Walstad Aquarium - 1 Year Later.

Its been almost 1 year now with the new aquarium setup. And things have now got stabilized with lush green growth every where. I am now actually getting bored to update this blog because there is nothing interesting happening. Everything is going just going smooth, touchwood!!

No Masive Algae problems!! No browning of glass due to Brown Algae!!

I need to rethink whats next. Here are a few things I am planning to consider:

1. No Algae Regime: Increase the 10% water change from monthly to weekly basis. The objective is to get rid of all the minute growth of Brown Algae. I am not sure if its worth the effort.

2. Re-design a new Automatic Fish Food Feeder: Here I am planning to get hands dirty with low level electronic ICs, stepper motors/relays and things like that.

Anyway here are the pics:

Walstad Aquarium - Full View.

Note: Around 5 Amazon Sword Plants have been added. they have added filled the vacuum at various places.

Aquarium - Center View.

Aquarium - Left Hand Side View.

Aquarium - Right Hand Side View.

9 - Months - Progression Gallery.

Its 9 months now since the new setup was performed during Sep 2012.

Here are some pics:

Sep-2012: Initial Setup. 

Jan-2013: Not so encouraging Setup. :(

Jul-2013: Lush Growth. :)

Updates:
1. Added 3 new Angels fishes (Qty-4) a few days back.
2. Added Red Tail Sharks (Qty-7) around 2 months back. 
3. Added Crypt (Qty-1) around 2-weeks back and they are doing really great. I am impressed with their growth.
4. Also added Bacopa, But not that impressive growth.
5. Java Fern is still stagnating. I have ran out of ideas now. :(
6. Dead Fishes: Some Angels, Neon Rainbow, Serpae Tetra. :(

Aquarium Center.

The Lawn.

Left Side.

Left Side.

Right Side.

My Learnings:

1. Its all about CO2: CO2 (Carbon dioxide) is the most deficient nutrient for most Walstad style (Low-Tech) Natural Planted Aquarium. My 3 months results were not that encouraging. Adding lots of plants in the initial setup could have solved my problem. But since there wasn't too much many of aquatic plants, I had a tough time bringing up this aquarium.

Just 3 months back I have started Glut dosing and I am happy with the results. I was able to multiply my plants in no time.

2. Control the Algae: I had a hard time trying to control the deaded Brown Algae. But Glut dosing ans monthly siphoning of 15% water has brought things in control. 

Also the filter (running for 5 hrs Daily [overnight]) also is helping.

I am expecting that my lush green growth of aquatic plants will help me to get to a state of almost no algae.

Walstad Aquarium - 6 Months Later.

Highlights:

- Zero Maintainence Aquarium Setup - 2 months and still running.
- No water changes was performed for last 2 months. Only evaporated water was topped up.

- Decision for a Partial Tear-Down of Aquarium was taken up for the following reasons: 

• Signs of Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S) toxicity was affecting the slow-growers drastically.     
• Fine Bio-film/Brown Algae growth on aquarium glass, obstructing the view.

Walstad Setup Before Pruning - Full View.

Walstad Setup Before Pruning - Center View.

Walstad Setup Before Pruning - Right View.

Walstad Setup Before Pruning - Lawn View.

Walstad Aquarium - 10 Weeks Later.

Highlights:
- No water change was performed for last 3-weeks. 20% water change was performed after pruning.
- Major pruning performed and cutting were propagated. 
- New leaves sprouted on Pygmy Grass. But no new offshoots in Pygmy Grass after pruning.

- New slow growing plants do not show much improvement.

- Brown Algae had increased a lot.

- After water change, the Aquarium was dosed with Potassium Sulphate.

Walstad Setup Before Pruning - Full View.

Walstad Setup After Pruning - Full View.

Walstad Setup Before Pruning - Center View.

Walstad Setup After Pruning - Center View.

Walstad Setup - Lawn.

Lush Green Lawn - Another 2 months Away - Part 2.

Aquarium Progression for Last 1.5 months.

Aquarium Setup Initial Setup (1.5 Months Ago).

Aquarium Setup (1 Month Later After Initial Setup ).

Aquarium Setup Current(1.5 Month After Initial Setup).

1.5 Months has passed, waiting for some Lush green grass. I will be covering the Lawn status in a short while. Before that lets go through some highlights:


1. If you are wondering how come there is lush green growth in last 2 weeks on the left hand side of the aquarium. Well the credit goes to Baking Soda (Sodium bi-carbonate). 1-small spoon of baking soda was added for last two week(every Friday) to provide bi-carbonates to the plants and that seems to be working great. 


Good growth was seen across all aquatic plants when Baking soda was added each week. This is significantly seen on on the Left Hand side of the tank.


2. For inital 1 month weekly water changes of 15% was being carried. But still diatoms started showing up. If you are wondering how did I remove the brown algae (diatoms) in last 2-weeks. Then answer is "sucker fish". I bought a sucker fish and its does a great job of cleaning my fish tank. Just see the difference in the leaves in last 2 weeks.   


