This was an excellent series. I have encountered many of these concepts before but never have I seen them all explained so well in one place like this. Thank you for sharing!
This series is genius. I love the simple explanation. I was looking up for the basic filtration system and now I have made my decision to go with your method. No water change tank. It is way more ‘artistic’. As an engineer who loves reasons, logic, structure and system, this series just blown my mind. There are so much in an aquarium tank than just air bubbles and water change. Beautiful. Well done Jay
I've watched "influencers" with over 500K subscribers not understand a fraction of what you do. And you have an amazing ability to teach complex topics in a way the average person can understand them. You only having 8K subscribers is a crime. Thanks for these videos.
Thanks a million for sharing. Seldom do I find clear concise and substantiated explanation on these subjects. You are to fish keeping as permaculture is to farming. God bless.
I know this is old, but this is the most awesome video series I have watched. I just went back to an undergravel filter with a 4" pea gravel substrate and this series gives me a better understanding of how UGF and slow moving water help create that anoxic condition. Thank you for the great series.
I wanted to get into the hobby to have shrimps swimming happily in my bedroom, now i can only thank you for essentially making a complete tutorial to the aquarium hobby. Thank you :)
I've been keeping fish since the 90's and I enjoy watching videos of other fish keepers to see how others do things and possibly get new ideas. I've got to say after watching a dozen of your videos the way you illustrate and explain in such simple terms I would definitely suggest to any newbie to watch. You do such a great job
This series is super helpful and easy to grasp, thank you so much for sharing!! I found learning about this very interesting and you explained the science behind it, which I'd usually be overwhelmed by, in a fun and simple way. I'm now much more confident in my knowledge and understanding of how a tank like this works and excited to set one up!
I used to keep tropical fish and without knowing the chemistry did a lot of what you suggest andI never changed the water and rarely lost fish. I’m going back to keeping fish soon and so I’ve been looking to update my knowledge. These videos are brilliant as I now know why what I did worked but also I have some better knowledge now too. Thank you and keep up the great work.
hi everyone, please let me know which points i got wrong. the summary of the 7 lessons were - 1. have a deep substrate minimum 10cm 2. use fast growing plants like duckweed, foxtail, elodia 3. prune and remove plants to reduce density and keep them growing fast 4. provide adequate light 5. remove goldfish, snails, etc 6. find the minimum food to keep inhabitants happy
Hello there. I think the main reason the bottle with the pebbles. worked best is because the pebbles got bigger spaces inbetween th thereby maximising bacterial. growth. As i see it, basically same. reason why the other ones fouled first due to not much anoxic bacterias. if the water is forced to flow downward, that should force the ammonia rich water to get processed by not just the first few inches
@Jay's aquarium best explanation I have seen! Many thx for the entire series. what are not animals can be fed in this tank without external food feeding (only eating algae or little plant) for 3months?
Great series, Jay. I've been following along. I have two deep-bed tanks with plenums, substrate is baked clay (Oil Dri) both around 18 months old and everyone seem happy, nitrates are low enough. I would like to have heard more about what you think about the role of the ever present bacteria, aerobic and otherwise. That detritus on the bottom might actually good for the bed, no? One nice thing about the Oil Dri is it hides whatever is on the bottom due to its color.
@@ChuckD59 it seems complicating a simple mechanism. But I believe it works, yes, but in strongly varying degrees, depending how it's implemented. It's hard to control if it's working as intended as well. A bit of guess work. But my question is, hasn't your aquarium turned into a dirtied aquarium with all that waste in the plenum? ✌️
@@globalist1990 For most part any mulm that falls to the bottom is broken down and drawn into the substrate where it feeds anaerobic bacteria. I have a 6 gallon that never gets vacuumed and the bottom is spotless. A 65 gallon has it accumulating in one corner but only because I need to do better with circulation. The outflow from hang-on-back seems to push it there. But the rest of the substrate remains clean by itself. I will say though that the smaller one consistently has higher nitrates (60-70) which doesn't seem to affect any of the fish. The large one usually shows 30 for nitrates but it's slightly over stocked (who knew the plecos would get that big!). I don't like to tear the tanks up, but if/when I do the smaller one I'll do something beter than the converted undergravel filter grates. I'm not sure they allow enough circulation. Also, when I built these three years ago it wasn't clear to me that they should have some flow, like a tube to allow water to circulate passively. I may consider adding that too.
