# El Natural without filteration?



## dawntwister (Sep 29, 2007)

I have read some have a El Natural style tank without filteration. Thus I thought a smaller powerhead would be enough for my 29 gallon tank but I have mulm collecting under the ferns. One of the Rainbow fish was stressed after I took the ferns out to clean them. She is swimming near the top now. I had done a water change and vacummed the gravel.

I have 5 Gold Danios, 3 Von Rio Tetras, 2 Neon Rainbows, and 1 male Betta. The substrate layers are dirt, coconut bark and topped with river sand.

I would like to know how those without filters in their tanks keep mulm from building up?


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## Chris Noto (Aug 10, 2005)

dawntwister said:


> I have read some have a El Natural style tank without filteration. Thus I thought a smaller powerhead would be enough for my 29 gallon tank but I have mulm collecting under the ferns.


I would think that it was sufficient for the health of the system. No amount of water movement, though, can prevent the accumulation of mulm. Filtration, combined with powerful water movement in the tank, can remove mulm, but not prevent its development.



> One of the Rainbow fish was stressed after I took the ferns out to clean them. She is swimming near the top now. I had done a water change and vacummed the gravel.


Was there any stress showing before you began your maintenance activities? If not, it may be that the changes you made introduced the stress, not the mulm, per se.



> I would like to know how those without filters in their tanks keep mulm from building up?


As far as I know, there is no way to completely avoid the appearance of mulm. It is, after all, one of those (El) Natural processes.  I think that a more realistic question is, "How do I manage the mulm that appears in my aquarium."

I do weekly partial water changes, up to fifty percent per week, and, as I siphon out the water for the change, I siphon mulm off the bottom of the tank, occasionally lightly stirring the very top 1/6th of an inch of the gravel, and siphoning off the detritus from that. My long time practice is to avoid stirring the gravel deeply, not wanting to disturb whatever biological processes are under way there.


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## newbie314 (Mar 2, 2007)

Long time since I've done any posting, but here goes my story
I have a 20g long aquarium
I have had it setup since late summer of 2007.
I have only lights and a heater. No filter.
My fish and plants are generally happy, although right now I may be running out of nutrients (another story for another day).

I don't get mulm on my leaves or such. I believe the reason is that I have lots of snails (3 types) and red cherry shrimp. They love eating stuff off of everything (plus snails are good for removing dead plant tissue from leaves - good indication of plant health).

Of course I have only tetras for fish and they don't stir up much.
I do have mulm on the bottom, but can't really see it since I have java moss balls and algea balls on the bottom (good for the baby shrimp to hide from the fish).
The two other smaller tanks don't have filters either but did have a mulm problem on the last water change.

If your tank is new, it will take a while for all the bacteria et al to help bind your soil and mulm. After that everything should congeal. A filter maybe needed at the start to filter out the stuff in the water and maybe start the nitrogen cycling (which you don't need when the plants are well established).

Hope this helps.


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## Jark (Feb 6, 2010)

My 5.5g tank no longer has a filter and mulm does accumulate but breaks down well. It tends to collect under mosses and on the bottom under baby tears. The baby tears cover it up well and keep the betta from kicking it up though. I have my powerhead near the top to keep a gentle surface movement and so it doesn't kick the mulm up. I did have a filter on the tank for several months after setup.


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## dawntwister (Sep 29, 2007)

Chris Noto said:


> Was there any stress showing before you began your maintenance activities? If not, it may be that the changes you made introduced the stress, not the mulm, per se.
> 
> I do weekly partial water changes, up to fifty percent per week. My long time practice is to avoid stirring the gravel deeply, not wanting to disturb whatever biological processes are under way there.


The Rainbow fish was fine before I fooled with the tank. I am thinking that I need to put the ferns over area with pebbles then so much junk won't come up when I tank them out to clean.

Uncertain if it was mulm or excess from over feeding the fish. Thus before buying another filter, which I shoudn't since I am unemployed, I going to buy 4 Corys'. Since I am going to school I don't always have time to change water weekly.

Last week fed them frozen food for leaving them alone for a week. Past experineces have proven this works the best for me. I hope I don't come back to a dead fish.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Very interesting. I don't have filtration either, and once in a while I stir something up, but never notice ill effects on the fish. I have Apistogrammas and Cories, and they CONSTANTLY stir up the mulm and kick up a cloud of dust, but it settles fairly well.


