Yet Another Experiment: Planted Tank without Filter?

[darkdep]

I've read a few articles about planted tanks written by 'old-school' type fishkeepers (you know, the ones who have been in this hobby for several hundred years).  Some of them have heavily planted tanks WITHOUT any "filters" at all; they claim the plants will perform all the biological filtration by themselves.

This would seem to agree with other articles I've written which state that plants will absorb the ammonia produced by fish directly, actually in preference over nitrates.

Any thoughts on this from anyone?  I pulled my Aquaclear off my planted tank over a week ago to throw it on my fry tank; I have yet to replace it with anything and the plants are still growing like mad and fish are happy and eating well.  I'm not planning on keeping it like this, although the thoughts do occur.

[BigDaddy]

The big key is a heavily planted tank that has good plant growth.  If anything is missing, and the plants don't grow, say hello to green water (which will love the ammonia) or BGA (still water and lots of N to use)

[darkdep]

Right now the tank has good light and Co2, and plant growth is vigorous to say the least.  I'm doing the standard ferts (EI, etc).

We'll see.

[kennyman]

I have a site bookmarked that is prety much all about what you are talking about. I dont know if it will help but it never hurts to take a look.

http://naturalaquariums.com/

[darkdep]

Hey, thanks Kennyman!  I had actually lost all my bookmarks on this topic.  I'll check that one out.

[dannypd]

If you have heavily rooted plants, you can probably get away with just a powerhead (like me).  I generally would not trust zero movement in any tank unless you want stagnant water.  If you got fish moving, then you are probably safe, but the water must move.  I have a large hygro. plant with thick roots acting as my filtermedium.

[darkdep]

I just did a full range of tests.   0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 5 Nitrate.

I have run without a filter or any water movement for about 9 days now.

Weird!

I've decided to let this experiment run.  I'm going to run this tank filterless and follow the advice on the Natural Aquariums forum that Kennyman pointed me to.  We will see what happens.

[dannypd]

I just did a full range of tests.   0 Ammonia, 0 Nitrite, 5 Nitrate.

I have run without a filter or any water movement for about 9 days now.

Weird!

I've decided to let this experiment run.  I'm going to run this tank filterless and follow the advice on the Natural Aquariums forum that Kennyman pointed me to.  We will see what happens.

Dont forget, heat creates a convection stream...

...thus, that light is moving things around!