@@ChuckD59 I thought the point of the plenum was to not get anaerobic bacteria, only anoxic bacteria (which I don't understand why, normal dirtied substrates have both of those as well). So the mulm won't go much into the plenum but still accumulates at the bottom of the substrate? That's a dirtied aquarium then. A conventional dirtied one only draws water down more slowly.
Question for you Jay. You talk about anoxic conditions for removing nitrates but this only refers to the fliter/under the rocks, right? If I keep a 10 gallon without an air bubbler, my fish always seem out of oxygen. Can I keep the bubbler but lower the flow in my filter?
Thank you so much for this! I recently went to a class locally where the guy explained almost the same thing but somewhat different. I was started setting up not filter tanks and it’s going better than any other way I’ve done it. Question though...I have a 20 gallon long that has an AquaClear hang on back filter. I don’t want to take it apart and replace the substrate, but I need to do something, cause it has issues. I see you made an anoxic zone in a canister filter, can it be done at all in a hang on back? Would maybe just using the clay balls you talked about work?
I've never used one of those filters, but maybe you need to increase the container size somehow and limit the water flow going in. Using that media. I hear cat litter is also a good, cheap alternative.
Great series! I have a few nano tanks I've been doing no water changes on for just over a year, all heavily planted and very lilghtly stocked. The only problem I have encountered is the PH seems to drop over time and with one tank, it dropped below 6 and the bio filter was then unable to do it's thing and the tank crashed. Any idea what causes the PH to drop over time?
How do we avoid booms and busts? Where one member of the ecosystem grows out of control and then dies off eventually? This seems to be the biggest threat in a small ecosystem especially for larger animals with smaller populations
Jesse Dahir-Kanehl blooms are your tank correcting an imbalance. If it’s algae then too much feeding and too much lighting. If it’s a bacterial bloom your tank is recycling. In both cases but especially bacterial blooms more so you do not want to alter the bloom. It’s correcting your failure elsewhere. The first thing to do in both situations is stop feeding for 3 days and add extra water agitation to induce more oxygen into the tank as both types of blooms are consuming large amounts of oxygen and likely starving your fish. If it’s algae start reducing lighting. If your tank is near a window with sunlight you should stop lighting your tank entirely.
Jay, I have heard some people say that you must feed your fish 2% of its weight. Is this correct? Would this type of feeding be spot on? Would you recommend less? More?
I'd like to run a test 10 gal tank I just made with just substrate to a 10 gal with a layer of soil and and capped with 2" of sand have No plants and just a airstone and I just tested the cloudy water I got and the ammonia level is about .50 ppm, nitrates about 20 ppm. If I have the bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrites , nitrites to nitrates and I have some anaerobic present in the soil to convert nitrate to nitrogen gas then at some point shouldn't there be no nitrates , nitrites or ammonia in the water. if that happens then I'll add some fish food to the tank to get converted and go to zero again also expect any hydrogen sulfide h2s to be converted to sulfate so4 by the o2 added or am I missing something...thx
so is it true at some point there will be no nitrates , nitrites or ammonia in the water. if I add no input other then adding enough ammonia hydroxide to get the .50 ppm ammonia?
