Fascinating! You're one of the few channels that addresses the niche problems that people face once they've kept fish for more than 6 months. Keep up the good work!!
I appreciate that! Im trying to simply answer questions i have...or would have once deeper in the hobby. I miss Rachel O'leary for that reason. Anyhow, have a good one!
Like trying to recreate a dry season? I don't see why this is necessary... and clipping plants isn't that difficult, I don't think anyone thought it was going to truly recreate nature and you never have to touch it ever
Love this video. I've experienced 3 disaster tanks in my 4 years of this hobby and NONE of them was nitrogenous waste related. The material I read prior to getting into aquariums had me very well prepared for those issues. We hyper-focus on easily measurable variables when it's the stuff that you can't test with a strip or drop kit that ends up being fatal 1 - Mycobacteriosis crash caused by persistently low pH from using ADA aquasoil with PNW tapwater 2 - Overstocking with a thin substrate layer leading to a bad substrate/persistent bacterial issues (happened twice until I decided to turn it into 0 feed tank to give it time to 'digest') 3 - Somehow I jammed an airline down through an UGF uplift under the plenum. Tank was mysteriously turning into a sick platy hellscape while the other two tanks I set up the exact same way with same stocking levels were flourishing. Throughout all of these issues the test strips looked perfect. Had to do some digging beyond the duplicative AI written articles that google feeds you to get into this 'level' of the hobby. I'm glad its starting to get more attention.
I got a little confused somewhere along the video, but the conclusion you were getting to was that it’s not ideal to just let all decaying plant matter stay in the tank. At least that’s what i interpreted. This definitely makes sense, and i assume it sort of reveals a fault in the method outlined by father fish. The most important takeaway is to not just trust the regular tests and to make decisions based off all variables. Great video man!
This was an awesome video Alex, very rare to have a 10 yr old tank that crashed and then for you have kept the light on and to have ran that experement and shared it with us, was Awesome❤
Even natural ecosystems crash, on occasion. Often due to unintended consequences of things like mosquito “elimination” like at Clear Lake, CA at the dawn of the insecticide era…and which have never recovered to their former status.
I've seen a video on UA-cam about actual biotopes in South America ("Natural aquaria" or something like that) and there was a scene from dry season where thousands of fish got cut of from the river in a pond doomed to dry out. It's sad fact of the nature, but it's even worse that with deforestation and global warming it's getting worse.
Floating plants are great for nitrogen intake and preventing algae, but there's a reason most are considered invasive and harmful to ecosystems. I have to pull out a handful of frogbit every day to keep it in check.
Great video! Love how you have different aquariums with different scenarios so that you can study this hobby in depth, and share your findings with the community. Thanks for sharing!!
Very interesting. Nobody else expains in such depth. Watching your videos gave me confidence to try no filter. Only three minnow wth deep soil and sand and plants. Year on still going strong.. but changed. Lots of lovely algea and tiny organisms in water. Water tested ok. Planted tanks are great. Couple of sealed jars and just set up a larger pickle jar. Your crashed tall jar video was awesome for showing what to watch out for. And this video.. . Just learning about ghost feeder shrimp now as next eperiment. Amazing creatures.
Awesome! Thanks for taking your time and being cautious. I think there is a bit of a fad ...partially my own doing, of keeping filterless or lowtech natural tanks, and I just want folks to think about why they are doing what they doing, each step and hopefully learning as they go.
See, videos like this one is why I'm a sub here! We don't see these long term, "ugly" things and learn from them on the vast majority of channels - which is fine, I might add! - but having someone sharing stuff like this, with knowledge and "the way out" is priceless. As an aside, as someone who has had very bad issues with depression and executive dysfunction for many years of my 45 year life, this is also weirdly helpful and healing in another way. Thank you!
Hello, first of all, thank you very much for taking the time and effort to broadcasting valuable information for the hobbyists. previously I had a planted tank I were satisfied with , but was replaced now by two reef tanks. So testing water parameters for me is something very usual, I know that even the so called high range test kits have many limitations regarding accuracy, but clearly on your experience the test strips are accurate enough for the required parameters. I will give them a try on my son's axolotl tank because I don't want to deal with another titration master kit. 😅😅
Yeah they aren't good for super accurate uses...but usually show basic vs acidic and that's the big swing point that matters most. Short of using RODI water and having no buffer, causing massive drops down to 4 or 5ph... but most people don't deal with that unless they bought the equipment and wanted to fidget with those things. Cheers my friend!
That makes a lot of sense. I believe I am experiencing something quite similar. I have 2 small aquariums which both of them show perfect values -- but the water is smelling. And at least in one of them is also "milky". I couldn't found out what the problem is. But you might have given me a clue. It probably is decaying plant material. I will continue to do some water change (which I typically don't do, just top ups like you do) and remove most of the "none-essential" and especially the already decaying plant material and see if that helps. Thanks.
What a good video, I appreciate you showing your experiences and not just "perfect" tanks. It really helps the common fishkeeper have a more realistic view of what is going on in their tank.I just recently realized I was a similar issue in my tank with oxygen exchange. I have a nice mat of duckweed and added a partition to keep it from getting pulled into my sponge filter. The partition went to far down into the tank and was both reducing the oxygen and effectiveness of the filter. 0 Ammonia/ 0 Nitrites/ 0 Nitrates but the fish were acting weird and gasping. I shortened the partition to just the top 2.5 in of the water and added an air stone with a ring of air line in the surface. One big water change later and boom everyone is happy and back to normal again.
This was just what I needed answered. Planning a nature/low maintenance ecosystem aquarium and really needed to know a) how will it look down the line and b) what sort of problems we'd need to watch for. No other channel addresses this that I could find. Thank you!
In order for a tank to be stable there has to be no algae or bare minimum amounts of it. You just have to lower your light. I have three planted tanks with CO2(there are only submerged plants, anubias, cryptocoryne and bucephalandras) with soft water and at least I do a 50% water change once a year, and no problems with algae(I just got the light right). I used to have algae problems because I had grow lights in the room for hanging plants I used to have in that same room, but the extra light in the room gave me algae in one tank, it was until I took out that light out of the room and things stabilized(now no issue). I have three ripariums with our tap water gH 8 and kH 8, (two 75 gallons and one 55 gallon with rainbowfish), where only the roots grow inside the water, so there's no need for CO2 there, and photos, syngoniums, philodendrons, monsteras, colocasias, etc grow like magic. Of course you have to trim roots every few months, but that's a one minute work. I basically only feed the fish twice a day 6 days a week, and that's basically all. I can say the amount of time I spend a month giving service to tanks as an average comes down to 15 minutes. They are truly self supporting ecosystems if done right. But of course that takes time and willingness to overcome obstacles when you find trouble, many people quit because they can fix the problems when arise. Once you get the nuts and bolts is easy.
