r/walstad

did my first post-shrimp water change today

My rotala plants thinned out a lot this past week and I don't know why. They're in a 55 gallon walstad tank with good lighting and the rest of the plants are doing great. The rotala keeps shedding its bottom leaves but is actively showing new growth. I put the rotala in the tank about a month ago.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Everything is leggy, I can’t even see half the hardscape, and the fish are happy as a clam. Good god this is gonna be a pain.

hi everyone! i'm a bit of a newbie to this hobby and have some questions about my newly setup 5gal.

it's been going for 4 weeks. first reading after a few days was 0 ammonium, 0 nitrites, but for the past two weeks i've had 0.1ppm nitrites. (still no ammonium, 1ppm nitrates). (JBL liquid test kit)

it was my understanding that in a Walstad tank, plants are meant to uptake ammonia/um directly, meaning that nitrites should not appear unlike in a bacterial cycle.

what are your thoughts on this? should I introduce filtration/flow to allow bacterial filtration, or change the water, or something else? (so far only did a 20% change and a top-off)

if anyone has some advice or thoughts to share, i'd be really happy to hear it. i'm so very excited to finally have a tank of my own. :)

for specifications :

substrate is garden soil (1 inch) capped with fine, then larger gravel (3 inch). planted since day 1, with stems, moss, floaters. 8W light is on 8 hours a day, there's been steady growth.

pH is 7.5, KH 9-10, GH 10.

i'd like to introduce some ramshorns when nitrites are down, and some neo shrimps down the road.

thanks so much for your feedback💙

i jumped into this and feel like i've already messed up haha.

i just got Walstad's book but am not completely sure how to adapt it to a nano. i'm getting the sense I should add more plants? so far there's a java fern, moss, and a crypt

I custom-built this 15 × 13 × 7-inch tank and want to create a shallow, heavily planted setup like the AI-generated image. I'm planning to keep a Betta imbellis and would like some advice on suitable tank mates and stocking.

Introducing my Blue gourami sorority tank
Vallisneria jungle scape

Substrate - garden soil capped with thoroughly washed m-sand

Flora- narrow leaf Val, javafern attached to drift wood, Crypt wendtii brown (Val is flourishing while other two are overwhelmed), salvinia minima

Fauna- Blue three spot gouramis, Green carplet, blue panchax, melon barb, green line barb, red and black ramshorn snails, Malaysian trumpet snails, Neocaridinia shrimps

I made a big mistake and choose white sand for cap layer. and as u can see its getting dirty and so visible :(

any tips? since i shouldn't do water changes so often.

Hi All,

I’ve been wanting to make an aquarium for many years, so finding the Walstad method was quite interesting and I figured to take a dive into it.

My tank has been set up for two weeks. So far, I have the following:
-Water Lettuce
-Rotala
-Assorted Crypts
-Dwarf Sag
-Java Fern
-Echinodorus grisebachii

I have an Imagitarium water skimmer to help with some of the water movement and oil on the surface of the water, along with a water heater to keep temp (which hasn’t been needed with this heat).

Biofilm has built, which I’ll take as a good sign. My rotala are all growing, and water lettuce have been the MVP as I’ve tried to source plants. I understand I may need more plants to put in to really fill out the tank. Though, I do not know what I should get next.

I had started with around 14 hours of light a day in the first week, now down to around 6-8 a day.

I believe I planted my dwarf sag incorrectly, as I just put in the whole plant from the container it was in instead of separating and planting in fear of destroying the roots.

I have done 4 50% water changes at this point. PH sitting around 7, and NH4 around 0.5-1.0 mg/L

I have learned a couple things:

1. Plants are stubborn, and they can and will survive as long as you give them the minimum.
2. Patience is the name of the game. I cannot rush things, I am making an ecosystem and that takes time.
3. I have learned a lot already, and will continue to do so. I wish I knew more when starting the tank, but I could only learn through trying.
4. Damn, this tank is cool to look at.

I’d love to hear advice from you all, as I am far from a master in this endeavor. Thanks for reading.

Hi, tried setting up a walstad tank. It has been 5 days since setting up. Any advice would help really, have pretty contradicting research.

Observed some brown algae and biofilm, any recommendations to deal with it? Did a 50% water change yesterday to remove most brown algae and biofilm. Should I do water changes? or just leave it alone?

Did some research regarding the lighting, should I reduce to 4 hours of light? Or 6-8 hours is okay?

Plants are some floaters, rotala stems (which I think are dying - stem rot?), dwarf sag (which I think are also dying? or just melting), some anubias on the driftwood, ambulia, and a bunch of java fern (planning to remove once other plants settle hopefully)

Also need help in ID on Picture No. 5? Just got it from a coworker from their local LFS.

Did tests today. Tank is on a heater for around 86-84 F (29-30 C). Tank is fishless but had a small snail suddenly appear.

Planning to add two honey gouramis and some community fish.

Thanks.

I have a 1 gallon tank that is about 50 days in… the hornwort has taken over and it’s a jungle… I was wondering if y’all had a recommendation for a plant that roots in the soil but then emerges from the surface of the water? I have a peace lily submerged that’s doing OK, I’m thinking something like a lotus but that will fit in a small tank like this. Thank you!

The other plants I have are:
Duckweed
Ludwigia palustris (red)
Mystery plant (water starwort?)
Dwarf Sag +
Sag

Hello! We’re having an emergency, im pretty sure our guppy tank is having a nitrogen cycle crash. We are hoping for advice on how to respond, and insight on how this could have happened and preventing it in the future.

Ammonia: >8ppm
Nitrites: .25 ppm
Nitrates: 10 ppm
pH: 6.5
Temp: 78F

This is a 20 gallon guppy tank, with a LOT of guppies. Maybe 40. Maybe a hudred. Maybe more. Have found about a dozen dead so far.

We got it from a previous owner that couldn’t take care of it anymore, about 4 or 5 months ago. It originally just had aquarium gravel and some plastic decor. We switched out the substrate for organic dirt (sifted) and gravel for a planted tank, and mixed in some of the old gravel when we got it, and added a lot of plants, which have been doing great. After a week or three we got a new filter. We had no issues with water quality after switching out both the substrate or the filter. The population size seems to have stayed stable since the tank came into our custody.

In the past few hours we’ve found about a dozen fish dead, and most of the fish are near the surface. Theyre not lethargic and are often near the surface when people are around, but there seem to be more than usual, obviously because of water quality. There have been no changes we made to the tank in recent weeks.

We are currently doing a 50% water change and have dosed 2 mL of prime. Looking for any advice on how to mitigate this emergency, why this could have happened, how to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future.

Thanks so much for reading!

It took a 2 months for the water to stabilize and had many plant stems decompose initially. Once the plants started showing new growth I added a small group of orange cherry shrimp and 2 Snow White amanos that have settled in nicely. The bladder snails started to get a bit out of control so I added an assassin snail last week.