Hello everybody do u think feeding my fishes evey 5 days will be ok? The tank has algae and plants. This video makes me want to try it. By the way very intersting all 7 videos congrats
Hello there! Love your videos. Is there any chance you'd be willing to look at a design of mine for a paludarium? I want to keep an ant colony in a terrarium, inside an aquarium, and create a miniature biotope. However, since this is combining 2 skillsets (antkeeping and aquarium/fish keeping) It's very hard to find people who could advise me on my setup. I've tried to create a river around the terrarium, with slow-flowing parts and a good amount of substrate/gravel to hopefully provide a breeding ground for the anaerobic bacteria. I will direct the water from my aquarium into a refugium which besides a thick layer of substrate, holds shrimp, muscles, snails, water fleas and water striders. Only after passing through the refugium the water will flow through the water filter pump. I am not sure if I should add a second slow flowing filter pump to house the anaerobic bacteria...
"How to build a no water change tank" is a gold series every aquarium hobbyist should watch, thank you.
This may be the best aquarium educational content/ series on RUclips.
This is the best explanation on RUclips.
This has got to be one of the best series of aquaculture videos on RUclips. Thank you so much.
This was an excellent series. I have encountered many of these concepts before but never have I seen them all explained so well in one place like this. Thank you for sharing!
This series is genius. I love the simple explanation. I was looking up for the basic filtration system and now I have made my decision to go with your method. No water change tank. It is way more ‘artistic’. As an engineer who loves reasons, logic, structure and system, this series just blown my mind. There are so much in an aquarium tank than just air bubbles and water change. Beautiful. Well done Jay
Thanks
I've watched "influencers" with over 500K subscribers not understand a fraction of what you do. And you have an amazing ability to teach complex topics in a way the average person can understand them. You only having 8K subscribers is a crime. Thanks for these videos.
This is probably the most informative lecture on this subject. Thank-you for your video series.
Thanks a million for sharing. Seldom do I find clear concise and substantiated explanation on these subjects. You are to fish keeping as permaculture is to farming. God bless.
I know this is old, but this is the most awesome video series I have watched. I just went back to an undergravel filter with a 4" pea gravel substrate and this series gives me a better understanding of how UGF and slow moving water help create that anoxic condition. Thank you for the great series.
Thank you for putting out information and sharing your knowledge.
I wanted to get into the hobby to have shrimps swimming happily in my bedroom, now i can only thank you for essentially making a complete tutorial to the aquarium hobby.
Thank you :)
I've been keeping fish since the 90's and I enjoy watching videos of other fish keepers to see how others do things and possibly get new ideas. I've got to say after watching a dozen of your videos the way you illustrate and explain in such simple terms I would definitely suggest to any newbie to watch. You do such a great job
That was great. Love hearing more about the science.
I loved this series! It was extremely helpful and well explained! Thanks so much!
I have a full eco system aquarium with turtles and 0 water changes, just top offs! A lot of great information here.
part 8 should be setting up a no water change tank
Amazing series! very informative and very easy to understand. I'm going back and liking all these videos, so good!
Great job, helps so much!
This series is super helpful and easy to grasp, thank you so much for sharing!! I found learning about this very interesting and you explained the science behind it, which I'd usually be overwhelmed by, in a fun and simple way. I'm now much more confident in my knowledge and understanding of how a tank like this works and excited to set one up!
I watched it all. Thanks for taking the time to explain this. Just what I needed.
I used to keep tropical fish and without knowing the chemistry did a lot of what you suggest andI never changed the water and rarely lost fish. I’m going back to keeping fish soon and so I’ve been looking to update my knowledge. These videos are brilliant as I now know why what I did worked but also I have some better knowledge now too. Thank you and keep up the great work.
This was great!!! Thank you for sharing.
wonderful video. thanks
Love your videos - please keep up the great work! Thank you!
hi everyone, please let me know which points i got wrong. the summary of the 7 lessons were -
1. have a deep substrate minimum 10cm
2. use fast growing plants like duckweed, foxtail, elodia
3. prune and remove plants to reduce density and keep them growing fast
4. provide adequate light
5. remove goldfish, snails, etc
6. find the minimum food to keep inhabitants happy
rmsiaify I think you summarised very well.