3. Three new aquatic plants species have been added


a. Ambolia: This is certainly the best looking plant in my aquarium. All credit goes to a office colleague Sohan for sharing a few stems of Ambolia Plant.

Ambolia

b. Parrot feather & Water Lettuce:


The two stems, almost touching the water are Parrot Feather Plant. These have been trimmed by my Rosy Barbs but still the plant is sturdy and is doing great. 


The root like structure floating on the left top corner are the roots of water Lettuce. These are floating plants and have a aerial advantage and are doing okay. The roots are being trimmed by Rosy Barbs when they are hungry and don't have any food around.

Parrot Feather and Water Lettuce.

Lush Green Lawn

1.5 Month has passed by and even though all the other aquatic plants are doing good, Grass doesn't seems to be showing similar growth trajectory.


Cobra grass is almost dead. Micro swords are growing new leaves but no new offshoots like it did the last time. I have added some chemical Fertilizer(after 1.5 month of Walstad Setup) and have also trimmed the grass. Trimming encourages growth (spawning runners) according to most forums.


Hair grass are new additions (2-weeks back) but they also are not doing great. Lets wait and watch, I expect some new runners in micro swords in next two weeks.

Aquatic Lawn 2-Weeks Back. (1-Month After Initial Setup).

Aquatic Lawn Current (1.5 Month After Initial Setup).

Lush Green Lawn - Another 2 months Away - Part 1.

My Aquarium was in a terrible state with outburst of Brown Algae (Diatoms). I am quite sure this was due to chemical fertilizer I was using during the frequent water changes last month. Diatoms had covered up all my plants.

I was able to clean up the diatoms on the Amazon Sword and Vallis with some cotton wool. Cobamba were the most affected. I need to uproot them for a quick clean under running water. I cannot use a cotton wool here. :)

The Aquatic Grass also was also in a bad shape.

So I finally decided to tear down and rebuilt the whole Walstad Aquarium setup.

Here are a few points that were kept in mind:

1. Last time, Aquatic grass lawn was not in scope. Also since it was my first time(for Walstad Setup), I had kept a the gardening area small for the aquatic plants.
This time I wanted to create are large space for the aquatic garden.

2. After going through some aquascaping articles, I came across some tips for making aquascaping, a bit more beautiful.

• Use the 'Golden Ration'/'Rule of Thirds':
To get a smooth aquascape you need to set one or at maximum two focal points. This is usually something that pleases your eye. This is where the golden ratio comes in. Do not place your best plant (your focal point) in the middle. Place it at 1:1.618 ratio.
• Create Apparent Depth via plant ordering: To create depth you need to arrange the plants in ascending order of their height. Place the shortest plant at the front and the tallest at the back.
• Create Depth via with gravel levelling: Another way of creating depth is to level the gravel in a slope. The gravel at the back should be at a higher level and the gravel at the front should be at a lower level. Keeping the gravel flat decreases the apparent depth. Levelling the gravel in a slop from the backside to the front enhances the apparent depth.

Here is the new layout of my Walstad Aquarium.

There are two gardening Areas. The Right Upper corner one is for Vallis (Tall Grass). Its a bit more deeper since Vallis roots go a bit deeper in the dirt/soil. The front one is for the Lawn and the other plants. The Right Lower corner has been kept empty.

I have placed a marble stone aligned with the front glass. This was done for two reasons:

1. If the dirt/soil (under water) is exposed to sunlight it tends to ooze out more iron into the water which will leads to algae outburst.
2. This will make sure that the grass does not spread, touching the front glass. This will provide me space to clean up the front glass without disturbing any plant.

I missed the similar setup on the right upper corner area.

Cycling:
For cycling my aquarium, I kept some dirt water from the filter sponge. Other ornamental objects (Stones, shells, etc) were not cleaned thoroughly so that the useful bacteria do not die.  All these objects very kept submerged in the same dirty water. While moving them to the new setup, they were just rinsed in running de-chlorinated tap water. This way the tank cycling takes 2-3 days.

During the tear down, I was surprised to see the new runners coming out of Microsword grass. Almost 50% of the Microsword had started growing new runners. It seems that  Microsword grass takes around 3-4 weeks of stabilizing/assimilating time and then it starts to sprout new runners. So I am quite sure that in next 2 months I should be having my Lush Green Aquatic Lawn. :)

Cobra grass didnt seem to show any signs of growth. :( 

Old Setup.

New Setup

New Setup without the House.

The above setup without the house seems to provide more depth to the aquarium because the red stone provides a sloping level from the back to the front.  

Some live Shrimps, Siamese Algae eaters are on the way from  www.MakeMyhobby.com. They should arrive in another 2-3 weeks. I hope they stay alive before I get hold of them.