Why do water changes with plants?

Dahlia said:
Why would there not be a build-up in a non CO2 tank, but there would in a CO2 tank? How long has the tank you don't do water changes in been running? What's in it? That's pretty unconventional, and I'm not sure I agree with it, so I'm curious about your setup.
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Because the rate of growth is much slower and so are the inputs of nutrients(fish food/waste, some from the substrate). Plants are pruned and this is export of the fish waste. The input= the output.

When you speed an ecosystem up(just like farmland etc) you must add more inorganic elements to it to maintain this higher rate of production and export.

What goes in, must come out.
This balance is not going to change.

The export is a few cuttings/pruning once every month perhaps and the inputs are fish food. The tank has been running for 18 months, others have been running for several years and a few for decades. It's an issue of balance.

Doesn't matter whether you agree with it or not.
Nor is it unconventional.

It's being done and has been for many years. Discus have bred in tanks with not water changes for 2 years. If fish are breeding....they are generally doing well.

There is often a great deal of banther on the web about CO2, less so with non CO2 methods.

For most new folks that over feed, impatient etc, water changes and CO2 are a very good idea. But folks do not want to spend the $ for the CO2 or are suspicious of it, say they do not want the plants to grow fast, then go out a buy lots of light and want to grow difficult plants.

There are trade offs with each method.
The simpler and easier method is without a doubt the non CO2 method planted tank. You do not put a bunch of fish in these tanks in the first place.
You can have a good levels of fish stocking, but not like many hobbyist often attempt.

The faster you drive any plant system the more you begin to rely on inorganic nutrients.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Doesn't matter whether you agree with it or not.

Sure it does, to me... which is why I'm asking about it. I'm not saying "don't do that", I'm just asking for details so I can form an opinion about it. I've been at this for about a decade, but I still consider myself to be a newbie. Hearing about someone else's experience with long-term tanks is very helpful.

Therefore, thanks for all the info. I presume the Diana Walstad books have more on this? Any others I should look into? I have hers on my Amazon wishlist but I haven't gotten to them yet. RTR, thanks for your input too! I'm about to try CO2 (and plants) for the first time, but I am hoping to set up a lower light tank with no CO2 and see how that goes as well. Perhaps once I feel I have a better handle on water chemistry and balance I will consider trying a system with your method. It doesn't seem like something that I should play with in my first ever plant tank.

One more question though, do you do these no water change tanks with a tank that has juvenile fish in it, or do you only do this in tanks with adult specimens? Do fish breed successfully in no water change tanks? Are there some species that can't handle it? I'm asking because of the growth supressing hormones that I've heard fish release into the water.
 
Thanks superjohnny! I'll check that out... already a member there but I don't think I've looked at that forum before.

Also:

It's being done and has been for many years. Discus have bred in tanks with not water changes for 2 years. If fish are breeding....they are generally doing well.

I just reread the post from above and saw this... I'd missed it before. Sorry. So, I guess I will revise my question and ask if discus can get to the size the people who raise "show quality" discus try to strive for, or if they tend to be smaller.
 
Show quality Discus should be raised and feed like the breeders suggest for max size and growth. Generally very soft water, very frequent water changes and lots of food 5x a day etc. For shows, bigger is better for thier rules. Plants? People? Your fish personally? If that's what you want, do the bare bottom, if you are willing to lose an inch or so but have a nice tank with them, then a planted tank will work great.

Non CO2 vs CO2 tanks will grow them equally as well.

With respect to agreeing with a method or not, that is not the issue, the issue is how you want to grow plants sucessfully. Your habits play a very large role, some folks fiddle with things and cannot keep their hands out of a tank, CO2 for them.

For folks that tire of pruning or are forgetful, neglectful, patient, want the low tech philosophy and a more natural approach/pace, the non CO2 tank is very nice and is highly underated even by folks many think of as expert plant growers, many have never even tried it and know little of the method or just how easy it is.

Some folks want to have lots if cutting and plants every week or two, some just want a nice planted tank with less maintenance and do not really care to prune/have extra cuttings. Some plants do much better in CO2 enriched tanks, but most will do well although take their time in a non CO2 tank.

Diana Walstad's book is the only book on the subject of non CO2 methods.
It is not a book for CO2 methods, it was not written for that purpose, there are many on that subject already out. It's not wise to try to apply it to a CO2 enriched tank but many try to.

If you apply it's main tenents, the method works wonderfully.
1.Good semi rich substrate, soil/peat/mulm, manures etc can be used, I prefer peat and onyx sand at about 1/2" of peat and 3 1/2" of onyx sand and some mulm from another tank. Some folks use Turface or Sand(2-3mm) in place of Onyx sand. You can add up to about 1-1.5" of soil.

