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bigchris87

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jan 27, 2023
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R8, everyone bit bwt me kept fish for years on an off freshwater and saltwater close all down last year started back up again bit diffrent never done this so

My setup is a fluval sea evo 52lt, but I want to carpet my tank, so I'm going to freshwater tropical plant a shrimp. Please, any help would be great full fluval stratum as substrate dwarf hairgrass as carpet som moss stuck on bog wood etc 2 sword tails just to get things going ligh is original stock light for saltwater run whites 11 hours an blues 1 hour air pump filter. Started tank 21/1/23 ran for 2 days, then added sorwd tails. The final aim is a no maintenance or once every 6 months, eventually 20230127_124248.jpg20230127_124301.jpg20230127_124313.jpg20230127_124333.jpg20230127_124337.jpg20230127_124402.jpg
 
What do you mean by "no maintenance or once every 6 months"?

No water changes? No filter cleaning? No fertiliser dosing?

Are you planning on adding more fish? A very low number of fish would be a start point, and your tank is quite small. 2 adult swordtails is going to put a not insignificant bioload into a 57 litre aquarium.

I have a fluval flex 57, which is essentially the same as your evo but with a slightly different footprint. Probably the same sump pump etc. After 4 weeks the return flow is greatly reduced as the sponges get clogged. If i didnt regularly rinse the sponge block and clean the sump pump i think flow would stop altogether inside of 8 weeks.

We have had a topic recently where the requirement to do regular water changes was discussed. While water changes arent going to dictate whether your tank is successful or not, you have to do other things to compensate. The idea of zero maintenance will come down to what you consider to be maintenance.
 
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Hi and welcome to the forum :)

There's no such thing as a no maintenance or even low maintenance tank, especially if you are trying to grow garden plants (hair grass) underwater. This plant needs bright light, lots of aquarium plant fertiliser, and carbon dioxide (CO2) otherwise it struggles.

The lighting could do with some tweaking. Aquarium plants like equal parts blue and red light with a bit of green and top it up with white.

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You need to do water changes regularly even if the water tests are good. There are lots of things in water that we can't test for and they need to be removed as well.

You do water changes for a number of reasons.
1) to reduce nutrients like ammonia, nitrite & nitrate.
2) to dilute disease organisms in the water.
3) to keep the pH, KH and GH stable.
4) to dilute nitric acid produced by fish food and waste breaking down.
5) to dilute stress chemicals (pheromones/ allomones) released by the fish.
6) to dilute un-used plant fertiliser so you don't overdose the fish when you add more.
7) to remove fish waste and other rotting organic matter.

Fish live in a soup of microscopic organisms including bacteria, fungus, viruses, protozoans, worms, flukes and various other things that make your skin crawl. Doing a big water change and gravel cleaning the substrate on a regular basis will dilute these organisms and reduce their numbers in the water, thus making it a safer and healthier environment for the fish.

Imagine living in your house with no windows, doors, toilet, bathroom or anything. You eat and poop in the environment and have no clean air. Eventually you end up living in your own filth, which would probably be made worse by you throwing up due to the smell. You would get sick very quickly and probably die unless someone came to clean up regularly and open the place up to let in fresh air.

Fish live in their own waste. Their tank and filter is full of fish poop. The water they breath is filtered through fish poop. Cleaning filters, gravel and doing big regular water changes, removes a lot of this poop and harmful micro-organisms, and makes the environment cleaner and healthier for the fish.

Whilst you might not have ammonia, nitrite or nitrate problems, the number of micro-organisms in your tank will be growing exponentially due to lack of water changes and this will eventually cause problems to the fish and shrimp.

I recommend doing a 75% water change and gravel clean each week. If there aren't many fish in the tank or clean fresh water is limited, maybe do a 50% water change every 2 weeks. But water changes should be done regularly to help keep things clean and stop the pH dropping, because this will eventually affect the fish, shrimp and plants.

