r/walstad

One large piece of wood towards the back. In hindsight it’s probably too big for this tank, but oh well.

I have Bogor moss tied to the top of the wood and a little on the sides, they’ve grown really well.

Eleocharis pusilla 'Mini' carpeted at the front. Which has also grown quite tall.

Lobelia cardinalis on either sides and Egeria densa planted at the back.

The egeria densa grows really quick and quickly bends down at the top. I’ve had to trim them quite frequently.

Also have some mini duck weed floaters.

The tank has bladder snails and Mini ramshorn, it also has 4 red cherry shrimp (had 6 but two have died over the last couple of months).

Last time I checked the parameters it had 0 everything and pH ~8.

I worry it’s getting over crowded with plants. Any advice?

Very new tank, 36litres (around 10gallons), been set up 4 days, and both invited (Ramshorn snails) and uninvited (a bladder snail and various teeny tiny critters) are settling in. But this little friend(?) popped up today and I'm not sure if he's going to cause trouble!

He's about 2cm/1inch long when he's fully stretched out, very dark black spot one end, and a little round ... Maw? The other end, it's got grabby bits (3rd photo). With a rounded transparent body. Moves in waves like a worm, nudging the sand out the way.

He's popping up from the sand periodically, black end up, and then burrowing back under, but never sitting on top or swimming. Possibly he's not actually aquatic and isn't enjoying the water. Possibly he will become a monster and eat my brain while I sleep. Possibly I should just leave him be.

Help?

So i posted a few weeks back, and thanks to all the advice, my tank is thriving ❤️ (I think)

There was some white bio film, but the snails that came with the plants ate it all. I now discovered what I think is a clutch of snail eggs?

Will they self regulate, or should I remove clutches of eggs so early in?

The tank is 30l and 2 weeks old.

And to think it hasn’t even been three months quite yet! I definitely need to trim and possibly re-scape some, so if you have any advice or criticism I’d greatly appreciate it :-)

Also any pointers / tips would be great

This is my first time putting together an aquarium. As an ecology student I have been drawn to the Walstad Method. This may not go exactly by the book, but I am drawing heavily on her principles. I plan to take things slow, allowing the plants to mature, introducing stock gradually and allowing the system to find equilibrium.

I have a concept to incorporate emergent plants, albeit in a separate tank. Has anyone ever done something like this? Is there any reason it would fail or pitfalls I should watch for in assembling this?

All feedback is welcome, thanks!

Hi, I want to re home my Angel fish which is in my 2 feet, 80 liter planted tank. Re home because my Rummynose Tetra is fin nipping her. And its almost impossible to shift rummynose tetra as once they are in a tank, you need to break the whole planted tank to take them out.

After reading the book, tons of research here, and on youtube i finally took a BIG leap into the Walstad. Here is my intial setup of my 75 gallon. My question is if i need more plants or a good amount? To me it looks bare, but i understand this is day 3 and all these plants will need some time to overgrow.

To give a little insight of my vision, i wanted the left side of the tank at the bottom to be bare and just sand and right side to be more of a jungle vibe. I am going to add more water roots plants on the left side of the tank. The caves are 3d print PETG

It’s my first walstad aquarium. It’s now cycling for 38 days. The root feeders and the frogbit are doing good. The problem is since a week or so my Bacopa Caroliniana is starting to melt also on the new leaves. I read that it could be that the frogbit is taking all the nutrients so the bacopa is slowly drying. I had 40/50% of my surface covered with frogbit, now it’s at 15/20%. For a couple of days, but the bacopa doesn’t seem to get better. I also don’t know since being a beginner if my lighting is to weak. I have a pawfly 6w led 25 par at level 4 of 6.
4h on 4 off and 4 on. The only life stock that’s in there for 10 days are 3 ramshorn snails.
Since a week my water also started to look slightly milky.
I’ve also addressed coral to slowly raise my gh/kh and ph because the idea is to later add some neocaridina.
Any tips are welcome what to do,improve, change etc…
Thanks

I have posted prior to ask about my Betta in a planted smal 2 gl tank, some replied noting that the tank a) is too small, b) bot a true walstad planted, my issue is that this Betta was given to me, I have 2 other tanks. One 6gl with a male beta, the other is a Long 10 gl tank with a female Betta .. that betta in the small round 2 gl bowl if I add 80% of live plants as it was suggested can I keep him.in there, or should I move him in the 10gl tank which has the female * other fish. see pictures

It took a few weeks to get all the plants in, but it is done and I love it.

It’s Walstad-adjacent. I didn’t know about not having any large wood, oops, and I decided to use fluval stratum.

Now I’m learning as fast as I can about sustainably increasing the ph in my tank, so it is better for my snails. Found some great advice in various threads so far.

Hi I’ve had this tank for about three months now, and I can’t seem to get rid of this green water. I know it’s not that big of a deal since my shrimp are happy (I think) and the plants keep growing but this water is annoying me lol
Im wondering if my sand layer is too thin as there’s a lot of bubbles rising from the dirt.
Also there’s been a boom in the seed shrimp population is that good or bad?

Edit to add: this is my first walstad tank.
I used to have the lights on 6 hours, then lowered the intensity (while maintaining same time duration), now I’ve completely shut them off and let the natural sunlight hit the tank instead (2 hours of direct light and 5 hours of indirect light).

All four of my tanks are Walstad. I've used different soils. I've used sand of varying coarseness to cap the soil. My tanks are different styles with different fish and light requirements and range from new to mature. But one thing I struggle with across all my tanks is less aggressive growing stem plants always melt from the root up and fail to establish. Plants like certain ludwigia, hygrophila pinatiffida, some rotala. Once established, these plants do well but I had a low success rate.

My theory was that maybe the soil is giving off too MUCH nutrients, or the light wasn't reaching the lower leaves but none of those really seem to pan out when experimenting with different soils and light intensity.

Last month I was flying down a bunch of epiphytes and knocked out a bunch of stem plants that were being anchored down to the ground by the remaing threads of a melted stem. I got lazy and frustrated and just glued the stems sideways onto small pebbles and dropped them back in. I bury my pearlweed sideways to propagate so I knew this wouldnt be an issue for these other plants. Surprisingly these plants thrived. It grew roots from its nodes and started finding its own way into the substrate!

So the big questions is why do you think they were melting in the first place and how is it that they are doing well now.

Hello friends. My techless 64l tank starts now into its third month. I have lots of plants, snails and neocaridina-shrimps, and it works well. till now, i didnt feed anything to the shrimpies, but a catappa leave. Nobody died, but my shrimpies r pretty much inactive all day long. Is this normal because of no co2? Should ichange something?