So I have ferns growing from an overhead sump (lets me keep the display tank more open as opposed to being extremely densely planted like these), and the conclusions after running it for a couple years are very comparable: 1. It's so over-filtered with the giant overhead sump (tons of media) and the ferns that there's no measurable ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. 2. You simply HAVE to do water changes occasionally. If you just keep topping off without export (and note that I have TONS of flow and oxygen exchange), hardness and pH climb up over time. Mine went from pH 8.1 (my tap water) to 8.5 and probably double the hardness. Even with the ferns growing, dying and falling OUTSIDE the tank. I can feed super heavily and get all the nutrient export I want, but there's simply no fix for the accumulation of minerals and such over time other than doing water changes. In that regard it's more efficient to do big water changes occasionally rather than small ones frequently (assuming your filtration and nutrient export is adequate to accommodate that) - a 50% water change removes 50% of the accumulated dissolved minerals/metals/etc., where as 5x 10% changes only removes 41% total.
@@GreenCanvasInteriorscape I'm really not interested in making a video of it right now (nor do I have the time). Short version: 29 tall aquarium. Second level of 2x4 and plywood stand is a hefty tote (40 qt? I don't remember the size, but it's a low profile version like would go under a bed) with lava rock. There's a low profile grow light overhead that gives me enough height to grow ferns in the lava rock. Bulkheads through hefty tote and plywood let me pump up from the tank to tote then overflow back down into the tank (liquid level in the bottom of the tote is about an inch). I have a dual overflow system with a valve to keep it quiet. I use a hose with lots of holes to trickle over the lava rock (so it has aspects of a trickle tower also), but I think you could get by without that. So it pumps up from one side of main tank, flows through lava rock/ferns and drains back down on other side of tank. I kept the lid on the hefty tote and cut holes for the plants to grow out to minimize evaporation and keep excess light from covering the lava rocks in algae. I also used a black hose for the water distribution to avoid algae. I built this as a QT/grow-out/breeding proof of concept. I have an empty 36 hex in my living room I'm planning to set up running the same way next year, but it will cost a lot more to build cause I want to to look nice and the hex shape makes the overhead sump construction more complex.
The crashed tank is fascinating! I really like these Untouched Natural Tank debates I find searching the Internet! My theory is that the tank crashed because you added an air stone, instead of increasing your food web diversity to handle the and surface plant and algae growth. But I won’t know until I get an old tank myself!😁
Well i could have done that...or changed water...or put a filter back on it. Buuuut i already knew how to save a tank, i didnt know if i could destroy one lol.... but as you saw, it was still technically cycled even at the end!
i imagine in the next few years there might be expensive commercial test kits that allow testing for a lot of the things that are involved with these increasingly popular nature tanks. Somewhat contradictory to the idea of a low cost low tech tank which is the mode for this style, but I can see it happening
Hahahaha, thanks Alex. I've been sick and bed ridden for the past 5 days (so far) with Covid and when you said your angel fish was in Time Out, I lost it. Too Funny! That's why I gave up on Angel fish when I was a kid, I hated the bullies. Thanks for the great video and information!
I had some angelfish as a teen and when they grew large they started to kill each other. I would like to maybe try just one again as I am afraid to get more than one and have them kill each other again.
Great video Alex. My tanks are over a year old now and all look similar to your tanks. I had a 1 gal crash early in my journey and I now mostly understand why. Thank you
Dont always "do as me" lol but on the stable tanks that look clean and just full of plants...they're all stable for years and no nitrates...in fact the nitrate crash video is my problem if there is one usually...or power outages. Cheers
@@Fishtory that’s a great vid idea “what to do during a power outage”. I have a plan that involves usb heaters and a big usb bank + solar charger and emergency blankets. I have small tanks though. Portable diesel heaters seem like an interesting choice for a small room.
recreating nature in an aquarium is like computers trying to simulate reality. You can list down the ideals (based on human perspective) but there will always be hidden variables which does not completely replicate it.
one of my favorite videos of yours - thank you! so much to process and consider. So many questions too. May I ask only one? You showed a HOB filter that has been turned off for some time but you said because it was "wet" or waterlogged that the beneficial bacteria would be fine. Is that true. I always thought if you leave a filter off too long the bacteria dies it gets rank. Thoughts?
So you will kill a lot of the bacteria if you dont oxygenate the water...so if you listen, my impeller was still churning loudly...but i have to add water over the sponge every 4 or 5 days or it could dry. Granted...also it is not processing nitrates at a rate anything like when 40 gallons are cycling through it with nitrates, but it keeps the colony ready to fully gear up again in about a week from what i can tell...instead of 4 to 6 weeks.
This was sort of gross yep! LOL But interesting. One thing i can't figure out about my tanks is that they never get algae overload. The only algae i get is a very thin film which is barely visible on the glass, and not much at all. I had a computer repair person come here and he kept looking at my tanks. Finally he asked me how I keep the black algae off my annubius. He told me he has several tanks. I told him that it beats me, and that I hadn't removed algae in ages. He was perplexed. I said "....to quote a song, I'm just a girl!"
Well this tank literally had a foot of duckweed and water lettuce breaking down in it lol... stanky...yet no nitrates or ammonia EVER?! It has me rethinking how many nitrates non-protein or lipid decomposition even creates... not much i suspect. Yet one dead barb is enough to tilt things for a few days in the same size tank.... i guess it makes sense on trophic levels of energy in food webs. Also, my tanks out front never have more algae than the snails can handle :) i dont fully understand why some tanks work so well and others grow algae like a beard
Great topic Alex! ❤ gold as allways ❤ neither of my tanks have crashed yet I have to fert both one of them twice ton3 times a week but I have ALOT of epiphytes fast and slow and biggest fish are the full size bigger Cory's and my male golden wonder. Tons of horn wart, duckweed water lettuce and pothos amongst a mix of a variety other things 😅 so scared of a tank crash!
Thanks. Plenums are great. But at the end of the day, you gotta take out extra nutrients and or biological loads via water changes and siphoning... or cutting plants and removing dead fish...or both. We cant seem to close the system long term no matter the method ( 6 years or more...which i realize is kind of silly anyhow)
This is a really helpful video for me. I’ve got a tank with soft water and an inert sand substrate and I’m trying to get whatever I can to grow in it. Water lettuce has taken over the surface, and some rhizomes are doing well, but bacopa, val, and ludwigia I planted have all lost their leaves and withered away. The stems of the water lettuce are falling to the bottom and creating that fluffy mulm like you described. I’ve been considering whether to suck it up with the vacuum or just let it sink into the substrate. I’d add some MTS from another tank but now I’m worried they’ll raise the tds too high for my caridinas.
They may. I use dehumidifier water or RO water for fancy caridina lines to prevent that creep up. But just test it every few months or so and understand which way things are trending, before anything drastic. That fluffy algae, mold, fungi mix can definitely choke out a tank if there isnt enough o2 echange also though.
