Ten gallon tank without filtration?

[negative_tea]

I have a ten gallon tank stocked with endler's (no idea how many),

I currently have it planted with penny wort. I was curious if it is possible to add enough plants to no longer need a filter. I do two 50% water changes twice a week on it.

 

[knifegill]

With one endler, I'd say try it. With stocking levels in the "I can't count them" range, I'd strongly advise against it.

 

[negative_tea]

there were 15 of them then my fat female had some fry...too tiny to count.

 

[knifegill]

Perhaps if you added a small garden's worth of emergent plants like pothos and willow branch cuttings it might work. It's a lot of stock to try something like that with. I'd feed half of them off and then maybe give it a whirl.

 

[chris_zx2]

No matter what make sure you have water movement. Still water = Bad water...

 

[knifegill]

Yeah, even most planted tanks at least have a little airstone or tiny powerhead somewhere to keep the water from stagnating.

 

[negative_tea]

cool cool I will keep in mind that a power head/air stone will be needed. Some one on a different forum suggested that I look into the Diana Walstad method. I downloaded an ebook and plan to read it at work tomorrow.

Then I am going to add all but a couple fry to my empty 30 gallon while I plant this baby up. I was thinking pathos in the back and water lettuce or some red rooters in the front.

Wish me luck!

 

[Laticauda]

Here's a summed up version of the Walstad method. I use it, but I still have filters on my tank. On my 58g column, I use a 350 gph biowheel filter.

http://thegab.org/Plants/setting-up-a-walstad-natural-planted-tank.html

I also have a 10 gallon that's planted with cherry shrimp and some cory fry from a previous spawn. I use a small whisper internal filter on that one.