Fish surgery

Avenolpey

Avenolpey

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Apr 11, 2005
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This is an interesting segment from PBS. The Rainbow fish tank shown is a "Natural Tank" with no filter other than the plants and soil substrate. She only changes the water once a year. It is amazingly clear. Note the exposure to a south facing window and the total lack of algae. So much for not providing sunlight to your tank.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3214/04-rx-flash.html
 
That's one of Diana's tanks--she has a forum on how to set them up and maintain them. They are lovely, but NOT low maintenance. Much higher maintenance than weekly water changes and cleaning a filter.
 
WOW...that was fascinating. I had no ideal that so much could be done medically for fish.
She said that the tank had TB? How scary. How on earth could you maintain a tank with no filtration etc? Wouldn't such a closed environment be detrimental to the fish?
Thanks for sharing the link, very interesting.
 
The plants and bacteria provide the biological filtration, and the plants help with the chemical filtration to some degree. Controlled feeding and healthy plants are critical.
 
Not sure what maintenance you are referring to. She constantly preaches "leave the tank alone", and overfeed for the plants. My tank is set up this way, and I never vac the gravel, and only have to rinse my mechanical sponges and clean the acrylic. That is it! My tank has a heavy fish load and I overfeed. The only thing I am missing is natural light from the back of the tank. Unfortunately my current tank has a black back.
 
I'm not a fan of no water changes... there is no natural place in the wild for fish that doesn't recieve regular water over-turns... whether there are plants or not.



I know I'm going to get flamed, but I liken this to the bottle of crap at the petstore that says "REDUCES NEED FOR REGULAR WATER CHANGES." I personally think it's an excuse for less work, but that's just my 2 cents.
 
Providing all the feeding for the plants is way higher maintenance in my opinion. Dosing lots is more work.
 
The only plant feeding is fish food. Not fertz. The fish food feeds the plants and maintains the bacteria in the soil. As the soil decays and the bacteria consume, you get CO2. Diana's book is "Ecology of the Planted Tank." She approaches everything from a science perspective versus traditional myths and speculation.

http://www.bookmasters.com/bookmark/archives/spotlightjan03.htm
http://www.tropica.dk/article_fullscreen.asp?type=aquaristic&id=315
http://www.atlasbooks.com/marktplc/rr00388.htm
 
But you still need other trace minerals, right? It's been a few years since I looked into her stuff...
 
Nope, unless you are re-constituting RO water, original or change water only. If you have specific deficiencies you can adjust. Maybe you need some iron etc... But this is low maintenance. Sure, if you inject Co2 your plants will grow faster and better, but her experience has been that you then do need fertz to support the higher "metabolism" and then eventually the tank crashes with PH spikes etc....

I am not suggesting this is the only way, but, when I read all the problems folks are having with cycling, algae, growing plants etc... this really is easy. The biggest problem for me (a cronic tweaker) was learning toleave my tank alone. Everytime I read someone panicing over an ammonia spike I want to tell them to throw a water hyacinth in the tank and the ammonia will be gone in an hour. And nitrates are always 0. But, this is not for everyone. But, since so few people realize that you can succeed with a semi-closed system, I rant.
 
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