Hi Alex, thank you for all these helpful videos. I have this new established dirted tank with plants and fishes (around 2 months old), it is getting kind of greenish/yellowish cloudy. I did a few water changes for the past few weeks but cloudiness did not go away. Should I stop doing water changes? Maybe the tank is not fully cycled yet? Please kindly help! Cheers.
Sir put the water back in and stop tricking us😂 i’m kidding sometimes the unexpected happens I think there more to nature than we fully understand. I haven’t had a tank crash yet i have had one setup for 4 years. I have change the substrate a couple times but outside of that it does well.
When water is milky, doesn't mean late stages of imbalance? Usually, when something has been dead (or a lot of food rotting) in the tank for a while and therefore accompanied by foul-smelling water. I experienced this recently. One of my mystery snails died and the water went milky white and my newly hatched Discus fry all died 😢 (I was experimenting with adding newly hatched Discus fry into a tank without the parents because the parents eat the eggs and I have no foster parents for them)
So yes, it is an imbalance. But one that is common in small jungle ponds around the world. If you let the temperature, or O2 deplete... everything will die. Buuut as long as algae and plants are dealing with it and it hasnt acidified below around 5ph also ... you have a few weeks or even months to play with it, when you have a layered substrate of any sort
Have you done any videos on fish parasites and diseases like Ich? Would love your opinion on treatment. I have a heavily planted, but fairly new aquarium. Brought home fish that developed Ich. Bumped up the heat but can't add salt because of plants (that I've spent a lot of $$ on, and snails, which... Do they get Ich?). Could move all my fish to a quarantine tank, but my quarantine tank isn’t big enough for all the fish in my 29 gallon and I'm worried they'd be extra stressed cramped up in there. I started treating main tank with Ich X, because my quarantine tank isn’t big enough for all the fish in my 29 gallon. Two treatments of Ich X in the main tank so far, but now I'm worried I'm killing off all my beneficial micro fauna and bacteria in my fairly new tank that have only recently established themselves. I can introduce a sponge from a filter in another established tank to help with the die off, but I just don’t know what to do. So much conflicting advice out there. Treat the whole tank? Overcrowd a 20g quarantine tank with 12 fish and 2 snails?
Deer and rabbits can't fit in our tanks. But crickets, millipedes, terrestrial snails and slugs? They can. That's why paludariums are the best, we can actually integrate marginal herbivores.
Hey man, you may not have rabbits in your fish room but that doesn’t mean I don’t. Granted they are spoiled with treats and snuggles and I don’t feed them my plant trimmings, but by god they exist and I’m tired of pretending like they don’t. 🐰 😂
Its just down to nutrients and dust... if you sand cap it/ dont care that it may get dusty when you move things, then it doesnt need to be replaced. If you want a tank of perfect little aquasoil spheres for peak performance of plant growth...then you probably need to switch out the soil every 2 to 3 years in an intensive aquascape or nursery style tank
So curious. You said on a couple of tanks you started with little or no substrate, yet now have some built up....at what point would that build up need removing/replacing/reducing and what's the best way to do it or minimise it without a complete tank stripdown?
So over time it layers like lasagna into bands of density and various materials, after 2 or 3 inches, ill usually re-cap a tank with an inch of fine sand, then try and keep it lightly gravel vacuumed for maintenance... just sucking up big clumps of leaves or algae and debris once a month or every 2...but not pushing the siphon into the substrate at all really.
@@Fishtory wouldn't that eventually mean the tank's too full for the fish though? Sorry not had a proper planted tank before (only had goldfish not much chance of plants there ;) Ps thanks for replying!
Hello Alexl What are those test strips..?? So, I can get some.. The cheapest multi strips on Amazon... were very inaccurate for nitrites and PH.. And yours include Ammonia? Yayy!!!
So i use all API products usually... and have another strip for ammonia, but they're just little cotton pads, so i take a bottle and ill super glue it to the 5 test strips sometimes....to make a 6 test strip. However these are expensive... about 50 cents to 75 cents a test, but theyre accurate give or take 10 to 20ppm in low levels and 20 to 30ish ppm in ranges over 100ppm from what i can tell comparing my eletronic units, and my api master liquid test reagents. Aquarium coop has more affordable ones. But early on when i tried them, they seemed hit or miss if they worked well.... maybe research if people say theyve improved?
This was an eye opener! Thankful for you sharing the plight of this tank, the stages it went thru and its ultimate demise and the knowledge you have gained along the way . Hopeful for the new beginnings and what’s yet to come. Feel Sorry for your wife who probably hated this particular experiment. She’s a keeper😆😁☮❤🐠🦐🪴🐈⬛
Hahaha oh we had like full on fights over it lol. But i was like " just another week"... until she said " fine l, get a new tank for that spot, just get it out of here!"
Sometimes i sell CARES fish, or native fish on a very sporadic frequency. Mostly just to get threatened or endangered species out to the hobby. But i sell plants and shrimp ( malawa) to a bit larger amount of friends and viewers
Yes indeed you are correct. Methane, putricine, cadaverine, sulfur hexa- gasses and yes H2S. I have a video called " why does my tank stink?" And i go over the various gases and smells that eutrophication and or decomposition have as byproducts.
Aquariums need maintenance, period. The way you do isn't the right way. Maintenance, man. Closed systems need basic maintenance, if you want to succeed. You need to balance input and output in a closed system. You need to do water changes to export excess nutrients/ detritus/ organics and import fresh clean water. The only way to replicate what happens in nature, in a stable clean environment, is to do water changes and trim your plants to export nutrients. Give the trimmed plants to your local fish store or to your friends. This video is a bad example of what will happen to any system when you basically abandon it. Not cool, my friend. I've kept marine systems for about 2 decades without a crash. It can be done with diligent basic maintenance. Perhaps that was the message you wanted to send out with this video?
I have a dozen videos showing how to do it correctly, and I agree with you... The point of this is that the water test says everything is safe and well...but clearly its a death trap for any fish or shrimp. although this tank was built to need less work by design ( strong lighting and water top offs). This video is 100% what happens when you just abandoned a tank. The dangers of doing the tik tok trending "closed ecosystems" etc.
@@Fishtory Yes, they forget that any ecosystem in nature just can't be 100% closed forever and be able to sustain a variety of organisms without cashing. It will always have to refresh it's input/output balance in order to maintain proper health of the biota present in that natural environment. It's a natural biological law forgot by many. I always say that if you love your tank you should love also to do maintenance to maintain it pristine and healthy. Yes, try to have your hands out and let the system get to it's balanced stage, but keep it within the ranges of a proper input/output balance. That is our job as hobbyists and part of the enjoyment. That is the art of any system in a glass box. There is so much to say about this interesting subject... thanks for the video!
I worry how people will perceive this... I hope people will realize that its important to look after your fish and not experiment with sentient beings..
