarf crayfish, and the MTS snails When I do a water
change I siphon up some of the detritus so it never accumilates beyond a
certian point.

Moon
remove nospam from e-mail to send to me, I grow trees in aquariums like bonsai.
I breed dwarf crayfish, great for planted community tanks. If you can get me a
shovelnose sturgeon fingerling (Scaphirhynchus platorynchus) no wild caught
please, contact me

[Dave Millman]

LeighMo wrote:

> >The tank is
> >heavily planted, with a nice carpet of dwarf hairgrass filling in.
>
> Sigh. Do you have any pics?
>
> I love the look of hairgrass, but it won't grow for me. "Difficult" plants
> like glosso and Lilaeopsis do, but not hairgraiss, which is supposed to be
> easy

Leigh,

It is anything but easy. The fiirst two shipments were half dead, but I managed
to pull out maybe 30 blades of living grass and cultivate them. Then I found
some at a fish store in San Francisco. It is slowly spreading, but also slowly
accumulating all the crap, sorry, mulm from the tank. And if there's even one
variety of active algae in the tank, it attaches itself to the blades.
Sometimes I have zero blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) anywhere in the tank
except on a few blades of hairgrass. BBA loves to colonize the tips. In short,
it's a mess.

BTW, the variety I'm referring to is Eleocharis acicularis

[LeighMo]

>It is anything but easy. The fiirst two shipments were half dead, but I
>managed
>to pull out maybe 30 blades of living grass and cultivate them.

I wonder if it's grown emersed, llike microsword? I've tried it twice now, and
both times most of the blades died. Then they grew back, shorter than they
were. But they never really thrived, and eventually just kind of faded away.

>BTW, the variety I'm referring to is Eleocharis acicularis

I tried the acicularis and the parvulus. Neither did very well for me. Didn't
really have an algae problem, though. There wasn't enough of it to collect
mulm or algae. And the shrimp and otos spent a lot of time cleaning it, when I
had it.


Leigh

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/halloween/881/