Walstad Goldfish Tank Update March 2009
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 <10 so this is good!)
KH: 12 (quite high but won't do anyone any harm and no chance of a ph crash)
ph: 7.8 (usually at 7.6 but i'm assuming has crept up slowly due to the kh settling so high. I have 0 kh out of my tap water).
I decided to do some pruning today because the wisteria was going nuts and suffocating anything near it of light and space. Here's what it looked like before:
April 13th, 2009 at 11:01 am Van(Quote)
This is a very impressive setup you have going there!
How often/how much time do you spend tending to the tank? I would like to have something (no so big) but something but I fear the amount of effort needed.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:26 pm ozsoapbox(Quote)
Thanks Van.
I setup the tank late February and so far all I’ve had to do is top it up twice due to evaporation (<10litres) and one round of pruning which took about 30 mins all up.
I’m going to clean out the filter today just to see how dirty it gets in a Walstad tank given it’s been nearly 2 months since I set the tank up.
Effort wise it’s actually less then a non walstad tank. There’s no water changes (might do 50% after 6 months) and the tank looks after itself, all I have to do is feed the fish and occasionally prune. In a smaller tank you might even get by without having a filter hooked up although if you’re keeping goldfish it’s probably a good idea to have one hooked up anyway. If for nothing else then to just pump out additional nitrates for the plants to consume.
I’d highly reccommend it, just make sure you start off with a fair few plants so there’s minimum chance of a cycle blip or algae breakout.
April 14th, 2009 at 4:30 am Van(Quote)
I did some reading on the Walstad tank method, I was unaware that such a thing was possible. It has been years since I’ve actually had a take and it was a pain.
Do you have any good reading resources you can point me to? This is really something that interests me. If the balance is, ultimately, what keeps it going that is up my alley.
Again, I just did a bit of reading, but does this apply only to freshwater?
Thanks!
April 14th, 2009 at 9:17 am ozsoapbox(Quote)
Yeah I’m pretty sure it’s just freshwater. With marine you’ve got to worry about salt and often specific ph ranges and all that.
I keep goldfish so they’re happy at a natural 7.6′ish ph, so long as it’s stable.
The balance is the heart of the theory, you feed fish, fish provide nutrients for plants via the breakdown of waste in the filter and soil and plants then grow and provide oxygen for the fish.
A good read is Betty Harris’ guide: Setting up a Walstad Natural Tank.
The forum on GAB is an excellent resource, it’s where I got my inspiration from and ideas about Goldfish keeping in general.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:13 am Van(Quote)
Thanks for the guide link. I guess I’m really surprised at how… well… how easy this sounds.
I’m going to read over the GAB site and what I would be getting into, but you’ve really started my mind running.
Thanks!