Hi everyone!
Just a quick post to share my thoughts on an upcoming project of mine. It'd be great to get everyone's opinion / test the feasibility of my idea.
Basically I've a 180L high-tech planted set up at the moment with a couple of discus and cardinals etc. Unfortunately I simply don't have the time required to look after it anymore.
I'm thinking of converting it to a low-tech setup, possibly with a soil / compost base capped by gravel / sand.
I'm not really sure about the feasibility of this and was thinking of simply scooping the fish up into several buckets, re-do the tank and plopping them back in. I'll lose a lot of the bacteria established in the gravel obviously but I've an external & internal filter running which should pick up the slack.
I was also looking at (what I really want to do eventually) possibly going down the Walstad route, but I'm not sure if you can put fish straight back in - I assume I would need to leave the filters running (at least initially) before the soil was ''cycled'' and to pick up anything harmful the soil excreted (perhaps I could simply soak the soil for a bit first?) but would having the filters running prevent the Walstad filtration theory ever kicking in?
I realise this is a bit of a ramble and I'm really just writing as it's coming to me!
If anyone's any suggestions / alternatives for converting a high-tech to low-tech without any 'down-time' I'd love to hear it. I may upload periodic photos once I've decided on a method!
Thanks in advance!
Just a quick post to share my thoughts on an upcoming project of mine. It'd be great to get everyone's opinion / test the feasibility of my idea.
Basically I've a 180L high-tech planted set up at the moment with a couple of discus and cardinals etc. Unfortunately I simply don't have the time required to look after it anymore.
I'm thinking of converting it to a low-tech setup, possibly with a soil / compost base capped by gravel / sand.
I'm not really sure about the feasibility of this and was thinking of simply scooping the fish up into several buckets, re-do the tank and plopping them back in. I'll lose a lot of the bacteria established in the gravel obviously but I've an external & internal filter running which should pick up the slack.
I was also looking at (what I really want to do eventually) possibly going down the Walstad route, but I'm not sure if you can put fish straight back in - I assume I would need to leave the filters running (at least initially) before the soil was ''cycled'' and to pick up anything harmful the soil excreted (perhaps I could simply soak the soil for a bit first?) but would having the filters running prevent the Walstad filtration theory ever kicking in?
I realise this is a bit of a ramble and I'm really just writing as it's coming to me!
If anyone's any suggestions / alternatives for converting a high-tech to low-tech without any 'down-time' I'd love to hear it. I may upload periodic photos once I've decided on a method!
Thanks in advance!