That is very true. A sunfish was the only one who died in this last 6 months of testing. And not im a wreckless way. The sunfish never recovered after the chilled water tank crashed in the power outage, then heated and my 2lb sunfish ( her mate). rotted while i was gone for 3 days in 86 degree heat without power. So that first fish would have been avoidable if i had gotten someone to daily take care of the tanks. Then that female had issue after issue and i tried every trick i know, but i gave up after about 2 months of trying to save her, since she looked miserable. The day i stopped hand feeding her every meal of earth worms, she sadly died. I hope i made it clear that im not just testing the dry season/wet season thing. It is my go-to for spawning tricky fish to spawn. The angel fish is in no danger, nor are their fish in those green water tanks
Are you aware how many zebra danios and rice fish are bred in laboratories around the world every day specifically to be experimented upon? That also doesn't mean bad treatment. Euthanizing embryos to take pictures of the development is how we even know HOW fish eggs develop in the first place.
If you set up a nice planted one, the only smell you'd ever deal with is an earthy mushroom smell. The muddy poop smell is from fish waste not fully broken down by bacteria and snails etc.
A smelly tank is a dirty tank. Not the water. Literally the tank. Clean the outside and the rim (on a rimmed tank) and suddenly you won't have a "fish smell" What you're actually smelling is fish food that missed the water and is rotting fish and other things sitting inside the rim of your tank. Notice how it doesn't happen on new tanks.
When you have no plenum (anoxic) and this is what happen when the hydrogen sulphide gas explosion. Along the way your ammonia build up will also happen. This is not a good thing. So do more waht Dr Novak says Anoxic tank or fail!
@Fishtory I tried the no water change, filterless, mature tank route, and my Hongsloi got pop eye. I like the mentality of it all. But I was just wondering if the risk is worth it
@@user-el7wr3on5rIDK who advised you to go filterless AND do No-WC but that's a terrible idea unfortunately for most creatures. Most natural ecosystems get natural water changes, many of them on a very large scale. Filter-less is more understandable, if you do it the right way. Really depends on the tank environment and fish.
Im good friends with Lucas... ive been down to see his fishroom in florida twice already. So im well aware of what he's doing... and i do some of the same. He is only 2 years into that fish room. Wait till some tanks hit 5 or 10 years and itll be fascinating to see how they are progressing. I know how to stop what happened in this tank...could have reset it, but id never taken note of how long the nitrogen cycle will work, what breaks down , what the seed shrimp and algae do etc. Now i know
I have no desire to live in a place where it wants to become that. The fish tore up the substrated plants and ruined the cycle, if that’s the earth in its broken state in micro and macro cosim it’s a hell of man’s work and natures violence.
Good video. If you ever came to portugal on vacations give me a call. I can areange a good room, diferent fish at dinner and a 200l aquarium to comment. The rest is enjo6ing portugal.
Sounds great! Id absolutely love to visit Portugal! Thank you for your kind offer. Hopefully in the next 2 years ill get back over to europe ( id happily move over there, honestly)
I wonder about creation of an artificial hyporheic zone to keep the substrate from stagnating and reducing mulm buildup. Thinking about an under gravel filter that can be fed (rather than always dewatered with a bubble lift or powerhead) with a slug of heated water (slightly warmer than tank) to drive an upward gradient. Would the artificial “seasonal” recharge/discharge through the gravel be beneficial?
Heating mat for reptiles under the tank! Easier than an undergravel heater, has no equipment in the tank, can be customized to cover the whole or part of the tank, and can be retrofitted onto an existing set up (for smaller tanks, probably) Heating mat!
Tanks crash when there not set up right. Its that simple. I see it Everytime i walk into a big box store and even smaller stores. Still nobody has adopted setting up a real substrate method. Only experienced people no how to set it up. Newbies cant concept what i am doing. It comes with time. Over 25 years keeping fish. Only in the last ten years experimenting with stuff. I no what i need to do for my rooms. There really no wrong way to do it. But i kinda disagree with alot of people. Which makes me hated by most. Because just like you alex. I speak the truth. And the truth ends sales for those junk tank kits 😂 what a waste 😂 they dont even sell what you need anymore in the stores. Its so crooked, that they sell sick fish to people. With no meds at hand to cure them. I would say thats animal abuse. How about that….
Man, your tanks are just a hideous mess now. Pls prune the plants. I know u had health issues or maybe u even prefer it that way, but damn, fish need some open space to swim. Your tanks crash because they are overloaded with plants.
Um theyre spawning in these tanks. The big tank in the living room gets trimmed bi weekly, but also the biggest fisb are 2.5 inches max. No angels or anything
You clearly don’t listen to anything he talks about. You just see something u don’t like and freak out like you’re his mom. Alex explains everything behind what he does and what he lets happen. His fish are all just fine. If you actually listen, you’d know.
Fascinating! You're one of the few channels that addresses the niche problems that people face once they've kept fish for more than 6 months. Keep up the good work!!
I appreciate that! Im trying to simply answer questions i have...or would have once deeper in the hobby. I miss Rachel O'leary for that reason. Anyhow, have a good one!
Like trying to recreate a dry season? I don't see why this is necessary... and clipping plants isn't that difficult, I don't think anyone thought it was going to truly recreate nature and you never have to touch it ever
Love this video. I've experienced 3 disaster tanks in my 4 years of this hobby and NONE of them was nitrogenous waste related. The material I read prior to getting into aquariums had me very well prepared for those issues. We hyper-focus on easily measurable variables when it's the stuff that you can't test with a strip or drop kit that ends up being fatal
1 - Mycobacteriosis crash caused by persistently low pH from using ADA aquasoil with PNW tapwater
2 - Overstocking with a thin substrate layer leading to a bad substrate/persistent bacterial issues (happened twice until I decided to turn it into 0 feed tank to give it time to 'digest')
3 - Somehow I jammed an airline down through an UGF uplift under the plenum. Tank was mysteriously turning into a sick platy hellscape while the other two tanks I set up the exact same way with same stocking levels were flourishing.
Throughout all of these issues the test strips looked perfect. Had to do some digging beyond the duplicative AI written articles that google feeds you to get into this 'level' of the hobby. I'm glad its starting to get more attention.
Thanks for sharing. That really helps us all learn too
I got a little confused somewhere along the video, but the conclusion you were getting to was that it’s not ideal to just let all decaying plant matter stay in the tank. At least that’s what i interpreted.
This definitely makes sense, and i assume it sort of reveals a fault in the method outlined by father fish.
The most important takeaway is to not just trust the regular tests and to make decisions based off all variables.
Great video man!
Yeah we need to remove organic waste...because even when rendered non toxic it leads to oxygen depletion...and looks like crap haha
This was an awesome video Alex, very rare to have a 10 yr old tank that crashed and then for you have kept the light on and to have ran that experement and shared it with us, was Awesome❤
Even natural ecosystems crash, on occasion. Often due to unintended consequences of things like mosquito “elimination” like at Clear Lake, CA at the dawn of the insecticide era…and which have never recovered to their former status.
