The Rounded Aquarium

[Nigel Rennie]

I have seen it done - guppies with a plant in a completely sealed ball tank. The guppies eat the plant which produces oxygen and removes nitrates and CO2 from the water. The guppies remove oxygen and create CO2 and ammonia. On the bacteria side ammonia is broken down to nitrite and then to nitrate, which is back to the beginning of the loop. This is the ultimate in low maintenance with a just add sun approach.

I with this balance in mind would like do design my tank. I of coarse will feed the fish regularly to get things going, and ill cheat by giving my plants more CO2 but only because i want more plants than the fish population can support. The bacteria is in as external canister filter and in an under-gravil filter covering much of the 4' tank.

My thought here is i will be able to achieve an unnaturally high fish population if i have a large bacteria population as well as a lot of plant life. There will be more than enough airation and circulation!

What is everyones thoughts?

 

[RogerMcAllen]

It sounds as though you are talking about two extremes. In the first case a very low bioload in a self sustaining tank. Though this is often cruel in a small scale. Such a thing can be done fairly well if you scale the tank up a bit providing adequate water volume. One major problem with this setup is a lack of protein in the fish's diet.

On the larger scale, it seems as thought what you are going for is a heavily planted tank with a very large bioload. This can be done with adequate filtration and water changes, but you won't be able to run it as a self sustaining system. Give us some more details about what you are trying to do, as I am confused on some of the details.

 

[Toirtis]

If you are referring to Ecospheres, they only ever contain shrimp, not guppies.

 

[Guest]

Do you have any pics by any chance? It seems interesting, althought I probably would never try this myself.
-Stewie