# Thinking about going filterless for my 10g betta tank.



## Dan's85 (Mar 18, 2013)

I have some MTS left over from dirting my 40b, so I am considering converting my 5g betta tank to a Walstad. I have done some research on the subject, and I have a few plants that I think will do pretty good in this type of tank. Java fern, bacopas, amazon sword plantlets and possibly an anubias. Anyone have any advise for a first time filterless tank?


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## PaulG (Oct 10, 2010)

Plants, plants and more plants, that's it.


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## meppitech (Apr 29, 2011)

Make sure the plants are doing well before adding the betta. I tried the filterless betta tank with plants and soon regretted it because some plants didnt take well so i had decaying plantsadding to the ammonia levels and I have been battling levels of nitrite ever since. I ended up adding a small filter. Good luck


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## water hyacinth (Mar 3, 2013)

i agree set the tank up for a while and allow the plants to get established then add the betta. Make sure they're is plenty of plants though. Elodea,hornwort and crystal wort work well for tanks like these.


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## BigTom (Sep 16, 2011)

Floating and/or emergent plants are key really. Not being CO2 limited means they can react quickly to any available ammonia.


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## Dan's85 (Mar 18, 2013)

Thanks for the tips. I set the tank up last night and added some Malaysian Trumpet Snails. So far so good. I have an anubias, java fern, bacopas, rotala indica, hygro sunset, hygro augustafolia, a few small pygmy chain swords, and some riccia in there now. I'll keep an eye on the water parameters for a bit before adding the betta. I also have a small water pump off of a tetra brand internal filter in there for water movement.


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## James M (Jun 21, 2012)

BigTom said:


> Floating and/or emergent plants are key really. Not being CO2 limited means they can react quickly to any available ammonia.


Ignore this one at your own peril.


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## Dan's85 (Mar 18, 2013)

Ok, I did some work on the tank today. 

Current flora list:

Anachras
2x "banana plant"
Lemon bacopa
Rotala Indica
Misc anubias
Java fern
1x Amazon sword plantlet
Water wisteria
4x Pygmy chain sword
Hygro sunset
Floating riccia

Livestock:

1x Male Delta Tail Betta (Leonidas)
1x African dwarf frog
10x MTS
4x RCS (I will be pulling more from my other tank as I see them)

I am temporarily using a small DIY sponge filter to help with water clarity and to help culture BB.




The star of the show




Another FTS


And the frog


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## zoragen (Nov 3, 2009)

Nice!

I had trouble when I had a betta & a frog together as the betta was a pig!

He was a MUCH faster eater than the poor frog.

I ended up getting another tank for the frog so I knew the poor little guy would get enough to eat.


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## Dan's85 (Mar 18, 2013)

Fortunately my betta is probably the most mellow fish that I have. He doesn't even flare up at his own reflection.


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## peachii (Jun 1, 2013)

I have 2 frogs in my betta tank. I added duckweed (the small kind) by accident but now keep it in there for them. The frogs go to the top and eat all of it they can get to. 

First time keeping frogs and they just crack me up.


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## crazymittens (Jun 4, 2012)

Dan, cool! To those mentioning emersed or floating plants...are there favourites? (I will, of course, google this now)


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## Dan's85 (Mar 18, 2013)

I just bought a 10g from the my LFS yesterday for $5! The girlfriend and I spend yesterday evening de-rimming it and transferring everything over. Unfortunately the frog died yesterday afternoon while I was at work. I am thinking about getting some duckweed to replace the riccia, I've heard that it's super invasive though so i'm still unsure. I've also bee contemplating a small diy aquaponics system to try my hand at growing some emersed plants. Thanks for all of the input guys! I'll get some pics of the new tank posted ASAP!


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## bbroush (Sep 13, 2012)

You should definitely check out the riparium threads, I just changed my 20g high into a riparium and it's been so awesome. I highly recommend it. You can even use some house plants! I have a ton if pothos vine growing out of mine, and some real riparium plants I bought from hydrophyte. If you are interested I'd PM him.


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## Dan's85 (Mar 18, 2013)

Sorry for the late update. As I said before, everything is now in a derimmed 10g. Here's some pics

FTS


Female Golden Wonder Killifish


Male Golden Wonder Killifish


He likes to pose for the camera


Another FTS. Sorry for the glare.


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## meppitech (Apr 29, 2011)

Im thinking you are gonna want a covering on that tank for sure!


