# The 7 months of neglect and no water changes experiment



## maboleth (Aug 13, 2013)

Well, for 7 months my fairly low-tech 250 liter tank was totally neglected and looked like a huge jungle. I did get some interesting findings.

Plants:
Large Echinodorus ipica x2
M. pteropus x3
A. barteri var nana x2
A barteri var barteri x1
Cryptocorine willisii x3
Java moss
Rotala rotundifolia
Bacopa lanigera
Ludwigia repens
C. demersum
Vallisneria tortifolia

Lighting power is 0.46w/l, utilizing 3x39w T5 Arcadia & Philips bulbs.
So, after 7 months of just feeding the fish daily (no CO2, no pruning, fertilizing, almost zero maintenance) and cleaning up the filter from time to time, here's how it faired out:

- Both Echinodoruses flourished and began sprouting very vibrant red young leaves.
- Most of the leaves of Java ferns rot, leaving their healthy green rhizomes with few leaves. Possibly because A. barteri var barteri has grown so much that it covered the ferns.
- As previously said, all Anubia plants flourished so much, they literally made a mini jungle.
- Cryptocorines got bigger leaves, new rhizomes, but not so much in leaf numbers.
- Almost all stem plants (Rotala, Bacopa, Ludwigia) were badly hit. Their growth was small, stunted, with Ludwigia nowhere to be found.
- Vallisneria tortifolia took over almost the entire tank, from back to front. Interesting to find that old Vallisnerias mostly died. But of all plants here, Vallisnerias blasted the tank with their numbers.
- Like Vallisneria, Ceratophyllum demersum was also wild and covered the surface, but I discarded about 70% of it 3 months ago and it came back.
- Java moss formed a huge moss ball. The old moss underneath was filled with debris and algae, but the new one was green and very healthy.

About algae: there were NO algae, whatsoever. Staghorn that I previously battled with EasyCarbo is now extinct. No spot algae, no thread/fuzz algae. I did have one occasion of cyano around the moss, but It disappeared on its own. The only algae that formed few patches here and there, on the ground and the spray bar was the dreadful black brush algae. Interesting is that no plant had any of BBA! I removed all BBA when I finally did a major tank maintenance a week ago.

Fish did nicely as well. I had 6 Otocincluses last year, I have 5 now. Including amano shrimps, nerita snails, various tetras, small apistogrammas. They not only survived, but shrimps and rummy nose tetras got bigger than ever and are quite well and colorful. Several of Nerita snails died though.

It took me about 6 hours to siphon the gravel, remove the excess plants, redesign the hardscape, rearrange the plants, clean the glass and everything else.

It's now back in a top shape. All in all, I guess large quantities of plants (mostly vallis, ceratophyllum, and the moss) saved my fish and the whole ecosystem and maintained very clean and fresh water without any bad odor, despite my neglect and large amount of detritus. This was totally unintentional and I won't repeat it again. But it's a proof how large group of plants can purify the water and balance everything.


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## Virc003 (Aug 18, 2011)

When you say totally neglected, does that mean you neglected to feed the fish too? Just wondering if they got bigger off of eating something naturally occuring in the tank and what that could be?


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## reardons (Nov 4, 2014)

He said that he fed the fish.


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## knutsen1122 (May 22, 2015)

Pic?


-Colin


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

For a few years I've been talking about stability and minimal intervention. Nobody wants to hear any of that. Doesn't matter that it makes sense, gets rid of all algae, and leads to an ultra stable tank.

What you found is a treasure of observations that you can build on. Not internet material, just personal enjoyment of the hobby... the right way.


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## maboleth (Aug 13, 2013)

knutsen1122 said:


> Pic?


Obviously I don't have a closeup picture when tank was neglected, but I was able to extract how the tank looked like from the background of another image, when my daughter celebrated her birthday.

Here it is:










Here's from today, after the major maintenance. I left only the healthiest leaves and plants to grow.


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## maboleth (Aug 13, 2013)

niko said:


> For a few years I've been talking about stability and minimal intervention. Nobody wants to hear any of that. Doesn't matter that it makes sense, gets rid of all algae, and leads to an ultra stable tank.
> What you found is a treasure of observations that you can build on. Not internet material, just personal enjoyment of the hobby... the right way.


Thanks Niko, I agree. I have certainly found out that for well established, non-overstocked, low/mid-tech tanks, the obsession with frequent water changes is greatly exaggerated.

With the lack of maintenance, the major drawback is the tank that looks like a mess and great amount of decayed leaves and detritus that looks ugly. The plants that died or were badly hit (mostly stem plants) have struggled before as well. The lack of maintenance created the competitive environment where only the toughest and healthiest plants survived. Those that were doing poor before died, but those who survived - flourished!

Despite the poor tank aesthetics, the water was clear, odorless, fish and shrimps were doing great, as well as the plants. I was surprised to see that after 7 months I got very healthy plants with huge amount of growth.
While I won't turn my tank into a mess again, I will reduce the water changes to 1-2x a month.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

What you got is as close to Nature as it comes. Look at any body of water that has water plants - mulm is everywhere, bottom, rocks, wood, plants. And the water can be perfectly clean and clear.





































https://plus.google.com/photos/111646610078083070168/albums/5201552285495419265?banner=pwa

Now imagine what is wrong with an aquarium that does not have all this dust/mulm/debries like Nature does. It has a biofilter that is greatly reduced. Not sure what else can be said. Not understanding basic natural rules and trying to create what you have in your mind is a project that is more or less temporary AND with a lot of extra efforts. Often just 2-3 days to complete disaster. Many of the tanks we see on the internet are exactly that but the aquascaping fools us into thinking who knows what.


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## maboleth (Aug 13, 2013)

Absolutely right Niko! The only trouble is, the aesthetics in our hobby features squeaky clean environment and extremely cultivated, garden-like plants. But as you said, as soon as you stop doing that, Nature reverts itself.
Here's the fantastic documentary about our fishes, plants and their habitats.


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

How's that for "gorgeous"?





































Absolutely natural, and have no rules of third, mounds, passages, and all the other idiotic details that we now see in every single aquascape that pops up on the net. If the ADA's marketing machine and its minions/distributors published pictures like the above today we will have a very different looking hobby. That may sound extreme but give or take 3 months of seeing the same old aquascapes presented by everybody with childish enthusiasm just gets old. It is equivalent to watching any of the "Housewives of..." episode - more of the same, nothing ever happens, and it is all trash.. high up on high sexy heels.

This...









...is this:









The secret to any iwagumi like the thing above is that once it is in your living room it gets old in just a few days. It looks great for a 5 second glance on the internet. It looks sleek. But it will not deliver what the brown colored pictures in the beginning of this post deliver - you are moved inside. It is indeed a dolled up housewife, complete with a hefty setup, maintenance price tag, and lots of hollow claims for style


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Your video is stunning. Everybody should look at the part starting at 39:23. The cardinals above this grassy dusty field are the beginning and end of the aquascaping hobby. Everything else, licked up clean and made to look pretty is just vanity.


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## Guck (Nov 27, 2014)

niko said:


> How's that for "gorgeous"?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

That is not my tank. It's some Malaysian guy off Facebook. When these folk steer clearly away from the cheap Japanese style they can really make ugly tanks. Or tanks that blow your mind, like this one.

My guess this is the equivalent of a 20 gallon long US tank. Look at the size of the Cabomba leaves and the single Chocolate gourami half visible on the right.


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## brwaldbaum (Apr 23, 2004)

niko said:


> This...
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A box of rocks held together by silicone.


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