# High Tech to Low Tech... Tips for the Transition?



## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Unfortunately it's all about establishing an equilibrium and making small changes as plant mass increase. For me low tech was just a slow die off of plants even with glut. Maybe it's my water. I've started dosing ferts and I'm buying a C02 system to get an easier system to maintain. The only plant that ALWAYS grows and does well for me was anubias. It's still a balance of light, plant mass, ferts, etc. If I were in your shoes I would keep the system going and lower the light levels and duration. Also maybe reduce ferts a bit and see how things go. Java Fern did not do well for me without ferts and CO2.


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

Don't go low tech. This will not make it easier to grow healthy plants. CO2 tanks can be low maintenance. You just have to set up the system right. Please provide more details of your current tank - species list, substrate, etc.


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## aquaBender (Aug 18, 2016)

Axelrodi202 said:


> Don't go low tech. This will not make it easier to grow healthy plants. CO2 tanks can be low maintenance. You just have to set up the system right. Please provide more details of your current tank - species list, substrate, etc.


Can you provide evidence as to why a low-tech tank makes it harder to grow healthy plants? I have had great growth from my dirted tank for the last two years, with minimal interference.


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## aquaBender (Aug 18, 2016)

botanicalT said:


> Hey ya'll,
> 
> 
> I have a 33 gallon rimless tank which features lots of plants, pressurized CO2, high lighting, etc. I've been struggling with everything from plants dying to algae, and it's been 6 months and it's starting to impact my everyday life to the point where it's making me discouraged and sad (hate to admit it...). Also, I love to travel, and I think my demanding work schedule combined with traveling has just not been good for it.
> ...


The Walstad style of keeping a low-tech tank has worked great for me. My light schedule is 4 hours on, 5 off, 4 on, and my lighting is pretty intense for a 10 gallon low-tech I think (three 13-watt CFL's with 850 lumens each at 6500k, not sure of the PAR). My tank has always gotten great growth and I have never used ferts or CO2, I do have a 1.5-2 inch organic potting soil layer beneath a 2 inch gravel cap for my plants to root in and get their nutrients from. I keep floating plants to diminish the light intensity and keep algae to a minimum. Experimenting with varying light intensity and floating growth should help you achieve a low-tech tank with minimal algae (I haven't had any algae for over a year). I would also recommend amano shrimp to minimize algae.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

aquaBender said:


> ...my lighting is pretty intense for a 10 gallon low-tech I think (three 13-watt CFL's with 850 lumens each at 6500k, not sure of the PAR). My tank has always gotten great growth and I have never used ferts or CO2...


So what are you growing with the intense light?


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

aquaBender said:


> Can you provide evidence as to why a low-tech tank makes it harder to grow healthy plants? I have had great growth from my dirted tank for the last two years, with minimal interference.


You and I are both just anecdotes. What is important is to consider the totality of anecdotes. I'm less active on forums than I used to be, but I've seen many journals and threads asking for help over the years. For every one person getting good growth in a low tech tank, there are many more whose plants stall in suspended animation or slowly die off. For every one low tech tank with minimal algae growth, there are many more that are algae disasters. A successful low tech tank can be low maintenance, but generally this requires a lot of experience. A poorly run low tech tank can be even harder to fix than a poorly run high tech tank.

Plants require CO2 as the carbon source to build themselves. How do you expect them to do without enough? Some can make do with lower levels, but having the option of using CO2 makes troubleshooting a tank much easier. 

I have a tough time understanding the folks who are against fertilizing or CO2 supplementation. Plants need nutrients to survive and grow. Sure fish and substrate can provide this to some extent, but it will not be enough to truly meet the needs of most tanks, at least not to maintain all plants in excellent condition. Asking how to grow plants without having to fertilize is like asking how to keep a dog without having to give it food.


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## botanicalT (Nov 26, 2016)

Axelrodi202 said:


> Don't go low tech. This will not make it easier to grow healthy plants. CO2 tanks can be low maintenance. You just have to set up the system right. Please provide more details of your current tank - species list, substrate, etc.


I have mostly ferns and a few other plants from Petco. All of the ones I ordered from Aquarium Plants .com ended up getting algae covered and dying... my substrate is EcoComplete, with some bare gravel at the bottom of the tank (for added depth). I also have some moon sand on the top of the ecocomplete in places for easier growth. I just purchased some root tabs, so I'm hoping this will help. 

Ok, I appreciate all of your other comments too. However I'm a bit confused... if there is such a thing as low tech vs high tech, then wouldn't low tech imply less CO2 and ferts? Is walstad the only way to go if you want low tech, or can I dose excel and use root tabs and some fertilization?


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

botanicalT said:


> I have mostly ferns and a few other plants from Petco. All of the ones I ordered from Aquarium Plants .com ended up getting algae covered and dying... my substrate is EcoComplete, with some bare gravel at the bottom of the tank (for added depth). I also have some moon sand on the top of the ecocomplete in places for easier growth. I just purchased some root tabs, so I'm hoping this will help.
> 
> Ok, I appreciate all of your other comments too. However I'm a bit confused... if there is such a thing as low tech vs high tech, then wouldn't low tech imply less CO2 and ferts? Is walstad the only way to go if you want low tech, or can I dose excel and use root tabs and some fertilization?


Your hobby should never control you. You should always control it and if you are feeling overwhelmed with a high tech tank, you should change things up. 

No, you do not need to go the Walstad route if you don't want to. Plants from Pet Co are easy to care for. They require minimal ferts and do well with low to medium light. Getting a handle on the algae issue will make your life easier and your tank more enjoyable. 

What are your water paramters? How long do you leave the lights on? Can you dim the lights that you have?


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## someoldguy (Feb 26, 2014)

Low tech tanks that are pretty much trouble free are perfectly possible , they just require a somewhat different approach . Here’s what I’ve been doing for quite a while . 

Substrate : Fine gravel ( think on the order of CaribSea ‘Peace River” ) I’ve got 2 tanks with BDBS 20/40 but they have only been set up for a little while but so far I’m pretty satisfied with it …. We’ll see if I still am after a year . Maybe 1 ½ -2” depth
I’ve never bothered dirting , tried Eco Complete but didn’t think it was worth the expense . 

Light : Can’t help you much with your light , cutting down the intensity like you’re doing is a good thing , but maybe go up to 6 hrs. and see what happens .
I’m using a Finnex Planted plus , a couple of Stingrays for the 20’s on the top of my rack , and 13 watt cfl’s over everything else . High light/low tech is looking for trouble IMHO .

Water changes : Sorry , you still have to do them . I do somewhere around 20% every 2 weeks . 

Ferts : Osmocote tabs lightly by crypts . 2 or 3 in the 20’s , 6 in my 45 . New ones every 3-4 months . I also dose K2PO4 , KNO3 , and Microplex mixed via the RotalaButterfly calculator for low light EI . Figured dosage for 1ml/gallon of water .
Dose every other week after water changes in the 45 , half doses in the 20’s , maybe monthly in the 10’s . I try to keep nitrates between 20 and 40 .

Filters : 2215 in my 45 , 2211’s in my 20’s , corner box filters in the 10’s . Not a big fan of huge amounts of flow or worrying about ‘dead spots’ . All the Eheims are throttled back a bit to keep a light water movement .

Plants : Basically …. You’re looking at stuff like Anubias , Crypts , Aponogetons (maybe not lace plants) ,Vals , Java fern , Bolbitis . Buces grow terribly slowly . 
Low light plants ….. forget carpets of DHG or Monte Carlo , and any of the red stems. 
The only stems I’ve had luck with are hornwort and Hygro. polysperma . There’s probably more that’ll work but I’m not a fan of stems . Plant growth will be slow , but steady . No weekly trims needed . Check out post #5 here :

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/725641-someoldguys-wall-water.html

That’s probably 18 months in 2 10’s

And the growth of the crypts over 6 months here: see posts 10 and 34 ...

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/12-tank-journals/1110778-someoldguys-pile-rocks.html

Forum Sellers , local clubs , established LFS’ with separate plant tanks are good sources for plants



Bioload : Keep fish populations low , go with smaller , non aggressive stuff . Buy quality stock from a good LFS if you’ve got one , or from local club auctions to minimize disease introductions .


Everything goes slower in low tech . If things start going wrong , usually you’ll see it 
happen gradually and can head it off . Diatoms , BGA and the like are still out there .

So that’s pretty much what I do . Pretty much what I’ve been doing for the last 50+ years . Once my tanks are set up and stable (3-4 months) they’re pretty much on cruise control . I can take off for a week or 2 without any fear of a major bio-disaster greeting me on my return . My daily maintenance is 15 minutes or so to feed ,and every other week 1-2 hours for water changes . If I’m a couple of days late , the world won’t end . 

Just note that if you go this route , expect to have to tinker around with things until your tank gets stable . Think things out , change one thing at a time , wait a week before changing anything else to see what happens (it’s low tech and slow) , eventually everything will find its’ place. Don’t panic , don’t get frustrated!


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## Smooch (May 14, 2016)

My tanks are nothing special either. Easy to grow plants, lights on for 6 hours, water changes every week and plants are fed at the water change. Depending on what they need is what they are fed. If the tank doesn't need nitrates, I don't dose them as it is a total waste of time and money.

Substrate in both of my tanks are a mix of gravel, Eco-Complete, Flora Max and Flourite. 

I run 2 filters on both tanks. Both of them have their sponges and filter pads cleaned weekly. This is not a deep clean. It is a squeeze in a bucket filled with water from water changes. This helps to keep nitrates in check along with vacuuming. 

I do not use root tabs for a few reasons. The first being that I vac my tanks, so root tabs are a waste of time and money if I'm just going to 'suck them up' anyway. People tend to overuse them which means the water column is saturated with nutrients that slow growing plants are not going to take in and use fast enough. This problem is not specific to low tech tanks as plenty of high tech tank people often make this same mistake and the results are the same. Their tanks become a haven for algae which take lots of grunt work to fix. Water changes , filter cleaning, ect... If a person wants to use root tabs, water testing needs to happen and corrections need to happen if need be. 

I use ferts from Tropica. Since I lean dose, it is literally a single squirt once a week for the 10 gallon and 2 squirts for the 40. There is no guessing, mixing, mold issues, ect... Average nitrate levels for my tanks are 7-10 ppm for the 10 gallon, 10-15 ppm for the 40. Plants are green and growing. If they were not happy, they would let me know. 

As for CO2, I don't use it as I don't need it. There are a few articles that discuss how plants create CO2 in a non-injected tank, but the easiest one to read is put out by Seachem. The take away from the article is straight forward.



> In a well planted tank without CO2 injection the plants will use the CO2 available, causing the carbonates present to re
> equilibrate thereby producing more CO2. The acidifying agents mentioned above will also tend to drive the
> bicarbonate equilibrium to produce more CO2. In this type of setup the presence of acidifying agents can have a
> beneficial effect; it helps to maintain a higher level of CO2 than would be present if utilization were the only driving
> ...


http://www.seachem.com/downloads/articles/General-Chemistry-of-the-Planted-Aquarium.pdf

If your water already has a decent KH, you don't need a buffer if water changes are done regularly.


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

botanicalT said:


> I have mostly ferns and a few other plants from Petco. All of the ones I ordered from Aquarium Plants .com ended up getting algae covered and dying... my substrate is EcoComplete, with some bare gravel at the bottom of the tank (for added depth). I also have some moon sand on the top of the ecocomplete in places for easier growth. I just purchased some root tabs, so I'm hoping this will help.
> 
> Ok, I appreciate all of your other comments too. However I'm a bit confused... if there is such a thing as low tech vs high tech, then wouldn't low tech imply less CO2 and ferts? Is walstad the only way to go if you want low tech, or can I dose excel and use root tabs and some fertilization?


Low tech traditionally implies zero added CO2. How much CO2 are you running? How much PAR do you get from your lights? Are you dosing? Do you know what species (scientific names) you have? Is your filtration adequate? What are your water parameters?


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## JJ09 (Sep 11, 2014)

Unfortunately there is no right answer, you just have to try stuff and tinker with it, keep an eye on what happens when you change things, and don't expect results too soon. I think the folks who don't do water changes have walstad tanks. I don't use c02 and I have two different setups. One is no heater or ferts, gets ambient window light and 25 percent water changes once a week. It only has undemanding plants, mostly epiphytes: java fern, elodea, hornwort, windelov fern, a bit of bolbitis and a few buces. It was a total experiment and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

My other tanks I run the lights six hours on one, eight on the other but only half of that is full intensity (it has a fade in/fade out of 2 hrs). On both these tanks I had algae problems until I added floaters and diffused the lights with plastic over the leds. My main tank I also raised the light 1/2 inch off the tank rim. My substrate is fine gravel/coarse sand mixed with safe-t-sorb which I used because it has high cation capacity. I dose EI ferts- powders- one third the recommended amount, only once a week, with a fifty percent water change. Usually I test the water each week and dose even less of the ferts if nitrates in the tank are already sufficient. This tank has in addition to the easy plants lots of crypts, aponogetons, ludwigia, hygro polysperma, bacopa, subwassertang, Vals, one dwarf echinodorus and a bit of moss. I know I can't grow red or carpeting or fancy plants, that's okay. My stems don't grow crazy fast enough that they're a pain to manage- every week I trim a few things, the next week something else needs a trim, and so on.

It took me a year to work out the balance on my tank, but now it's not much work at all and if I have to leave for a week or two evey thing is pretty much fine when I get back, with little attention. I hope to someday get another, larger tank and I would set this one up the same way. It works for me.


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## Bunsen Honeydew (Feb 21, 2017)

I have always had more success with low tech tanks when I was able to keep the water aerated well with airstones, a wet-dry, or both. Aeration will reduce the amount of CO2 in a high tech tank, but can help restore CO2 as it is consumed by plants in a low tech tank. It is slower to get to equilibrium concentrations, but slower growing plants in a low tech tank consume it slower as well.


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

Even with CO2 supplementation, an airstone should still be used at night time when CO2 is off.


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## Underwater World (May 30, 2017)

I am not the most experienced planted tank person, but I have kept a low tech 29 gallon tank (no CO2, no liquid carbon) that I like about 2 years now. Dwarf sag, Ludwigia repens grow well in the tank (in my opinion) and a crypt Wendtii red grows well but VERY slowly. My tips would be: 
(1) You'll probably need less light intensity than you think
(2) Things happen slowly in low tech tanks, so be patient when evaluating fixes for problems
(3) Low tech doesn't mean no problems as others have said, so expect to face them as well 
(4) As others have indicated, low tech doesn't necessarily mean your plants don't need fertilizer even though some people think that. My tank is lightly stocked and I find that nutrients get depleted in the tank. 
(5) Even once you've gotten things dialed in, as plants increase in numbers and mass, the nutrient and CO2 uptake changes. So things can become unbalanced again even after months of happy tank time, requiring more troubleshooting to bring things back into balance.

Personally, I like the challenge of low tech tanks and the slow growth plant characteristics of them and am not interested in a CO2 tank. Good luck regardless of what you decide!


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## fresheraqua (Jul 13, 2017)

if you notice my avatar it looks pretty good. 
of course an under water garden is just like an above ground garden
things change...

My experience 75gal. has been to start out with DIY CO2 misting thru a powerhead, mounted well below the surface;
and Bright light:
(2) 10,000k & 
(2) 6700k twin tube compacts in a CoraLife fixture AND a 
CoraLife SlimLine twin t5 -Not HO

Temp 76 degrees
ph well int the 8's
Use LOTS of fast growing plants, floaters help immensely. 
I eventually introduced water lettuce which covered the top of the tank and roots were as long as 5 -6". 
Water lettuce YES
duckweed NO: I got tired of thinning, so removed it completely, which took some time 
Substrate is 2" flourish gravel atop 1" of peat with some Indiana pea gravel mixed in. (I regret adding the pea gravel)
Occasional Flourish nitrogen, 
and Flourish potassium with 
Flourish Trace BOTH on a regular basis with simply city tap water, (dechlorinated with Prime)
I tried to top off regularly, relying on tap water's phosphate. 
Water changes maybe twice a year.


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## aquaBender (Aug 18, 2016)

houseofcards said:


> So what are you growing with the intense light?


Amazon swords, jungle val, Rotala rotundifolia, Ludwigia repens, water wisteria, java moss, marimo moss, java fern, Anubias barteri, duckweed, water lettuce, and golden pothos in the HOB filter. One of the lights is suspended about 1 foot above the tank while the other two rest on top.