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## Dan's85 (Mar 18, 2013)

I've heard that the Killifish are jumpers, but I've had no trouble with them.


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## NebelGeîst (Jul 2, 2013)

Hi,

yes, Killis (as well as Bettas) are quite good jumpers. Which doesn´t mean, they jump all the time. So there will always be the danger to loose some individuals without covering the tank.
In my private opinion Bettas are best kept alone. Killifish and frog are not a good company for Betta splendens.

My favorite floating plant is Phyllanthus fluitans (but requires soft water, it doesn´t last in to hard water).

I keep most of my Betta tanks unfiltered (except pairing tank), even Betta hendra tanks are without filters (volumes of the unfiltered tanks are from 14l/3,7gallons to 20l/5,3gallons). I got no problems. Over years. 
Slow growing plants I've often used: Anubias barteri var nana, A. barteri var coffeifolia, Microsorum pteropus 'narrow leaf', M. pteropus 'trident', Taxiphyllum sp. 'Spiky Moss', Cryptocoryne wendtii green, C. wendtii 'Tropica'.
Fast growing plants I've often used: Mayaca fluviatilis, Heteranthera zosterifolia, Phyllanthus fluitans, Salvinia sp.

By now, I am more into slow growing plants in my Betta tanks with only floating plants as fast growers to reduce ammonium/nitrite/nitrate. Less work with cuttung plants, less fertilizer needed.


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## ValMM (Feb 22, 2011)

Giant duckweed is more popular than duckweed, since the larger size makes it easier to control the amount that is growing.


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## stevencaller (Sep 14, 2012)

You need high light and good co2 if you are going to go filterless - if your plants aren't growing fast then they wont be using up the waste products from your betta


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## Misti (Jul 1, 2013)

you can run without a filter?! WOW, I would love to not have to buy these special little filters for my tank. I have a little 2.5 gal tank that is home to an accidental Marble Gene Betta, two African Dwarf Frogs and a few Malaysian Trumpet snails. oh and 1 Marimo Moss ball. It has Sand as a substrate and its needed for the frogs. I just have some water wisteria in it at this time, but what you you advise I do to it if I wanted to go filter less?


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## NebelGeîst (Jul 2, 2013)

stevencaller said:


> You need high light and good co2 if you are going to go filterless - if your plants aren't growing fast then they wont be using up the waste products from your betta


Hi,

I disagree with that. In my opinion and experience Bettas feel more comfortable with dimmed light plus a single fish does not produce much ammonium and phosphate. Using to much fast growing plants with much light and CO2 leads to a lack of nitrate/phosphate so you need to add these nutrients. 
In some cases even the flowting plants keep nitrate/phosphate at almost to low levels.


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## Dan's85 (Mar 18, 2013)

Thanks for all of the feed back guys. I had one killifish jump ship today, and I moved the frog to his own habitat at the end of last week. The frog is a leopard frog and he was still growing out of the tadpole stage so he still needed an aquatic environment. As of today the inhabitants of the tank are the betta, one killifish, a new tadpole that will be housed with the other frog as soon as he's mature enough, a few RCS, and some MTS. As I have said before, my betta is the calmest fish I think I have ever owned. He lives perfectly happy with his tank mates, so I'm not too worried about him sharing the tank with another fish or two. I removed the corner filter and went back to using the sponge filter along with 50% water changes every other day. I'm waiting for the tank to mature a little longer and then I'll swap the sponge filter for a small water pump that came with the internal filter in the 5g starter kit for water movement. As of now me and the duckweed have a love hate relationship, I can see why some people have sworn to never use it again, but it does do a great job on keeping the water quality up. I'm still debating on trying out a small "aquaponics" setup or possibly buying some of the riparium planters from hydrophyte to have some more plants growing emersed. We'll see how it goes. All in all the tank is doing very well though. I don't think I'll ever have another planted tank without dirt again.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

i love the tiny duckweed now that i found something out - when hungry, my fish will eat them! in fact, my emperor tetra have developed a taste for them, which is fun to watch. keeps the duckweed population under control, and i never have to worry about starvation during vacations, haha.


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## NebelGeîst (Jul 2, 2013)

Duckweed is part of the arum family (Araceae), just like Anubias. All members of the arum family contain oxalic acid (particularly calcium oxalate), and are known to be slightly toxic.
BUT even the arum family is much much less toxic than many plant sites claim, I wouldn´t want to take the risk and feed members of the arum family all the time. It may not cause problems instantly, but over the time there may be some health effects. I´d say duckweed is pretty safe if its fed only from time to time, but would not let my fish eat it all the time.
No reason to panic but a point to think about


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

That's slightly misleading, according to this.



