Bart Hazes
Member
My interest in Apistogramma, and other fishes for that matter, is linked to learning about and trying to recreate the biotopes they live in. Many apistos come from slow flowing small streams, shallow lake margins, and completely stagnant ponds or puddles. I have therefore been running many tanks with zero water current, not even an air stone, over the Summer. All my tanks are heavily planted (I know - not biotope correct for jungle-stream biotopes but I am a sucker for plants) and use plants in lieu of a conventional filter, which allows me to have no current in the first place. I am not advocating no-flow tanks as a better solution, it arguably is not and I use circulation pumps in other tanks, but if you are interested in doing so for biotope, extreme low/no-tech extravaganzas or other reasons it can be done with good success. My experiences with no-flow tanks (up to 50 gallons, 120x60x25) is described in the blog link below. Now that the weather is cooling I needed to add heaters and also discuss small circulation pumps to distribute the heat without too much current in the blog.
http://biodives.com/blog/?p=175
http://biodives.com/blog/?p=175