So true! And so terribly sad.
I've seen a video on UA-cam about actual biotopes in South America ("Natural aquaria" or something like that) and there was a scene from dry season where thousands of fish got cut of from the river in a pond doomed to dry out. It's sad fact of the nature, but it's even worse that with deforestation and global warming it's getting worse.
Alexander Williamson's House of Mulm.
Awesome deep dive into the foul muck and slime of the hobby! 😊
Haha thanks John
Floating plants are great for nitrogen intake and preventing algae, but there's a reason most are considered invasive and harmful to ecosystems. I have to pull out a handful of frogbit every day to keep it in check.
Totally
Great video! Love how you have different aquariums with different scenarios so that you can study this hobby in depth, and share your findings with the community. Thanks for sharing!!
Very interesting. Nobody else expains in such depth. Watching your videos gave me confidence to try no filter. Only three minnow wth deep soil and sand and plants. Year on still going strong.. but changed. Lots of lovely algea and tiny organisms in water. Water tested ok. Planted tanks are great. Couple of sealed jars and just set up a larger pickle jar. Your crashed tall jar video was awesome for showing what to watch out for. And this video.. . Just learning about ghost feeder shrimp now as next eperiment. Amazing creatures.
Awesome! Thanks for taking your time and being cautious. I think there is a bit of a fad ...partially my own doing, of keeping filterless or lowtech natural tanks, and I just want folks to think about why they are doing what they doing, each step and hopefully learning as they go.
See, videos like this one is why I'm a sub here!
We don't see these long term, "ugly" things and learn from them on the vast majority of channels - which is fine, I might add! - but having someone sharing stuff like this, with knowledge and "the way out" is priceless.
As an aside, as someone who has had very bad issues with depression and executive dysfunction for many years of my 45 year life, this is also weirdly helpful and healing in another way. Thank you!
Well im honored to have you here, and wish you the best!
Completely agree 💯
Hello, first of all, thank you very much for taking the time and effort to broadcasting valuable information for the hobbyists. previously I had a planted tank I were satisfied with , but was replaced now by two reef tanks. So testing water parameters for me is something very usual, I know that even the so called high range test kits have many limitations regarding accuracy, but clearly on your experience the test strips are accurate enough for the required parameters. I will give them a try on my son's axolotl tank because I don't want to deal with another titration master kit. 😅😅
Yeah they aren't good for super accurate uses...but usually show basic vs acidic and that's the big swing point that matters most. Short of using RODI water and having no buffer, causing massive drops down to 4 or 5ph... but most people don't deal with that unless they bought the equipment and wanted to fidget with those things. Cheers my friend!
That makes a lot of sense. I believe I am experiencing something quite similar. I have 2 small aquariums which both of them show perfect values -- but the water is smelling. And at least in one of them is also "milky". I couldn't found out what the problem is.
But you might have given me a clue. It probably is decaying plant material. I will continue to do some water change (which I typically don't do, just top ups like you do) and remove most of the "none-essential" and especially the already decaying plant material and see if that helps.
Thanks.
What a good video, I appreciate you showing your experiences and not just "perfect" tanks. It really helps the common fishkeeper have a more realistic view of what is going on in their tank.I just recently realized I was a similar issue in my tank with oxygen exchange. I have a nice mat of duckweed and added a partition to keep it from getting pulled into my sponge filter. The partition went to far down into the tank and was both reducing the oxygen and effectiveness of the filter. 0 Ammonia/ 0 Nitrites/ 0 Nitrates but the fish were acting weird and gasping. I shortened the partition to just the top 2.5 in of the water and added an air stone with a ring of air line in the surface. One big water change later and boom everyone is happy and back to normal again.
This was just what I needed answered. Planning a nature/low maintenance ecosystem aquarium and really needed to know a) how will it look down the line and b) what sort of problems we'd need to watch for. No other channel addresses this that I could find. Thank you!
Link to my Nitrogen Cycle / Planted Tank Crash Video: ua-cam.com/video/LkTndnxWrXE/v-deo.html
Remember to pin this, so it doesn't disappear, Alex.
In order for a tank to be stable there has to be no algae or bare minimum amounts of it. You just have to lower your light. I have three planted tanks with CO2(there are only submerged plants, anubias, cryptocoryne and bucephalandras) with soft water and at least I do a 50% water change once a year, and no problems with algae(I just got the light right). I used to have algae problems because I had grow lights in the room for hanging plants I used to have in that same room, but the extra light in the room gave me algae in one tank, it was until I took out that light out of the room and things stabilized(now no issue). I have three ripariums with our tap water gH 8 and kH 8, (two 75 gallons and one 55 gallon with rainbowfish), where only the roots grow inside the water, so there's no need for CO2 there, and photos, syngoniums, philodendrons, monsteras, colocasias, etc grow like magic. Of course you have to trim roots every few months, but that's a one minute work. I basically only feed the fish twice a day 6 days a week, and that's basically all. I can say the amount of time I spend a month giving service to tanks as an average comes down to 15 minutes. They are truly self supporting ecosystems if done right. But of course that takes time and willingness to overcome obstacles when you find trouble, many people quit because they can fix the problems when arise. Once you get the nuts and bolts is easy.
So I have ferns growing from an overhead sump (lets me keep the display tank more open as opposed to being extremely densely planted like these), and the conclusions after running it for a couple years are very comparable: 1. It's so over-filtered with the giant overhead sump (tons of media) and the ferns that there's no measurable ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. 2. You simply HAVE to do water changes occasionally. If you just keep topping off without export (and note that I have TONS of flow and oxygen exchange), hardness and pH climb up over time. Mine went from pH 8.1 (my tap water) to 8.5 and probably double the hardness. Even with the ferns growing, dying and falling OUTSIDE the tank. I can feed super heavily and get all the nutrient export I want, but there's simply no fix for the accumulation of minerals and such over time other than doing water changes. In that regard it's more efficient to do big water changes occasionally rather than small ones frequently (assuming your filtration and nutrient export is adequate to accommodate that) - a 50% water change removes 50% of the accumulated dissolved minerals/metals/etc., where as 5x 10% changes only removes 41% total.
Please put up a video of what your setup looks and works like, I'm finessing my tank and just posted a couple of new videos today, thanks
I agree with your setup especially! I miss my sump tanks
@@GreenCanvasInteriorscape I'm really not interested in making a video of it right now (nor do I have the time). Short version: 29 tall aquarium. Second level of 2x4 and plywood stand is a hefty tote (40 qt? I don't remember the size, but it's a low profile version like would go under a bed) with lava rock. There's a low profile grow light overhead that gives me enough height to grow ferns in the lava rock. Bulkheads through hefty tote and plywood let me pump up from the tank to tote then overflow back down into the tank (liquid level in the bottom of the tote is about an inch). I have a dual overflow system with a valve to keep it quiet. I use a hose with lots of holes to trickle over the lava rock (so it has aspects of a trickle tower also), but I think you could get by without that. So it pumps up from one side of main tank, flows through lava rock/ferns and drains back down on other side of tank. I kept the lid on the hefty tote and cut holes for the plants to grow out to minimize evaporation and keep excess light from covering the lava rocks in algae. I also used a black hose for the water distribution to avoid algae. I built this as a QT/grow-out/breeding proof of concept. I have an empty 36 hex in my living room I'm planning to set up running the same way next year, but it will cost a lot more to build cause I want to to look nice and the hex shape makes the overhead sump construction more complex.