Even in the wild, rivers and lakes are getting water changed. They might not get any new water for half a year but they do get a massive influx of fresh water during the wet season and this washes away all the gunk that has built up. Keep in mind that rivers hold a lot more water than any fish tank.
 
The way I put the statement was incorrect buy no maintenance I mean only water change an trim on plants perhaps once a month my filter system is all diffrent I don't run stock sponge as its causes issues I have upgraded dflow baskets for fiter in compartments 1 an 2 also pump outlet has a RFG on to help push water round the tanks so no dead spots
 
The way I put the statement was incorrect buy no maintenance I mean only water change an trim on plants perhaps once a month my filter system is all diffrent I don't run stock sponge as its causes issues I have upgraded dflow baskets for fiter in compartments 1 an 2 also pump outlet has a RFG on to help push water round the tanks so no dead spots


Hi Chris,

Low maintenance tanks are a thing. You don’t need to look very far to see people all over the world having huge success with no water change systems. There are a number of rules to apply and there are a few things to consider before you go down this route though.

In my toxic soup of microorganisms I have cherry barb fry, amazing plant growth, no algae. I use reverse osmosis water to top up evaporation. You also have to ask yourself if you can’t test for something, how in the lords name do you know it is there?

Lastly, is a picture of hairgrass thriving in a bucket of muddy water outside in my back garden. This plant that supposedly NEEDS high light and high co2 and fertiliser survived a freeze over and droughts.

IMG_0678.jpg
IMG_0729.jpg

Just remember that nature is far smarter than you and I will ever be. Trust your instincts and experiment to prove or disprove your theories. Make sure you don’t become blinkered to only one way. You will become frozen in time and stagnate whilst the aquarium world evolves around you. Don’t convince yourself that your way is correct and anything else is wrong. You will become a much better aquarium owner as a result. Those who are frightened of microbes will have many issues in life. Not just with aquariums.

Good Luck.
 
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Hi Chris,

Low maintenance tanks are a thing. You don’t need to look very far to see people all over the world having huge success with no water change systems. There are a number of rules to apply and there are a few things to consider before you go down this route though.

In my toxic soup of microorganisms I have cherry barb fry, amazing plant growth, no algae. I use reverse osmosis water to top up evaporation. You also have to ask yourself if you can’t test for something, how in the lords name do you know it is there?

Lastly, is a picture of hairgrass thriving in a bucket of muddy water outside in my back garden. This plant that supposedly NEEDS high light and high co2 and fertiliser survived a freeze over and droughts.

View attachment 324791
View attachment 324792

Just remember that nature is far smarter than you and I will ever be. Trust your instincts and experiment to prove or disprove your theories. Make sure you don’t become blinkered to only one way. You will become frozen in time and stagnate whilst the aquarium world evolves around you. Don’t convince yourself that your way is correct and anything else is wrong. You will become a much better aquarium owner as a result. Those who are frightened of microbes will have many issues in life. Not just with aquariums.

Good Luck.
Thanks that is exactly what I'm wanting to do
 
Latest update

8 res cherry shrimp
11 neon tetras
2 swordtails 20230209_145526.jpg20230209_200136.jpg20230209_195735.jpg
 
Quick update now have snow white guppys an also a bamboo shrimp plant coming along great just carpet seems a bit slow if at all 20230217_142127.jpg20230224_125513.jpg20230224_125516.jpg20230224_125631.jpg
 
About the only drawback to digital cameras is they struggle to pick up black, white or yellow objects. In this case it's the white guppies. I can see white things but that's about it for the guppies :)
 
That's the best pic I can get of the SWG I'm afraid [emoji1787] they never slow down 20230224_235733.jpg
 
This week's update trimed dwarf hair grass see if it helps speed up the carpet 20230303_204548.jpg20230303_204543.jpg20230302_201141.jpg20230303_175456.jpg20230303_174559.jpg20230303_174548.jpg20230303_174500.jpg20230303_174423.jpg
 
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