Resurrecting an Ecosystem
You know me, I always have a few projects on the go, and at the weekend I started yet another!
When we first built our house about 10 years ago I set up a nice planted aquarium. I don’t like to do things the ‘normal way’ so rather than have a tank with lots of filtration, aeration and gaudy coloured plastic decorations for the brightly coloured fish I go for the more natural look. Lots of lush, luxuriant plant growth, smaller fish to suit the size of the tank (3 foot) and rather than aerating the tank with an air pump and filtering the water like mad I gently bubble carbon dioxide through the water to encourage plant growth and then allow the plants to take care of the aeration and filtration. If done well you end up with an almost self-regulating little ecosystem. The true master of this is Takashi Amano. If you want some inspiration on the subject just take a look at any of his gorgeous ‘Natural Aquarium World‘ books.
There was one point when I was going to buy a brand new set up. The hood on the set-up I had annoyed me. It was a cheap, cheerful hood anyway and I had hacked it and modified it so that it would accommodate three light tubes rather than the one it was designed for. This made it fiddly to open and made maintaining the tank difficult. Finding one that fitted the bill was difficult though and unfortunately having a young boy to look after, mouths to feed, a house and garden to tend to, work to do and a myriad of other time constraints the tank did over the years gradually fall into disrepair.
I now can’t afford a new set-up but Morgan wanted to help me resurrect the old one, so setting up a gorgeous planted aquarium is my new project! We shall have to make do with what we have equipment wise and I shall have to put up with the cumbersome hood for now. We will be doing this as much as possible on the cheap.
Shrimp Survival
The tank had been sat in the corner of my office neglected and unloved for about 5 years. I had been going to completely dismantle it and get rid of it on a few occasions but each time I thought about it I looked inside the dark recesses of the tank and there was still at least one shrimp alive and doing well in there. I didn’t have the heart to just kill it so had left the tank half full of water unlit, unfiltered and unheated.
Somehow the shrimp has survived until today having spent the last 4 or 5 years in a tank with no new water, no lighting, no heating, no filtration and no food. He / She must have had her own little ecosystem in there, perfectly balanced with enough food from algae and such like just for one.
Equipment Revitalisation
The Tank
The tank itself hadn’t fared quite so well though. It had been half full for several years and there was a nasty limescale tide-mark at this level. I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed it and removed most of it but it still isn’t pretty. The front of the glass is a little scratched as well and has been for years – another reason why I wanted to replace the whole set-up. Beggars can’t be choosers though so we’ll have to put up with it for now and hopefully I’ll be able to disguise the worst of it with some clever planting.
The Lights
The lights were the next thing to test. The tubes themselves would need replacing as they should be replaced every 12 months or so anyway. To get the lush plant growth that I strive for you need lots of light. Newer aquariums have modern LED or T5 lights, but these are expensive and as I already have 3 sets of light fittings and starter units for the traditional T8 lights was that what I had planned to use. We popped out yesterday and bought two new tubes – the third will have to wait a week or two as at around £12-£15 each they soon mount up in cost. After a bit of sorting out the spaghetti of cables we had them plugged in and working – phew, the starters and various fittings were still working and didn’t need replacing.
I dug out the timers and set them up and we were in business, but with lots still to sort out.
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- Lights
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- Timer Central
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- Dad at Work
The Filter
We could now see inside the tank and the little shrimp was still pretty happy. I took out the filter and cleaned it. I actually use very little filtration in the tank, just a small internal filter designed for a much smaller tank just to provide some water movement really. I didn’t clean the filter media though as it is this that houses the bacteria that keep the pollutants such as nitrates and nitrites within the tank balanced. Cleaning the media in chlorinated water would kill this population of bacteria.
The Substrate
It has to be said that the gravel substrate looks a little dirty. It is here that most of the bacteria filtration and chemical balancing of the water is carried out though. The surface area of the gravel contains a huge population of bacteria that filter the water, so once again taking it all out and cleaning and sanitising it in chlorinated water would not only be a lot of hard, messy work for me and Morgan but would kill these off. On top of that, although it is a little clogged with and covered in a thin layer of silt I don’t think I’m too worried about it.
We are after all going for a natural look and any tropical river or lake will have a muddy, silty substrate. Not only will it look natural but it will be excellent fertiliser for any plants as well. I did siphon off some of it though, more to show Morgan how siphoning works than anything else. The main downside to having such a silty substrate will be that it will make the water very cloudy during any planting or maintenance but we’ll have to try to live with that. Hopefully it will clear quite quickly.
Heater and Carbon Dioxide
We then filled the tank up with water, checked for leaks, turned on the filter and the heater and so far so good. It all seems to be working. As I said before we bubble Carbon Dioxide (CO2) through the water in order to encourage luxuriant plant growth. I use a home made yeast and sugar brew to produce the Co2 and then bubble it through a spiral diffuser in the tank which gives it time to dissolve into the water a little. This was state of the art, when I started doing it years ago, very few people did it and it was a new way of keeping planted aquaria. No doubt it is commonplace now and there are much more sophisticated ways of doing it, but once again we’ll be sticking with what we already have equipment wise. I haven’t made the yeast and sugar brew yet but we have cleaned out the diffuser and got it ready to go.
All set up and ready to go.
So, that’s it, the tank is full, the lights are working on their timers, the water is gradually clearing and thanks to the heater is now up to temperature. The filter is gently moving the water, the gravel remains undisturbed as do the pieces of bog wood in the tank and the shrimp doesn’t know what has hit it. He still seems quite happy in there though and will soon have some company. I think we are ready to roll.
I’d usually choose particular plants that would be carefully selected for a design I had in mind. I tend to keep things simple using just a few species to create a nice, natural looking environment for the fish and invertebrates but doing so works out expensive as individual plants don’t some cheap. So, to keep the cost down I’ve just ordered a plant collection that cost £16.45 for 95 plants. It isn’t ideal but it will get us started. Hopefully they’ll arrive early next week and we can plant the tank up. As soon as we have done so Morgan and I will choose some fish and start stocking the tank with them. It usually takes several weeks if not months for such a tank to settle down and be able to house it’s full population of fish but I think this may be OK fairly quickly thanks to the fact that the substrate has been largely undisturbed. I can’t be sure though and it may cause more problems than it solves but time will tell.
Hopefully I’ll be updating you here with tales of lush plant growth, happy healthy fish and a feature to be proud of.
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Sounds just like you al, never simple but I’m sure it will look good if if last time is anything to go by