NebelGeîst said:


> Duckweed is part of the arum family (Araceae), just like Anubias. All members of the arum family contain oxalic acid (particularly calcium oxalate), and are known to be slightly toxic.
> BUT even the arum family is much much less toxic than many plant sites claim, I wouldn´t want to take the risk and feed members of the arum family all the time. It may not cause problems instantly, but over the time there may be some health effects. I´d say duckweed is pretty safe if its fed only from time to time, but would not let my fish eat it all the time.
> No reason to panic but a point to think about


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## NebelGeîst (Jul 2, 2013)

I only read the part about the calcium oxalate.. So I can´t find where I am misleading?
The chapter sais that duckweed contains two to eight times more ca oxalate than other edible vegetables like spinach (one would not eat all the time). One reason rhubarb should not be harvest to late (and eaten to much) is the increasing oxalic acid level.
And as I said:


> BUT even the arum family is *much much less toxic than many plant sites claim*


But perhaps it´s that what you mean


> However, published reports of calcium oxalate levels in duckweeds are likely to be misleading. The late Vincent Franceschi (Washington State University, see reference below) demonstrated that the calcium oxalate content of Lemna minor depends greatly on the calcium content of the water on which they are growing. Elevated calcium in the water favors formation of calcium oxalate crystals, and their content can be lowered by growth on low-calcium medium. It seems likely that placing duckweed on soft water for a reasonably short period could lower oxalate content significantly in a practical setting.


Yes, I do not know about the hardness of Jahn´s water. Maybe it is really soft with very few calcium. But all in all your link underlines what I have said.


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## Dan's85 (Mar 18, 2013)

A little update. I moved the tank to a different room yesterday and set it up directly in a window. It gets indirect sun light all day and direct sun light the last 3-4 hours of the day. As of now the plants are loving it and pearling like crazy. I've gotten about 1'' of new growth from my anachras in less than 24 hrs. So far so good, but I'm still waiting for a huge algae bloom. I've had zero algae so far.


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## somewhatshocked (Aug 8, 2011)

Said it was _slightly_ misleading. And it is.

Duckweed won't be toxic to their fish. It's grown and harvested on large scales for feeding operations. Often for fish.

Remember, since you have a bit of trouble with English, that "slightly" is an adjective that changes what "misleading" would mean if it were used by itself. (Not a lecture, just pointing this out as it's been an issue on other threads - hoping to be helpful)



NebelGeîst said:


> I only read the part about the calcium oxalate.. So I can´t find where I am misleading?
> The chapter sais that duckweed contains two to eight times more ca oxalate than other edible vegetables like spinach (one would not eat all the time). One reason rhubarb should not be harvest to late (and eaten to much) is the increasing oxalic acid level.
> And as I said:
> 
> ...


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## NebelGeîst (Jul 2, 2013)

@Dan: I hope the algae still avoid your tank on his new location.



@somewhatshocked: I understood the word slightly. But slightly or not, misleading still is misleading. It only tells that I´m not completely wrong.
If a substance is fed to animals doesn´t mean it can´t have some side effects if it is fed constantly. Ethoxyquin may be not a natural substance but still is fed and it has side effects..
The ADI for oxalates ascertained over time ranged from 0.3 to 3 mg/kg bw, but due to suspected different bioavailability in different species (so hardly transferable to human), and due to the fact that the daily intake is often higher than these ADI values they aren´t used. No reliable ADI exists, as far as I know.
The LD50 is 375mg/kg bw (ascertained with rats, source: Page 5, article 11, unfortunetaly in German). 
Supposing the weight of a fish species would be 3 grams, that would mean half of the population of this species would die by eating 1.125 mg ca oxalate (according to your link duckweed contains 2 - 4 % ca oxalate, let´s take the middle: 37,5 mg duckweed (with 3% ca oxalate) would be needed to achieve this value). Well no 3 grams fish would probaly eat that much duckweed all at once plus due to the minor solubility propably even more duckweed would be needed. 
But I never talked about direct intoxication. I even noted duckweed should be pretty save if fed only from time to time. I only warned of constant, everyday consumption which may lead to some health effects.


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