The crashed tank is fascinating! I really like these Untouched Natural Tank debates I find searching the Internet!
My theory is that the tank crashed because you added an air stone, instead of increasing your food web diversity to handle the and surface plant and algae growth. But I won’t know until I get an old tank myself!😁
Well i could have done that...or changed water...or put a filter back on it. Buuuut i already knew how to save a tank, i didnt know if i could destroy one lol.... but as you saw, it was still technically cycled even at the end!
Man this vid really scratched the itches in my brain. Thank you. Theory connected to reality in a comprehensive way
So glad to hear it! Have a good one 👍
It’s official…my tanks are to clean!!Great video Alex.Keep up the good work.
Awesome! Thank you! Just come over to my channel and feel like you are the cleanest fish room in the world 😆
This was so interesting Alex. Thanks for sharing this with us 🙂👍
i imagine in the next few years there might be expensive commercial test kits that allow testing for a lot of the things that are involved with these increasingly popular nature tanks. Somewhat contradictory to the idea of a low cost low tech tank which is the mode for this style, but I can see it happening
Hahahaha, thanks Alex. I've been sick and bed ridden for the past 5 days (so far) with Covid and when you said your angel fish was in Time Out, I lost it. Too Funny! That's why I gave up on Angel fish when I was a kid, I hated the bullies. Thanks for the great video and information!
Any time! Feel better my friend!
I had some angelfish as a teen and when they grew large they started to kill each other. I would like to maybe try just one again as I am afraid to get more than one and have them kill each other again.
Great video Alex. My tanks are over a year old now and all look similar to your tanks. I had a 1 gal crash early in my journey and I now mostly understand why. Thank you
Dont always "do as me" lol but on the stable tanks that look clean and just full of plants...they're all stable for years and no nitrates...in fact the nitrate crash video is my problem if there is one usually...or power outages. Cheers
@@Fishtory that’s a great vid idea “what to do during a power outage”. I have a plan that involves usb heaters and a big usb bank + solar charger and emergency blankets. I have small tanks though. Portable diesel heaters seem like an interesting choice for a small room.
OMG all I need is deer and rabbits to truly replicate nature!! Weeeeee!
Lol just put them in the tank!
@@Fishtory The deer and the rabbits? 🤣 I love that I can use your video as an excuse to get deer and rabbits! 🥰
I struggle with having to throw away floating plants i hate doing it 😅 i need more than 2 tanks one day ❤
I know!
I‘m curious about your compost experiment in min. 29!
love your fish room
Lol 😆 thanks. Its thrashed at the moment
recreating nature in an aquarium is like computers trying to simulate reality. You can list down the ideals (based on human perspective) but there will always be hidden variables which does not completely replicate it.
I agree
one of my favorite videos of yours - thank you! so much to process and consider. So many questions too. May I ask only one? You showed a HOB filter that has been turned off for some time but you said because it was "wet" or waterlogged that the beneficial bacteria would be fine. Is that true. I always thought if you leave a filter off too long the bacteria dies it gets rank. Thoughts?
So you will kill a lot of the bacteria if you dont oxygenate the water...so if you listen, my impeller was still churning loudly...but i have to add water over the sponge every 4 or 5 days or it could dry. Granted...also it is not processing nitrates at a rate anything like when 40 gallons are cycling through it with nitrates, but it keeps the colony ready to fully gear up again in about a week from what i can tell...instead of 4 to 6 weeks.
This was sort of gross yep! LOL
But interesting.
One thing i can't figure out about my tanks is that they never get algae overload. The only algae i get is a very thin film which is barely visible on the glass, and not much at all. I had a computer repair person come here and he kept looking at my tanks. Finally he asked me how I keep the black algae off my annubius. He told me he has several tanks. I told him that it beats me, and that I hadn't removed algae in ages. He was perplexed.
I said "....to quote a song, I'm just a girl!"
Well this tank literally had a foot of duckweed and water lettuce breaking down in it lol... stanky...yet no nitrates or ammonia EVER?! It has me rethinking how many nitrates non-protein or lipid decomposition even creates... not much i suspect. Yet one dead barb is enough to tilt things for a few days in the same size tank.... i guess it makes sense on trophic levels of energy in food webs.
Also, my tanks out front never have more algae than the snails can handle :) i dont fully understand why some tanks work so well and others grow algae like a beard
Great topic Alex! ❤ gold as allways ❤ neither of my tanks have crashed yet I have to fert both one of them twice ton3 times a week but I have ALOT of epiphytes fast and slow and biggest fish are the full size bigger Cory's and my male golden wonder. Tons of horn wart, duckweed water lettuce and pothos amongst a mix of a variety other things 😅 so scared of a tank crash!
What are good burrowing fish?
Eels! Geophagus, gobies and many rift cichlids...sunfish, sticklebacks, some puffers
Hello, what are you thoughts on Plenum? I am a Father Fish fan and love your content…Keep up the good work…
Cheers!!!
Thanks. Plenums are great. But at the end of the day, you gotta take out extra nutrients and or biological loads via water changes and siphoning... or cutting plants and removing dead fish...or both. We cant seem to close the system long term no matter the method ( 6 years or more...which i realize is kind of silly anyhow)
@@Fishtory 👍🏻
This is a really helpful video for me. I’ve got a tank with soft water and an inert sand substrate and I’m trying to get whatever I can to grow in it. Water lettuce has taken over the surface, and some rhizomes are doing well, but bacopa, val, and ludwigia I planted have all lost their leaves and withered away. The stems of the water lettuce are falling to the bottom and creating that fluffy mulm like you described. I’ve been considering whether to suck it up with the vacuum or just let it sink into the substrate. I’d add some MTS from another tank but now I’m worried they’ll raise the tds too high for my caridinas.
They may. I use dehumidifier water or RO water for fancy caridina lines to prevent that creep up. But just test it every few months or so and understand which way things are trending, before anything drastic. That fluffy algae, mold, fungi mix can definitely choke out a tank if there isnt enough o2 echange also though.
Hi Alex, thank you for all these helpful videos.
I have this new established dirted tank with plants and fishes (around 2 months old), it is getting kind of greenish/yellowish cloudy. I did a few water changes for the past few weeks but cloudiness did not go away.