Oxygenate water
Amazing plan
Interesting idea. I think I might want to try it out. I'm all for a part 8 though.
Looks good.
Hello there. I think the main reason the bottle with the pebbles. worked best is because the pebbles got bigger spaces inbetween th thereby maximising bacterial. growth. As i see it, basically same. reason why the other ones fouled first due to not much anoxic bacterias. if the water is forced to flow downward, that should force the ammonia rich water to get processed by not just the first few inches
5:37 - energy of the sun or othr light, the plants will eat the turtle n shrimp poo.
7:00 - trimmin plants produces an output.
@Jay's aquarium best explanation I have seen! Many thx for the entire series. what are not animals can be fed in this tank without external food feeding (only eating algae or little plant) for 3months?
you would need a really large tank to sustain it without external food
Thanks Jay for the videos! May I ask what is the min size of the tank needed to achievw ecosystem? And is it alright to hv aquarium cover?
I have tiny tanks on my channel. they work just fine.
@@Jaysaquarium Under feeding is bad for plants because they need output from fishes (poop) as nutrient. Is that correct?
Great series, Jay. I've been following along.
I have two deep-bed tanks with plenums, substrate is baked clay (Oil Dri) both around 18 months old and everyone seem happy, nitrates are low enough.
I would like to have heard more about what you think about the role of the ever present bacteria, aerobic and otherwise. That detritus on the bottom might actually good for the bed, no? One nice thing about the Oil Dri is it hides whatever is on the bottom due to its color.
So you find out a plenum turns your aquarium into a dirtied aquarium, when you don't remove the biological waste by other means? 👍
@@globalist1990 A plenum works quite well. Not for you though?
@@ChuckD59 it seems complicating a simple mechanism. But I believe it works, yes, but in strongly varying degrees, depending how it's implemented. It's hard to control if it's working as intended as well. A bit of guess work. But my question is, hasn't your aquarium turned into a dirtied aquarium with all that waste in the plenum? ✌️
@@globalist1990 For most part any mulm that falls to the bottom is broken down and drawn into the substrate where it feeds anaerobic bacteria. I have a 6 gallon that never gets vacuumed and the bottom is spotless. A 65 gallon has it accumulating in one corner but only because I need to do better with circulation. The outflow from hang-on-back seems to push it there. But the rest of the substrate remains clean by itself.
I will say though that the smaller one consistently has higher nitrates (60-70) which doesn't seem to affect any of the fish. The large one usually shows 30 for nitrates but it's slightly over stocked (who knew the plecos would get that big!).
I don't like to tear the tanks up, but if/when I do the smaller one I'll do something beter than the converted undergravel filter grates. I'm not sure they allow enough circulation.
Also, when I built these three years ago it wasn't clear to me that they should have some flow, like a tube to allow water to circulate passively. I may consider adding that too.
@@ChuckD59 I thought the point of the plenum was to not get anaerobic bacteria, only anoxic bacteria (which I don't understand why, normal dirtied substrates have both of those as well). So the mulm won't go much into the plenum but still accumulates at the bottom of the substrate? That's a dirtied aquarium then. A conventional dirtied one only draws water down more slowly.
Great video!
So how do you maintain trace minerals and remove pheromones build up in a no water change tank?
Question for you Jay. You talk about anoxic conditions for removing nitrates but this only refers to the fliter/under the rocks, right? If I keep a 10 gallon without an air bubbler, my fish always seem out of oxygen. Can I keep the bubbler but lower the flow in my filter?
yes
Thank you so much for this! I recently went to a class locally where the guy explained almost the same thing but somewhat different. I was started setting up not filter tanks and it’s going better than any other way I’ve done it.