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## yum (Feb 11, 2008)

I concur with newbie314. i have a very similar set up with the addition of a prop type power head to get some water circulation. tons of shrimp, Malaysian Trumpet Snails (MTS) and common pond snails. 

Is your sand light colored? My substrate is a dark red clay type so maybe I don't notice mulm as much, but it doesn't seem to be an issue. I feed fairly heavy without much worry of over feeding. The only issue I had was a bunch of planaria but my new female betta took care of that in less than a week! But that is also a story for another post.

I think the shrimp are what keep the plant leaves scrubbed clean so nothing settles on them. Shrimp also will eat a lot of things fish consider waste to further break down the organic materials. I've seen my cherry shrimp happily devour fish poop. Ewww!

The MTS do their part by turning over the substrate with their normal burrowing activities. Do you have any MTS? Most pet shops will give them away for free. Some people don't like them b/c like most snails they reproduce exceedingly well. I think they're cool; love to see them moving around under ground.

As for your fish stress after you removed ferns for cleaning: I think you released some evil gases from under your substrate by unrooting the ferns. I had a similar incident while I was aggressively trimming my sword plants. I think I yanked too hard on some of them and I had a mysterious mass die off in my tank. Oddly enough the shrimp didn't seem phased but my guppies and poor clown killies bit the dust. 

I never vacuum my gravel. I think the point of El Natural set ups is to have the mulm breakdown and replenish your soil. I also don't want to disturb the bacterial cultures. I only pull water out of the water column when doing the occasional water change. Plus I have no idea how I could vac the gravel without pulling all the soil out.

Lastly, I don't really need to perform maintenance or do water changes on my tank so if you really do have an el natural tank set up, I don't think you should worry either. They pretty much run themselves. I do a water change every 3-6 months and top off when needed. I had a problem with the soil depleting quickly but that was my amateur mistake of stuffing a lot of high growth plants in a small tank. Now I occasionally dose with liquid ferts. Of course, take these comments with a grain of salt. This is all assuming your tank is well planted and not overstocked, etc.

Good luck. Hope some of my gibberish helps you!


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## dawntwister (Sep 29, 2007)

yum said:


> Is your sand light colored?


Yes!


yum said:


> As for your fish stress after you removed ferns for cleaning: I think you released some evil gases from under your substrate by unrooting the ferns.


They were java fern that were just sitting on the substrate. The rainbow seem to be more sensitive to qualitiy of water than the Danios, though.


yum said:


> Plus I have no idea how I could vac the gravel without pulling all the soil out..


Some of the sand does come up. I lift the hose when I see no fish poo in the hose and it releases the sand. I usually put more sand down afterwards but was wasted and had to leave town the next day.


yum said:


> Lastly, I don't really need to perform maintenance or do water changes on my tank so if you really do have an el natural tank set up, I don't think you should worry either. They pretty much run themselves. I do a water change every 3-6 months and top off when needed. ..


That is why I set up El Natural style. I generally don't change the water untill algae on the tank wall builds up. Recently got some BBA on the ferns, thus I took them out and soaked them in a solution with Excell.


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## Angie (Dec 4, 2005)

My 6 gallon just has a bubble stone. My 10 gallon has a small filer for a 5 gallon tank. And my 29 has one for a 10 gallon tank.
I don't like the greesy look my water gets if I don't have some water movement and done care for power heads.


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## ddavila06 (Jan 31, 2009)

my 2.5 has no filter, but snails and cherry shrimp, i see very little mulm under the wood pieces...i have lieast killiefish in there


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## Valley (Feb 28, 2007)

I've got 3 el natural now. A 10g, a 20g, and a 55g. None have a filter. The 20 and 55 have powerheads and the 55g has a UV sterilizer. I did have a filter on the 55g but was having nutrient deficiencies and I got the feeling I was gassing off too much CO2. KH and pH readings indicated it was very very VERY low. So I tried running the filter only at night. OMG what a nightmare. The nutrient deficiencies went away and the CO2 came up. However I had HORRIBLE mulm problems. It was just flat nasty. So I tried the elimination method starting with what changed. Turned off the filter and cleaned real good. It took a few times to get it all but once I got it cleaned up it stopped accumulating. So I just left the filter off. Here we are 3 months later and still no problem. Niether of the other tanks have had any mulm "issues".

I think you might ought to look at where you have excess organic material coming from, if your plants are growing like they should, and if your substrate is healthy. If you are still having problems or can't find the source I would recommend a powerhead with a prefilter. I just added a coarse sponge over the intake of my current powerheads and it has kept my water nice and clean.


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