Should I stop doing water changes? Maybe the tank is not fully cycled yet? Please kindly help!
Cheers.
So usually i say keep it up for 4 to 6 weeks. But i have a video on cloudy water trouble shooting too
Sir put the water back in and stop tricking us😂 i’m kidding sometimes the unexpected happens I think there more to nature than we fully understand. I haven’t had a tank crash yet i have had one setup for 4 years. I have change the substrate a couple times but outside of that it does well.
Very good, thank you for the stream
Glad you enjoyed it
How do you find dead fish in those tanks , or do you just let them rott
Usually they get eaten in 24 hours or less, or float to the top and I remove them
Oh my gosh this is awesome. What means it crashed?
Very interesting alex❤
When water is milky, doesn't mean late stages of imbalance? Usually, when something has been dead (or a lot of food rotting) in the tank for a while and therefore accompanied by foul-smelling water.
I experienced this recently. One of my mystery snails died and the water went milky white and my newly hatched Discus fry all died 😢 (I was experimenting with adding newly hatched Discus fry into a tank without the parents because the parents eat the eggs and I have no foster parents for them)
So yes, it is an imbalance. But one that is common in small jungle ponds around the world. If you let the temperature, or O2 deplete... everything will die. Buuut as long as algae and plants are dealing with it and it hasnt acidified below around 5ph also ... you have a few weeks or even months to play with it, when you have a layered substrate of any sort
Have you done any videos on fish parasites and diseases like Ich? Would love your opinion on treatment. I have a heavily planted, but fairly new aquarium. Brought home fish that developed Ich. Bumped up the heat but can't add salt because of plants (that I've spent a lot of $$ on, and snails, which... Do they get Ich?). Could move all my fish to a quarantine tank, but my quarantine tank isn’t big enough for all the fish in my 29 gallon and I'm worried they'd be extra stressed cramped up in there. I started treating main tank with Ich X, because my quarantine tank isn’t big enough for all the fish in my 29 gallon. Two treatments of Ich X in the main tank so far, but now I'm worried I'm killing off all my beneficial micro fauna and bacteria in my fairly new tank that have only recently established themselves. I can introduce a sponge from a filter in another established tank to help with the die off, but I just don’t know what to do. So much conflicting advice out there. Treat the whole tank? Overcrowd a 20g quarantine tank with 12 fish and 2 snails?
Do you worry about pH crash with your dry season tanks? Do you test and do small water changes on those with warm water or add some buffer to be safe?
100% also crushed coral in filter media bags is usually in the forecast to buffer
Would it be that anaerobic bacteria formed from being so stagnate? Then cosumes what was left?
Deer and rabbits can't fit in our tanks.
But crickets, millipedes, terrestrial snails and slugs? They can. That's why paludariums are the best, we can actually integrate marginal herbivores.
Hey man, you may not have rabbits in your fish room but that doesn’t mean I don’t. Granted they are spoiled with treats and snuggles and I don’t feed them my plant trimmings, but by god they exist and I’m tired of pretending like they don’t. 🐰 😂
People say after 2years of using fluval stratum it must be rep'laced is there any way i can no why
Its just down to nutrients and dust... if you sand cap it/ dont care that it may get dusty when you move things, then it doesnt need to be replaced. If you want a tank of perfect little aquasoil spheres for peak performance of plant growth...then you probably need to switch out the soil every 2 to 3 years in an intensive aquascape or nursery style tank
Nice ! I have a feeling your about to get your hands dirty !
So curious. You said on a couple of tanks you started with little or no substrate, yet now have some built up....at what point would that build up need removing/replacing/reducing and what's the best way to do it or minimise it without a complete tank stripdown?
So over time it layers like lasagna into bands of density and various materials, after 2 or 3 inches, ill usually re-cap a tank with an inch of fine sand, then try and keep it lightly gravel vacuumed for maintenance... just sucking up big clumps of leaves or algae and debris once a month or every 2...but not pushing the siphon into the substrate at all really.
@@Fishtory wouldn't that eventually mean the tank's too full for the fish though? Sorry not had a proper planted tank before (only had goldfish not much chance of plants there ;) Ps thanks for replying!
Hello Alexl
What are those test strips..??
So, I can get some..
The cheapest multi strips on Amazon... were very inaccurate for nitrites and PH..
And yours include Ammonia? Yayy!!!
So i use all API products usually... and have another strip for ammonia, but they're just little cotton pads, so i take a bottle and ill super glue it to the 5 test strips sometimes....to make a 6 test strip. However these are expensive... about 50 cents to 75 cents a test, but theyre accurate give or take 10 to 20ppm in low levels and 20 to 30ish ppm in ranges over 100ppm from what i can tell comparing my eletronic units, and my api master liquid test reagents.
Aquarium coop has more affordable ones. But early on when i tried them, they seemed hit or miss if they worked well.... maybe research if people say theyve improved?
What is the light level on your wills aquarium light ? 💡
This was an eye opener! Thankful for you sharing the plight of this tank, the stages it went thru and its ultimate demise and the knowledge you have gained along the way . Hopeful for the new beginnings and what’s yet to come. Feel Sorry for your wife who probably hated this particular experiment. She’s a keeper😆😁☮❤🐠🦐🪴🐈⬛
Hahaha oh we had like full on fights over it lol. But i was like " just another week"... until she said " fine l, get a new tank for that spot, just get it out of here!"
Will you be live on Tuesday night?😊
Thank you, for the information. Do you sell any of your fish? I live in Pennsylvania. It's to cold ship fish.
Sometimes i sell CARES fish, or native fish on a very sporadic frequency. Mostly just to get threatened or endangered species out to the hobby. But i sell plants and shrimp ( malawa) to a bit larger amount of friends and viewers
I'm guessing that foul smell was H2S (rotten egg smell) from anaerobic zones
Yes indeed you are correct. Methane, putricine, cadaverine, sulfur hexa- gasses and yes H2S. I have a video called " why does my tank stink?" And i go over the various gases and smells that eutrophication and or decomposition have as byproducts.
The landlords never understand though, do they
😆
Aquariums need maintenance, period. The way you do isn't the right way. Maintenance, man. Closed systems need basic maintenance, if you want to succeed. You need to balance input and output in a closed system. You need to do water changes to export excess nutrients/ detritus/ organics and import fresh clean water. The only way to replicate what happens in nature, in a stable clean environment, is to do water changes and trim your plants to export nutrients. Give the trimmed plants to your local fish store or to your friends. This video is a bad example of what will happen to any system when you basically abandon it. Not cool, my friend. I've kept marine systems for about 2 decades without a crash. It can be done with diligent basic maintenance. Perhaps that was the message you wanted to send out with this video?
I have a dozen videos showing how to do it correctly, and I agree with you... The point of this is that the water test says everything is safe and well...but clearly its a death trap for any fish or shrimp. although this tank was built to need less work by design ( strong lighting and water top offs). This video is 100% what happens when you just abandoned a tank. The dangers of doing the tik tok trending "closed ecosystems" etc.
