I'm susankat. Just joined the forum and it looks pretty cool. I belong to several boards and have one myself for tropical fish.

I have 7 tanks ranging from 5 gals to 75 gal. I breed killies, American Flag Fish, Endlers livebearers and the extremely rare Monterrey Platys and cories.

I'm also a plant geek I guess you can say. My tanks are always a jungle with all the plants. The 75 gal is a very low tech tank, No filter on it, but has a powerhead for water movement. Plants do all the filtering for it.

Glad to be here and hope to be of help whenever possible.

Here is a link to my natural tank.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y13/susan...1138_edited.jpg

Welcome to the forum Susan and thanks for joining. :)

I would like to here more about the 75 is it understocked or what. I don't see how plants could take the bioload like a filter.

I would like to know more about the 75... my assumption at first was also that it's understocked... will be visiting your link and swotting up!

Welcome to the forum! We are glad to have you here. Sounds like you have quite a bit of fishkeeping experience. How long has your no-tech tank been up and running? Is one difficult to set up? Might be an interesting tank to try.

In a natural aquarium the plants filter the water as it does in the wild. You never see filters in ponds, creeks or rivers right.

A natural tank really requires little work, Your substrate consists of dirt, sand, peat or a combination of them. A tank like this requires lots of fast growing plants to combat the ammonia and nitrites and to help keep the nitrates at low levels. Water movement and either natural light or some lighting that is high enough for the plants to grow well.

Bio load should be kept to fish that produce low wastes. This tank has 300 endlers, around 50 monterrey platys, 11 American Flag fish, 18 cories and 2 albino bristlenose plecs.

This tank has been running this way for about 1 year. I check the levels weekly which are ammonia and nitrite 0, nitrates 15, ph 7.4. A power water change will be done once a year, with fresh water added every few days to replace condensation.

I have been keeping fish now for 28 years and this has been a new experience for me. It's really something I wouldn't recommend for someone new or has just been keeping fish for a couple of years. And you need to know something about ecology to get by with something like this.

Now I see how you were able to get those plants to grow like that without a CO₂ system. I am curious to know if you have to add fertilizer though, or if you have enough Fe in the substrate that you use for them to grow like that?

Welcome to the forum btw.

:up: Welcome to the boards and congrats on your natural 75! :up:

I use ferts everyday. I dose with Flourish and Flourish excel daily and dose iron a couple of times a week. I must say though I have to trim plants every week to keep the tank looking like this.

Welcome on, I guess everybody is interested in this project. Keep us updated :D :up:

I'm always late reading the intros. ;) I think I've seen you around, though. Welcome! :D

Yeah welcome I forgot to say that. Somethign I should definetely remember. :)

Yeah, welcome aboard! Love the tank! It looks tight! Hope to see you around! :up: