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Re: About filtration



On Wed, 22 May 1996 Olga wrote:

> I'm interested in the idea of minimal filtration. What kind of filter
> system would be recommended by those who propose minimal filtration? On my
> 20 gallon tank at work I have an Aquaclear 150 filter. The sponge in it
> catches dirt in the water but also acts as a biological filter by giving a
> home to the bacteria. What could one replace it with?
> 

I'm not sure how well it would work with a tank that small, but I keep a
200G tank with no filtration at all.  Sometimes there is a power-head
providing current though.  The tank is packed to the gills with Jungle
Vallesnaria which seems to provide all the filtration the tank needs. 
There is a population of common live-bearers (guppies and swordtails) as
well as some odd fish (a krib, an oscar, a couple of tetras) The only
death I've had in the tank (that I noticed, anyway) was when my
grandmother angel-fish died.  She'd been retired to that tank for a life
of ease after providing me with many fry begginning in 1990.  She kicked
the bucket earlier this year for no apparent reason.  I occasionally
manually remove big clumps of hair algae from the tank too. It's been in
place with only relatively minor changes for almost three years. 

I don't test anything in this tank anymore.  I change about 1/4 of the 
water every year for my irregulary scheduled water change in this 
tank...otherwise I just top it off.


later,

--------------------------------- ---------------------------------
Christopher L. Weeks             |             Training Specialist |
                                 | University of Missouri-Columbia |
http://www.missouri.edu/~ccweeks |                Campus Computing |
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