@@Fishtory Yes, they forget that any ecosystem in nature just can't be 100% closed forever and be able to sustain a variety of organisms without cashing. It will always have to refresh it's input/output balance in order to maintain proper health of the biota present in that natural environment. It's a natural biological law forgot by many. I always say that if you love your tank you should love also to do maintenance to maintain it pristine and healthy. Yes, try to have your hands out and let the system get to it's balanced stage, but keep it within the ranges of a proper input/output balance. That is our job as hobbyists and part of the enjoyment. That is the art of any system in a glass box. There is so much to say about this interesting subject... thanks for the video!
I worry how people will perceive this...
I hope people will realize that its important to look after your fish and not experiment with sentient beings..
That is very true. A sunfish was the only one who died in this last 6 months of testing. And not im a wreckless way. The sunfish never recovered after the chilled water tank crashed in the power outage, then heated and my 2lb sunfish ( her mate). rotted while i was gone for 3 days in 86 degree heat without power. So that first fish would have been avoidable if i had gotten someone to daily take care of the tanks.
Then that female had issue after issue and i tried every trick i know, but i gave up after about 2 months of trying to save her, since she looked miserable. The day i stopped hand feeding her every meal of earth worms, she sadly died.
I hope i made it clear that im not just testing the dry season/wet season thing. It is my go-to for spawning tricky fish to spawn. The angel fish is in no danger, nor are their fish in those green water tanks
@Fishtory there is a wonderful documentary called...Earthlings...check it out...
Difference between a black neon tetra and a cat is perception..
Are you aware how many zebra danios and rice fish are bred in laboratories around the world every day specifically to be experimented upon? That also doesn't mean bad treatment. Euthanizing embryos to take pictures of the development is how we even know HOW fish eggs develop in the first place.
You have a lot of cleaning to do lmao
Soooo u rarely reset tanks got it
Yup. Only spawning tanks or high tech aqua scapes get reset if i can help it
I just can't the smell off fish tanks gets too me. I do miss having one but yeah never again.
If you set up a nice planted one, the only smell you'd ever deal with is an earthy mushroom smell. The muddy poop smell is from fish waste not fully broken down by bacteria and snails etc.
A smelly tank is a dirty tank.
Not the water. Literally the tank. Clean the outside and the rim (on a rimmed tank) and suddenly you won't have a "fish smell"
What you're actually smelling is fish food that missed the water and is rotting fish and other things sitting inside the rim of your tank. Notice how it doesn't happen on new tanks.
@@teagancombest6049 that is a fair point. I'm coming back around. Just a betta for now. I guess never say never.
When you have no plenum (anoxic) and this is what happen when the hydrogen sulphide gas explosion.
Along the way your ammonia build up will also happen.
This is not a good thing.
So do more waht Dr Novak says
Anoxic tank or fail!
How do your fish not get pop eye with your water?
Its not dirty with poop and bad bacter ia or mold and algae... the plants, the tannins and microorganisms all play roles
@Fishtory I tried the no water change, filterless, mature tank route, and my Hongsloi got pop eye. I like the mentality of it all. But I was just wondering if the risk is worth it
@@user-el7wr3on5rIDK who advised you to go filterless AND do No-WC but that's a terrible idea unfortunately for most creatures. Most natural ecosystems get natural water changes, many of them on a very large scale.
Filter-less is more understandable, if you do it the right way. Really depends on the tank environment and fish.
shit happens should have a real talk with Mr BRETZ
Im good friends with Lucas... ive been down to see his fishroom in florida twice already. So im well aware of what he's doing... and i do some of the same. He is only 2 years into that fish room. Wait till some tanks hit 5 or 10 years and itll be fascinating to see how they are progressing. I know how to stop what happened in this tank...could have reset it, but id never taken note of how long the nitrogen cycle will work, what breaks down , what the seed shrimp and algae do etc. Now i know
I hope you get your roof patched up quickly!
Uhhg me too!
I have no desire to live in a place where it wants to become that. The fish tore up the substrated plants and ruined the cycle, if that’s the earth in its broken state in micro and macro cosim it’s a hell of man’s work and natures violence.
Morale of the story.... don't keep cichlids😅
Or sunfish lol
Lol 😅😂
Good video. If you ever came to portugal on vacations give me a call. I can areange a good room, diferent fish at dinner and a 200l aquarium to comment. The rest is enjo6ing portugal.
Sounds great! Id absolutely love to visit Portugal! Thank you for your kind offer. Hopefully in the next 2 years ill get back over to europe ( id happily move over there, honestly)
So basically it choked it's self out
🤯
I wonder about creation of an artificial hyporheic zone to keep the substrate from stagnating and reducing mulm buildup.
Thinking about an under gravel filter that can be fed (rather than always dewatered with a bubble lift or powerhead) with a slug of heated water (slightly warmer than tank) to drive an upward gradient.
Would the artificial “seasonal” recharge/discharge through the gravel be beneficial?
Whoa. I mean...complex, but interesting. Id love to see it haha. Please do let us know if you try it!
@@Fishtory A simple cable substrate heater would do similar..but they don’t seem to sell those anymore.
Heating mat for reptiles under the tank! Easier than an undergravel heater, has no equipment in the tank, can be customized to cover the whole or part of the tank, and can be retrofitted onto an existing set up (for smaller tanks, probably)
Heating mat!
Tanks crash when there not set up right. Its that simple. I see it Everytime i walk into a big box store and even smaller stores. Still nobody has adopted setting up a real substrate method. Only experienced people no how to set it up. Newbies cant concept what i am doing. It comes with time. Over 25 years keeping fish. Only in the last ten years experimenting with stuff. I no what i need to do for my rooms. There really no wrong way to do it. But i kinda disagree with alot of people. Which makes me hated by most. Because just like you alex. I speak the truth. And the truth ends sales for those junk tank kits 😂 what a waste 😂 they dont even sell what you need anymore in the stores. Its so crooked, that they sell sick fish to people. With no meds at hand to cure them. I would say thats animal abuse. How about that….
Amen
That was a lot of words bragging that you have a secret method and then not actually sharing it.
ngl Father Fish is BTFO
Lol... his shorts sure have been. And he and i are friends
i dont even know why you would want the same tank for years. looks gross
Man, your tanks are just a hideous mess now. Pls prune the plants. I know u had health issues or maybe u even prefer it that way, but damn, fish need some open space to swim. Your tanks crash because they are overloaded with plants.
Um theyre spawning in these tanks. The big tank in the living room gets trimmed bi weekly, but also the biggest fisb are 2.5 inches max. No angels or anything
You clearly don’t listen to anything he talks about. You just see something u don’t like and freak out like you’re his mom.
Alex explains everything behind what he does and what he lets happen. His fish are all just fine.
If you actually listen, you’d know.