Most ammonia tolerant fish species? Or species for unfiltered tanks?

Am I wrong, or are you not going to need some bright (and I mean above and beyond the standard fluorescent hood that comes in aquarium kits) lighting in order for the plants to grow fast enough that they are actually oxygenating the water and acting as efficient filters?
 
You can do it with 1.5 watts per gallon of lighting if you're growing floating plants up top and low light plants down beneath (duckweed and/watersprite up top and java fern/bolbitis below...or some other lower light plant).

A lot of the old balanced aquariums, though, had no lights...just put it near enough a window the plants thrive but not so close the algae goes mad...

Overall, filter and lights make life a lot easier, but I could see doing a balanced aquarium with just hood lighting. It would work fine.

Eric
 
you can have an unfiltered tank.



but the catch is.. low bio-load, plants and some form of water circulation(Powerheads or filters).

plants will consume ammonia/ammonium thereby reducing (or in some cases removing) ammonia
no ammonia=no nitrite enough plants and low enough bio-load no nitrate.

the plants do much of the filtering/processing. anything not taken up by plants will be taken care of by bacteria in the tank(on surfaces)

Diana Walstad uses/created/advocated this method
 
If you keep the pH in the low 6s or lower, and have fish suited to those conditions they'll all comfortably tolerate alot more ammonia than most people think. At that low of a pH the toxicity of ammonia (or more correctly ammonium) is minimal. You still need to do basic maintenance, but a ppm or 2 of ammonia is not that big a deal at a pH of 6.0.
 
Idk if anyone mentioned it (on my iPhone and skimmed) but you could do a Walstead (sp?) tank.
 
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