Back in February this year I decided to tear down my existing filter+gravel substrate fish tank and attempt to run a Walstad planted aquarium with my goldfish. It’s been 9 months now and over that period of time and I’ve learnt a lot about running a goldfish tank using Walstad. Unfortunately due to relocating overseas [...]

September was an interesting month for my Walstad tank. For the second time I went away on holidays and then when I got back had problems that needed to be addressed. The last time I was away I came back and Tiger had a white patch of fuzz on her and died shortly afterwards. This [...]

It’s been a nervous month here in my Walstad aquarium. Last month I decided to pull the plug on the filter and run my goldfish tank filterless. I’m happy to report that thus far this has been a success. I had a mild ammonia blip but that settled down pretty fast. Currently the tank has [...]

It’s been an interesting few months for my Walstad goldfish tank. I’ve had some fish losses, plant additions, aquascape alterations and some have developed some ambitious plans for the tank. Here’s what the tank looked like early July:

Here’s how the tank looked at the start of May after pruning: There hasn’t been much of a change this past month in the tank. I’m putting that down to nutrient output being balanced with plant uptake for most of the month, at least as far as Nitrates go.

Pruning plants is a necessity in the Walstad tank but the need to prune does decrease in frequency as time goes on. Initially a Walstad tank contains an abundance of nutrients in the water. This happens primarily because plants take a while to establish themselves and match their rate of growth to the level of [...]

It’s been a busy month of vigorous growth in the Walstad tank. Algae is on the slow retreat, the front glass used to get green film over it in just a few days now it’s about 3 weeks and it’s due for a wipe. Hopefully this gets longer and longer as the plants out compete [...]

The tank has been up and running for about 5 weeks now. I did some tests today and everything seemed to be doing fine considering I haven’t done a waterchange now in over a month. Nitrate: about 7 (goal is

One of the biggest dilemmas a goldfish keeper can have is the want to keep healthy plants in unison with your goldfish. The benefits of plants are that they attractive to look at, help with biological filtration and I find allow the fish to display a more natural behaviour. When I initially set up my [...]