Question though...I have a 20 gallon long that has an AquaClear hang on back filter. I don’t want to take it apart and replace the substrate, but I need to do something, cause it has issues. I see you made an anoxic zone in a canister filter, can it be done at all in a hang on back? Would maybe just using the clay balls you talked about work?
I've never used one of those filters, but maybe you need to increase the container size somehow and limit the water flow going in. Using that media. I hear cat litter is also a good, cheap alternative.
Great series! I have a few nano tanks I've been doing no water changes on for just over a year, all heavily planted and very lilghtly stocked. The only problem I have encountered is the PH seems to drop over time and with one tank, it dropped below 6 and the bio filter was then unable to do it's thing and the tank crashed. Any idea what causes the PH to drop over time?
Stones
Do you have any info on a Santa Monica scrubber filtration
Nope
How do we avoid booms and busts? Where one member of the ecosystem grows out of control and then dies off eventually? This seems to be the biggest threat in a small ecosystem especially for larger animals with smaller populations
Jesse Dahir-Kanehl blooms are your tank correcting an imbalance. If it’s algae then too much feeding and too much lighting. If it’s a bacterial bloom your tank is recycling. In both cases but especially bacterial blooms more so you do not want to alter the bloom. It’s correcting your failure elsewhere. The first thing to do in both situations is stop feeding for 3 days and add extra water agitation to induce more oxygen into the tank as both types of blooms are consuming large amounts of oxygen and likely starving your fish. If it’s algae start reducing lighting. If your tank is near a window with sunlight you should stop lighting your tank entirely.
Would you say a high density sponge is better for filtration then?
Depends on what you want
How would adding live black worms or amphipods to a tank set up like this for African Dwarf Frogs work?
Jay, I have heard some people say that you must feed your fish 2% of its weight. Is this correct? Would this type of feeding be spot on? Would you recommend less? More?
I'd like to run a test 10 gal tank I just made with just substrate to a 10 gal with a layer of soil and and capped with 2" of sand have No plants and just a airstone and I just tested the cloudy water I got and the ammonia level is about .50 ppm, nitrates about 20 ppm. If I have the bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrites , nitrites to nitrates and I have some anaerobic present in the soil to convert nitrate to nitrogen gas then at some point shouldn't there be no nitrates , nitrites or ammonia in the water. if that happens then I'll add some fish food to the tank to get converted and go to zero again also expect any hydrogen sulfide h2s to be converted to sulfate so4 by the o2 added or am I missing something...thx
so is it true at some point there will be no nitrates , nitrites or ammonia in the water. if I add no input other then adding enough ammonia hydroxide to get the .50 ppm ammonia?
Hello everybody do u think feeding my fishes evey 5 days will be ok? The tank has algae and plants. This video makes me want to try it. By the way very intersting all 7 videos congrats
Hello there! Love your videos. Is there any chance you'd be willing to look at a design of mine for a paludarium? I want to keep an ant colony in a terrarium, inside an aquarium, and create a miniature biotope. However, since this is combining 2 skillsets (antkeeping and aquarium/fish keeping) It's very hard to find people who could advise me on my setup. I've tried to create a river around the terrarium, with slow-flowing parts and a good amount of substrate/gravel to hopefully provide a breeding ground for the anaerobic bacteria. I will direct the water from my aquarium into a refugium which besides a thick layer of substrate, holds shrimp, muscles, snails, water fleas and water striders. Only after passing through the refugium the water will flow through the water filter pump. I am not sure if I should add a second slow flowing filter pump to house the anaerobic bacteria...
Could you please answer my questions on Part 3 of this series?
How about adding nutrients for the plants?
That would help with plant growth.
How do you Mae the refugium though?
You need to hook up a protein skimmer
''i feed my turtle's very little compared to other turtle keepers and it's perfectly fine"
*distant sound of turtle's crying*
I have been asking you about Dr Novak's biocenesis baskets. Have you checked that out. Please, please, please, please, comment. wife of JP