2.No water changes, only top off for evaporation.

3. Plant dense from day one, 10-25% surface can have floating plants

4. 1-2w/gal of lighting, I like Triton's and a cool white combo w a good reflector.

5. Add algae eaters, the algae grows much slower or not at all since it's also limited to some degree by low CO2 and less light, so each algae eater is more effective per unit area.

6. Do not replant and move things around.

7 Have a balanced fish load and feeding routine. Do not try and feed 7 Discus till they almost puke 5x a day in a 50 gal tank. Raise them up in a bare bottom tank and feed them that way and once they get big enough, add them to the display tank. I do not care about 6-7" vs 8-9", I fed mine 2x a day and they ate everything I gave them in 5-10 minutes and that was that. They got 7" and bred. I kept them in a very brightly lit MH open top tank, 82F, GH 9, KH 5.5 etc. The non CO2 tank had 5 adults in a 90 gal, they did not change the water for over 2 years.

I did not need to clean any algae off the glass for over 6 months on several non CO2 tanks, did not need to, it was perfectly clean. See if you can find one CO2 plant tank that can make that claim.

If NO3 climb from overfeeding, you can use plant "filters" also in a sump or add more floating plants in the filter box etc.

The non CO2 tank is the best example of a balanced aquarium.
Many folks coming from a fish only prespective often seek this "balance" approach in philosophy of aquarium keeping.

No other tank can do what it does and maintain such a stable high water quality with such a minimum of effort and work.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
I've ordered Diana's book and will be looking at this more closely. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions so thoroughly. The discus info is especially nice, since if I asked those questions on a discus forum I'd probably have gotten chewed up and spit out. Plus, everyone there is so bent on the behemoth fish method that I probably wouldn't have found anyone who had tried an alternate way to raise them in the first place. I do like the look of those very big fish and had already considered raising them barebottom and then moving them to a planted tank later... but was paranoid since I'd never heard of anyone doing it. It's quite a time and money investment, and I would hate to suddenly find out the hard way that fish accustomed to constant water changes and a heavy food supply couldn't adapt to a planted tank.
 
I think getting something to the max size is not a desirable thing in my view.
I would not judge a fish based on that trait really.
Ideally, a medium size not far off from the wild fish and this will make it much easier to keep in a small glass box.
Finnage, color etc I can judge, but size aloe is not something I would value and it also sends new people out over feeding them and this causes a lot of headaches and water changes just to squeeze more out of them.

This is no more required for these fish as any other, I could claim the same thing for Clown loaches.

Gaudy garrish colored dinner plates:)

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
The discus info is especially nice, since if I asked those questions on a discus forum I'd probably have gotten chewed up and spit out. Plus, everyone there is so bent on the behemoth fish method that I probably wouldn't have found anyone who had tried an alternate way to raise them in the first place.
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Not everyone; the people in the planted section won't chew you out ;). Many of them aren't so much bent on size as they are on shape (which, is still kinda of non-natural anyway since discus from the wild seem to be slightly footballed).

Plantbrain,
Do you happen to have any pictures of the discus that were in that tank?
Like Dahlia, I find this interesting. Keeping discus in a tank without waterchanges for 2 years; talk about going against the current ;).
 
Gaudy garrish colored dinner plates

They'll go well with my dinner plate dahlias!

I used to feel a little guilty and unsophisticated for liking Mardi Gras fish... but I equally like a subdued looking tank with only one quietly colored species. I decided it wasn't any different from liking monochromatic wild forest settings as much as I do a bright, cultivated garden. I like having both, so I can indulge in whatever mood I'm in.

:) :p ;) :D :o :eek: :rolleyes:

I'll check out the planted discus forums.
 
They do look good in an nice planted tank, I have several folks that I helped set up and they are all happy and I have come to like them a little more.

I keep only a couple of types, Wild's, Blues, Red/Turq and that's about it.

The guy that bred them in the tank without a water change works for EcoMud filters, Lieng's so called Mircale Mud etc. They use plant filters, eg, refugiums for FW.

Discus and other fish are fine with no water changes as long as the water is maintained/balanced well.

The reason that it seems odd, folks over feed their fish and don't keep plants.

Many plant folks add KNO3 to their tanks, Discus included.

You cannot over load the plant's uptake of NH4 and the filter's ability to convert the NH4 waste into NO3.
Then you get algae and nothig will change that except daily water changes etc.

Several folks set up slow changing auto water changers, using float switched or Float valves and slowly drains and refills at night so that close to 40% is changed each time and they run the tap through a carbon filter etc first.

Many plant Discus folks that dio feed often, use 40%-60% 2x a week routines and dose the nutrients back on these days or split them up on every other day routines etc.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
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