Self-Sustaining Tank???

[Wy Renegade]

Same plant, although there is the normal and a thin-leafed version. Not sure if both types associate with cyanobacteria.

 

[GodFan]

self-sustaining (or at least without water changes) without plants ...

1) expect a ton of algae

either a deep sand bed, or live rock

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parrot fish ... not that it's part of their diet, but don't they munch on coral at times ?

for coral, ... i would recommend avoiding the DSB, going live rock and bare bottom tank

coral is really iffy about the idea of considering self-sustaining, ... there is no way i could imagine doing it as the coral itself will grow and need mineral suppliments.

my familiarity with reef tanks and nutrient levels, ... high nutrient levels upset the algae/coral relationship, ... one dies, then the other

without coral, or possibly with soft coral only it's an idea

That is a misconception. "Self sustaining" tanks dont need lots of algae. Mine has very little if any. Its all about balance

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[Flear]

without plants, all the nutrients are going to go somewhere

if you have plants the plants are going to use what they can, if you don't have plants, then you'll get algae.

 

[Wy Renegade]

Hence why elodea and hornwort make good choices - both are excellent at utilizing ammonia directly, which means little conversion from ammonia into nitrites or nitrates.

 

[GodFan]

without plants, all the nutrients are going to go somewhere

if you have plants the plants are going to use what they can, if you don't have plants, then you'll get algae.

Oops sorry I thought we were still discussing a tank with plants lol

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[Flear]

actually where ammonia is concerned, ... i have come across almost no infomation on what plants use in regards to ammonia or ammonium

internally a plants internal pH is low enough to ensure 100% ammonium
what the plant takes in, ... well the million dollar question (no joke

sources either say ammonia (and don't recognize the relationship between ammonia and ammonium)
or more academic sources talk about ammonium exclusivly and don't mention ammonia or the relationship between the two.

so i cannot say i have come across anything that says the plants take in ammonia, but i have come across lots that say a plant does take in ammonium (ammonia just isn't talked about leaving it the great unknown instead of a 'yes' or 'no' answer)

once things have started along the nitrogen cycle then the next thing plants have is nitrates to use, not preferred by plants as they have to expend energy to run it backwards through the cycle till it reaches ammonium that the plants can use.

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the lack of clarification that in every source if one is mentioned the other is never mentioned, ... ever

but for the more academic sources, any low pH (well under 6.5 is what i picture mentally as low - or less) will assure almost 100% ammonium in the tank anyway which i am certain is a guarantee the plants can absorb directly

it's the ammonia part that has me confused, ... do plants take in ammonia at all, or not, ... big uncertainty

 

[Wy Renegade]

Plants will not use NO2 for the record.
They will remove the NH4 first, then if the bacteria are lucky they might get a little, or if you over stock the tank you get an excess of NH4 which triggers algae to bloom.
Wet dry filters are very good for NH4=> NO3 so these are often used in plant tanks with high fish/feeding loads and tend to have more regular food supply for the nitrying bacteria, hence a larger bacterial bed.

These tanks are less prone to algae outbreaks when you remove plants etc, but they are tougher to balance than folks that have less fish/feeding.

It's easy to top off a planted tank's needs by adding KNO3 etc, it's very difficult to remove NH4 that's beyond the plant's uptake capacity even if you have good filtration etc, there's still some left for the alkgae to use.

Available NH4 is MUCH more valuable to a small alga than to a plant.
Why? For the same reason a big meal is better for a mouse than a peanut is for an elephant, the algae has less needs and gains more from the more available form.

This not only occurs with algae vs plants, this occurs with small algae vs large algae. Larger algae need more nutrients to sustain growth and be competitive.

While plants prefer one vs another, in practical terms plants and algae get both. Minimizing NH4 is a good goal and keeping good nutrient parameters will allow max NH4 uptake. The relatively safe method is using Fish/snail waste as the source of NH4. NO3 is relatively benign so topping off the plant's needs is generally the best approach rather than saying plants prefer NH4 vs NO3, they actually prefer a balance of both of these ions, eg they grow better when both are supplied vs either added alone.

Also, if you starve the plants by NOT adding NO3 from an inorganic source, this does NOT increase NH4 uptake. It hurts the plants once they remove what little NH4 is there or their Nitrogen needs are not able to be met so they will not make the enzymes needed to take the NH4 in the first place.

Let the plants decide what source they want and minimize the NH4.

If this NH4 preference really worked so well, why not just keep adding fish to supply all the Nitrogen needs?

You cannot blame PO4, K, Fe etc, we add those, you cannot blame NO3 becuase we also add those. The only thing that we don't add, NH4, fish waste/urea except in small continous amounts.