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## aquaBender (Aug 18, 2016)

Axelrodi202 said:


> You and I are both just anecdotes. What is important is to consider the totality of anecdotes. I'm less active on forums than I used to be, but I've seen many journals and threads asking for help over the years. For every one person getting good growth in a low tech tank, there are many more whose plants stall in suspended animation or slowly die off. For every one low tech tank with minimal algae growth, there are many more that are algae disasters. A successful low tech tank can be low maintenance, but generally this requires a lot of experience. A poorly run low tech tank can be even harder to fix than a poorly run high tech tank.
> 
> Plants require CO2 as the carbon source to build themselves. How do you expect them to do without enough? Some can make do with lower levels, but having the option of using CO2 makes troubleshooting a tank much easier.
> 
> I have a tough time understanding the folks who are against fertilizing or CO2 supplementation. Plants need nutrients to survive and grow. Sure fish and substrate can provide this to some extent, but it will not be enough to truly meet the needs of most tanks, at least not to maintain all plants in excellent condition. Asking how to grow plants without having to fertilize is like asking how to keep a dog without having to give it food.


I am not against fertilizing or CO2 supplementation, I have just been able to achieve excellent growth using dirt as a substrate. Guaranteed it was a probably a slower process, but it doesn't make sense to me paying so much extra money for prepackaged fertilizers and a CO2 injection when I was able to use about $5 worth of potting soil for over two years (as of now) of continual growth. These aquatic species have adapted to environments in which carbon is the limiting nutrient, and don't need artificial injection to succeed. Allowing plants access to atmospheric carbon will drastically increase their growth, which I've been able to achieve by raising my lights slightly and removing the back black plastic part of the tank lid, allowing the plants to form a mass behind my tank. In her book, Diana Walstad does a detailed assessment of nutrient deficiencies in the dirted planted tank and found that fish food, water, and the soil substrate provided plentiful amounts of all nutrients except carbon, for which there are remedies besides injecting CO2. Again, I'm not against this, it was simply quite fun for me to experiment with this cheaper, albeit slower, method.


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

Available carbon levels in nature are often quite higher than what are found in non-CO2 injected aquariums, due to things like volcanic springs, microbial decomposition, etc. If you like the look having plants part emergent certainly helps. 

Congratulations on your success. I have certainly seen many achieve good results with dirt. I have also seen many crash and burn. Unfortunately with dirt there's a lot of room for error in the sourcing and processing. I'm a big believer in paying the money for a commercial aqua soil type substrate. Much easier to use, and consistent results. You can easily make the money back selling plants.


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## Delapool (Mar 12, 2016)

I have done well with dirt or low tech tanks. Just for my part I've found high tech can mean high growth (including algae). Really high light is a pain trying to keep it all in balance - at the moment I inject CO2, add ferts and lights are somewhat reduced. 

Personally I'd keep the CO2 going as you have it already. 

Reduce lights - I dropped my lights down to 6hrs and then started increasing duration and intensity to see when algae came in. I don't get a fast growth but less algae and less pruning. 

I still had glut and have some fish for algae control. 

Ferts - I dose a lot of potassium and then have some test kits to keep an eye on nitrates and phosphates. Light dosing micros. 

That all took at least 6 months (building on the previous year where I was using LEDs too powerful) of just making a change and seeing what happened, trying different plants and testing PAR. The latest rescape has been good from start as proven plants. 



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

I don't think anyone can deny that low-tech can be very easy, but it's ease usually comes with limitation. The ease is directly related to how much light you have. The less light the less likely you will have algae issues, etc. The price of this is the bandwith get's very thin on what plants will grow in the tank. I usually (saying usually and not always for a reason) see the same 6-8 species of plants thriving. It's especially event in a El Natural setup where the organic content is kept very high to sustain itself, but can't deal with higher light. 

There's a reason you see algae accumulate usually on rock, wood where the organic content is high and no growth and then slow-growing plants are usually next. If nothing is changed but the addition of co2 and there are enough ferts growth will increase making it harder for algae to get a foothold.

Kinda hard for algae to hold onto this:


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## Axelrodi202 (Jul 29, 2008)

Nothing like a pearling mass of java fern!


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