We’ve got two planted aquariums. I’ve decided upon the more natural approach to aquaria than what the pet stores will tell you – lots of live plants, real dirt as the substrate. This has its benefits – more natural environment for the fish, no worries about water quality. I only add water to replace evaporation, don’t worry about the filters much, and do water changes maybe every 4-5 months.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0967377307 This book by Diana Walstad was my inspiration. It’s a mix of relevent science, not so relevent science, and her own practices. It’s cool to see something more natural be more satisfying and less work.
However, the first aquarium that we set up this way has a serious algae problem. Maybe the plants were contaminated (there’s clearly algae growing on the plants at Denny’s Pet World), maybe it gets a lot more direct sunlight, I’m not sure why. It’s not pretty, and I worry about the angelfish in there not being able to swim freely for all the thread algae.
My goal is to move the fish out into a holding tank for a week or two, break down and clean the bejeezus out of the tank, move it into a location where it won’t get direct sunlight, buy some plants over the web from a reputable vendor, replant, and then move the fish back. Once I get started, I figure this is about a 3 week project.