You can do this experiment yourself, add NH4, even a small amount and see. Next add only NO3, no fish/snails etc. Then try adding a few fish, then a few more, then a few more, till you start seeing algae. PO4 can be the same in both tanks, NO3 also. But if the NH4 waste cannot be broken down fast enough, then you will algae.

Regards,
Tom Barr

So most assuredly plants will use ammonium. As you said, any tank with an acidic pH (anything below 7) will convert ammonia into ammonium (pH concentration will determine how much), and plants will uptake it. I've run tanks with a mix of tap and RO water and used hornwort as my filter. Never had an issue with ammonia (or any other type of nitrogen build-up) in these tanks. The plant basically acts as your filter, eliminating the need for mechanical or biological filtration. Granted these tanks are not what I would consider highly stocked. That portion is the easy part, the hard part is establishing a food supply for the carnivorous fish that maintains within the tank. Most success stories I've read about rely on daphnia as the viable food source, although reproduction of the fish can eliminate the daphnia population eventually.

The closest I have come to achieving success with this type of thing actually involves a breeding population of white cloud mountain minnows in a 40B turtle tank established as a paludarium with both aquatic and emersed plants last summer. The population went three months without water changes or food, and was actually increasing in size with tons of fry. After school started we again started doing weekly water changes and the fry/eggs were "accidently" siphoned out weekly by students, so the population is no longer growing. I'm hoping that this summer once they are again left to their own devices they will begin successfully reproducing again.

Edit: I should add that this tank is filtered. I also think that having a number of different potential food sources available is necessary as well; snails, scuds, daphnia, aquatic worms if you can find them, etc.

 

[Flear]

daphnia is good, yes
i've decided a better approach is a mix of zooplankton, and possibly others.
having found 'water boatman' bugs that are about 1/2 cm in size, ... i've added these to my list

you can get resting eggs from alibaba
most places you can get copepods (although freshwater is iffy at best)
most places you can get rotifers
scuds ... actually haven't looked into these critters
moina - i have not found an online shop

blackworms with some searching you can find online
tubifex worms - i wish
microworms - i think i should add these actually.

other aquatic worms - i wish i knew what was out there
not interested in vinegar worms

for plants
-for the most part my plants are in limbo, i'm really uncertain
for the most part - i do know watermeal is one i want - i can't find any sources online. time to find it locally in the wild anywhere localy

phytoplankton are also something i wish to get, ... not too sure on species to get, but a good mix, ... volvox (if i remember correctly) is one i wouldn't mind the idea is intersting and while not sure, i think this species may possibly be just bearly visible to the naked eye (with good eye-sight) to see the spheres

otherwise, phytoplankton for the zooplankton, for the fish,

possibly adding clams

freshwater sponge sounds interesting , but i need silicates, and that requires diatoms to add to my list of critters to get, ... unfortunatly no one has any information i have come across on how much of this nutrient to add to keep a diatome population going.

but it does raise the curiosity, if diatomacious earth is expected to be good for our health, a cleaning/detox of sorts , ... i could possibly expect the same thing from other critters eating them

if i can figure out a way to solve the DSB/root issue, next i can focus on critters, so far what i have listed above is what i have come across in casual looking, ... so frustrating when i was looking for those, (till i focused on the nutrient issue (solved with a DSB - risking being not workable due to roots

Edit:
good point, ... yes snails are indispensable

 

[Wy Renegade]

Don't add clams - as filter-feeders they consume a huge amount of your plankton population. Even a small freshwater one is capable of turning over the volume of a good-sized tank once or twice a day.

Couple sites you need to become familiar with;
Fresh Water Invertebrates at Sachs Systems Aquaculture

NANFA Forum

I've read through some of your thread on another site, and you state that you are not as interested in ascetics as you are success. I suggest you looking into some native minnow species that stay small and are herbivores.

You also may need to learn about refugiums in order to make something like this fully sustainable.

Diatoms and other such organisms are not something you have to worry about adding, they are going to end up in your tank via airborn spores. If you are insistent about doing so, I suggest that you find a pond or horse tank with a plentiful supply and scrape the sides. The issue with adding from a natural source of course is that you run the risk of introducing something that is not desirable.

You might also want to look into planaria and detrivorous leeches - not very pleasant critters to most people, but they play a very important role in aquatic ecosystems.

