Low Tech Office Aquarium

I recently read a book on aquarium ecology - Ecology of the Planted Aquarium by Diana Walstad. It's a pretty interesting book, filled with scientific tidbits, informative though more like scientific notes of a person, rather than a book. Anyway, the book review is for another day, whatever my cribs about it, its should be a definite read for anyone trying to keep planted aquariums or trying to recreate a system closer to natural aquatic world.

She proposes a "low-tech" aquarium, sans all the expensive equipment and specialized additives that I was familiar with. The idea intrigued me, the book convinced me that it could work, and Google search turned up various posts and pictures of the aquariums setup using her methods. To try it out, I decided to set up a 5 gallon aquarium for my office. She claims that an aquarium set up like this needs minimal maintenance - water change once in 6 months! Only regular maintenance required is plant pruning. Low maintenance works perfectly for an office aquarium.

Here is a great post on how to set up the aquarium with step by step pictures. My short setup:

1. 1 inch of potting soil, mixed with a handful of dolomite to neutralize the acidity. Crushed Oyster shells would have been better, as they are less reactive, but I could not find any at short notice.


2. Put a layer of small gravel along the edges about 1 inch think.


3. Plant as many plants as you can in the soil, put a layer of gravel around the stem.


4. After all the plants are in cover remaining open soil with gravel.


5. Slowly fill with water using a small bowl taking care not to stir up the gravel. If water is very cloudy siphon it out and refill.


6. Clamp on light fixture from hardware store and 23 watt full spectrum CFL bulb.


7. Bunch of floating plants, java moss etc.


8. 6 Red Cherry Shrimp.


9. A small submersible power filter - I used smallest that I could find, you do not really need a filter, just something to make the water move around, so a plain power head will do too.

Two days in, water is yellowish, from all the DOC (Dissolved Organic Carbon - read the book) from soil. One of the Shrimp has molted, may be two have. It's fun to try to find them while my code compiles. The experiment is on lets see how long the shrimp survive.