All plant tank

["Ellen O'Connell" <oconnel4 at ix_netcom.com>]

> This leads me to ponder on the subject "All Plant Tank". Is that really
> possible? Well, surely an algea tank could be run easily enough, but have
> anoyne ever tried to run an "APT" without any animals at all in it? Can such
> a tank be kept algea free?

Admittedly it's a lower light tank (2 wpg), but I have a 7-gallon bow front 
tank that was on my desk at work.  You can see what it looked like there in 
the 2002 APD contest.  When I left that job last January, I brought it 
home.  For the move I put the White Clouds that had been in the tank in an 
existing larger tank, and it took me a while to get around to resetting up 
the 7 gallon, so the fish never made it back there.  The little tank got 
quite messy, with lots of the plants starting to die before I got around to 
fixing it up again.  It's now been on my kitchen counter with no fish for 
over 6 months, and it does fine that way.  There are a few snails.  I 
haven't added any fertilizers or food for the snails, but they seem to be 
doing okay.  This particular tank, which is a Walstad soil substrate type, 
has been gloriously algae free from the start - it's about 2 years old 
now.  Interestingly, where it sits now it gets some morning sun, and the 
dwarf sag that never got more than an inch high under the tank lights in 
the office is now a lighter green and 2 to 3 inches high.


Ellen O'Connell
Parker, CO
mailto:oconnel4 at ix_netcom.com