 

[Flear]

i've had clams, ... i have the opposite problem
the greenwater density kills the clams, ... i think they get smothered to death

the water has so much phytoplankton in it the clams can't breath and die, ... within a day or so ;(

if i can find a place to get wild clams, i can do some tests to find out how diluted the greenwater needs to be as a max to keep the clams from dying ... otherwise i'm spending tons of cash to have them die while i try to figure this out.

at 10% the concentration in the greenwater bucket, i think this was too much for the clams and they died ... granted that i honestly couldn't see objects that were 1" below the surface, ... diluted that down till in water that was under 2" deep the water was still showing a distinct green color, ... and the clams died

 

[Flear]

from wiki, ... related to carp ?, ... hmmm, i wonder if they're like golfish, if it can fit in their mouth they'll eat it.

doesn't change what i have in the tank, but would open up more plants i think

flagfish seem to be limited on plants

 

[Wy Renegade]

If I'm not mistaken you are in Canada? Your weather has to be similar there to what we have in the northern US? I've collected lots of freshwater clams out of a local pond with a good supply of water. They like hanging out in the plants/mud substrate, so you have to be willing to get your hands dirty to find them, but it isn't too tough.

If your figure out the concentration to keep them alive, how do you plan to maintain that particular % of greenwater in a tank lit by sunlight? If you figure out the right percent to keep them alive long term, I would be interested. My longest success is about 3 months.

 

[Wy Renegade]

from wiki, ... related to carp ?, ... hmmm, i wonder if they're like golfish, if it can fit in their mouth they'll eat it.

doesn't change what i have in the tank, but would open up more plants i think

flagfish seem to be limited on plants

Yes carp and goldfish are both members of cyprinidae, but I wouldn't consider a carp or goldfish, I'd look at some of the shiners, such as the spottail or emerald shiner.

 

[Flear]

welcome to canada ;(

home of the desert of ordering specific critters

only one i've found is boreal.com for those things

the critters i've mentioned above they have about 1/2 of what i'm interested in (maybe a touch more) but it still leaves some pretty big holes in the food-chain for the ecosystem

others ... i don't like the idea of going to the wild for critters as i don't know what i'm getting, even if i find what i'm after, i don't know if i'll get any stow-away critters that are more preditary in nature

can solve the preditary critters with other fish (carinivore diets)
but that only works for watermeal/wolffia, ... doesn't work for the zooplankton i want

 

[Flear]

for the greenwater for clams, ... it's less an issue of definitly having the clams, ... but knowing if the zooplankton can't keep up with the greenwater and it's multiplying faster than the zooplankton are sustaining themselves ... hopefully reproducing in balance with what is being eaten) ... if the greenwater is getting out of control then i can add clams to help assist with the greenwater.

otherwise i fear adding clams just because will clean the greenwater right out and then the whole thing falls apart

 

[Flear]

planaria, ... i'm on the fence about, ... too many researches say they may become dangerous, that they may attack other critters if they have a carnivorous preference.

as i have an impossible time finding what specific planaria have what dietary preferences i chose to stay away from.

leaches, ... i've nver heard of any leach that is content to be a detrivore

planaria detrivores would be great they don't list species by diet though , makes the search very hard , ... although the boreal online store i mentioned, i can inquire with them directly and they'll answer questions to the best of their ability , they've done that for me

 

[Wy Renegade]

Sounds to me like your options are pretty limited. Many, many things in nature are omnivorous, it is about effectiveness of food supply. Most leeches are detrivores, only a small percentage actually use blood - but because some do they all have that reputation. In regards to planaria, what are you concerned with them consuming? I've had them crawl all over things in both fresh and saltwater tanks, and unless something is dying they cause no harm, they are just not pretty to look at.

I think that in order to do what you want, you are going to have to get past your concerns about collecting things in the wild and get your hands dirty a bit. Do some reading on the NANFA Forum. Lots of those folks collect lots of stuff from the wild, and if you can get them to chime in, many are doing something pretty close to what you are trying to do.

 

[Flear]

'omnivore' is such a relative word for diets :/

it's like bi-sexual, ... ranges from well both are acceptable, but one is prefered, to both are needed, but one is a more significant requirement than the other, ... to both are eaten in relative balance,

omnivore is a very relative word

carnivore & herbivore are very specific, ... 100% of their diet is exclusively plant matter or meaty matter, exceptions being more accidental than deliberate.

definitly going to look at NANFA forum

thank you so much for your input
going to spend more time looking at the minnows as well

 

[Wy Renegade]

No problem, keep us posted, I'd like to see where you end up with your project. I'm in process of restarting a 30gal paludarium that will be as self-sustaining as possible, so I'm curious to see where you end up.

It will be set-up Walstead style, which will be my first venture into a dirted tank. Mineralizing soil is a real pain.

 

[GodFan]

I think we have branched into two seperate converstaions. Those who want a limited maintainance tank and those who want a self sustained econsystem tank.
I am going to post a how to guide on making a low maintainance tank (ie little to nk water changes) hopefully tonight with all my research ajd experiments. This is a good conversation as well but I think this thread is more geared toward eco system seekers.

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