This is the smartest video I've ever seen. Every so called hobbyist will tell you a little truth, try to sell you some product and try to scare you with daily water changes when the actual truth is simple, this makes sense and cheap too.
OMG, you're alive ! Welcome back Jay, i thought something happened to you. You were out for a long time. I really enjoy your videos man, keep them comming.
Nice video, very informative to confirm that duckweed works for no water changes. I have duckweed in my 400L tank and it is really good at balancing nitrates. Most of the time it just grows steadily and slowly fills up the surface of the tank. When something happens it quickly responds to this. One example is when 4 mussels died at once, I was alerted because the complete surface of the tank got filled up with duckweed within a few days. apparently a big nitrate spike happens when these die. Second example is when the bioload is higher the duckweed fills up the surface much faster. I had about 25 guppy fry growing up, together with about 300 shrimp, every month the duckweed would grow back faster. I gave away most of the guppies and about 100 shrimp, then it started growing back more slowly.
Thank you for following through with this experiment because it is interesting to learn how much live plants can help a tank sustain a balance that is healthy for fish. Awesome work!
I've run my tank like this for 4 or 5 years. Just occasionally remove excess duckweed. One thing you will run into is snails will be unable to build shells properly once they have consumed all the calcium & stuff from the water. So might have to suppliment that if you care about snails.
My betta tanks are all like this except without the filter. After about a year, the duckweed stopped growing as prolifically probably because I started feeding less. I also found that adding more plants created lots of competition and usually the duckweed and only 1 submerged plant species ended up surviving.
great video 👍 I have a 10 gallon tank with one betta fish and half a dozen shrimp it's been going steady for 20 months with no water changes just topping it off I have duct water lettuce a anubias and it's been just fine 👍👍
@@ht9252 surprisingly no I keep him fed really good he's pretty fat I don't think he has the strength to chase them haha that would be my only advice is keep the betta of fed well
Great stuff, Jay. Thanks for sharing. I've had two deep substrate (Safe T Sorb) tanks built partially on your videos running for almost three years and they seem very healthy.
Wonderful experiment. Thank you... I am aiming for this but with my 2 2 month old axolotls...my question is..what else can I feed my duckweed to survive and be healthy? I have no substrate, no other plants and only 1 snail at the moment..
Jay your channel is freaking amazing 👍👍 - Feel Free Jay to come by every morning at Father Fish - im 100% sure we all would love to have you up and talk about all your awesome experience!!! - Glad to see you well and made a new awesome video!
Duckweed tamed a hair algae problem I had in a tank. Now it's totally under control. Red eye tetra's eat duckweed. I've seen them do it. Duckweed is a great plant that should be on every aquarium surface..
That's awesome my son did a similar experiment about 3 years ago and we're still up and running and we don't even have an aerator we started with just a duckweed only problem we do have is an abundance of algae as well
I had duck weed & some other pond plants that grew tall stemmed flowers, In a tall 20 gal tank It sat in front of my bedroom window for over a year until literally today That way is some how super clear Idk how cause there bunch of plan decay on the bottom top of way was completely covered in duckweed I never put a filter or air stone or anything
Hi Jay! Question: how often did you remove duckweed from system and about how much of the surface area did you clear? And did you clean or do anything else to your sponge filter? Great video, great experiment. I hope you are doing well.
Kind of chilling, in a way. Duckweed is crazy invasive, and this demonstrates why; it'll suck up nutrients and choke out the surface like no one's business with nothing but a little light to encourage it. Please be careful to dispose of it responsibly, everyone!
Hi thank you for your awesome and eye opening videos. You have inspired me to setup a similar setup just to see what would happen. I have watched almost all your videos and they have been the most informative and information dense videos I have watched since I started keeping fish. Hope you keep up with the channel, you deserve a lot more subscribers, I guess it is a tragedy of TH-cam which prefers sensational content over actual information. I have one question though, why does the duckweed only tank need a sponge filter? Would a substrate along with some rooted plants replace the need for the sponge filter?
The sponge filter adds a lot of stability. It provides oxygenation, water circulation, and fast breakdown of ammonia. The tank would be fine without it. But it would survive a shock to the system much better with it.
Your vid are awesome. Though you do have a deep substrate in this tank. It's the rocks. Which have anoxic zones inside them without a doubt. Depending on the stone they might be even more effective than 6 inches of silt at the bottom.
What about the other parameters? Ph? Hardness? I heard the ph would gradually drop, but the hardness slightly increase. A bit like probably a limestone swamp.
Does a "successful" no filter setup rely solely on Nitrate level at 0 or just remaining consistent aka not raising? Is that the key or just what you would consider a success? Thanks 😊
Are you using the snails to clean the poop on the bottom and algae growth on the sides of the tank? Or how are those things not appearing? Is the duckweed eating any algae and poop solids?
i had done the trial for 3 years no water change.. only to throw over grown plants here and there... but i will recommend you to have blue light more and larger rocks where algae can grow and the algae can be eaten by the suckerfish. so essentially you have a circle where sometimes you need to throw over grown plants.
Awesome video and knowledge my friend thks for the share and curious can you do one like this and just use shrimp and snails to see if it will still work are do you know if it will work
Does the duckweed get sucked into the sponge at all or does it stay at the surface? Im thinking of starting a minnow tank with duckweed and only a sponge filter
I've been running a gallon jar with no filtration, full of duckweed and malaysian trumpet snails. I do water change once a week but other than that no filtration. Duckweed grew like crazy but now it appears the roots have all fallen off and they are growing new ones. I wonder if this is normal.
Another question? Did you do any other tank maintenance such as cleaning glass or bottom? Curious if no algae growth on glass while having high duckweed coverage (reducing light available to algae) and nutrient uptake (so not enough available for algae.) And if no bottom cleaning, the decay of fish and shrimp waste in lightly fed and stocked tank was not more than the duckweed could handle. I'm sure my questions point to a simplified way of viewing the situation, and not necessarily cause/effect. Still interested though.
Jay, can you please share how many hours a day the light was turned on? How many was required for the duckweed to grow fast and to prevent the algae at the same time?
Great video Jay. Do you have any recommendations on types of fish? I was interested in using guppies in my 55 gallon but learned that they don't live very long (~2 yrs). Tetras live much longer but probably won't be breeding so the upfront costs will be much higher. The setup of my 55gal is 4inch sand substrate with moss and elodea.
have you done any testing of nitrate levels? and are your top offs with distilled water? without distilled water eventually you will build up TDS to a toxic level> keeping a low bio load is a plus as well.
Cool experiment, thanks for sharing. I haven't purchased a tank as of yet, still gathering information. About how long do you wait to add fish in a new tank? Thus far what I've read, folks say wait to add fish around 1 or 2 months.
Hi Jay, I saw the tank above with small amount of substrate only. If the tank were to remain more than 1 year with no water change, how do you handle the accumulation of fish poop in the tank?
I'm thinking of adding detritus worms that is the only thing I know of that actually eats fish poo. If you have a sand bed the beneficial bacteria break down the waste faster
Hi Jay, just wondered if you thought about removing the duck weed to check if the uncleaned filter had developed anoxic zones substantial enough to influence the result?
Yea but really it’s the same nitrate poisoning is nitrate poisoning guppies are hardier but shrimps will die over 40 ppm usually in my expierence so with that and the fact that he recorded the results of nitrates u should be able to understand how much u can actually push the no water change concept on other fish ... I do it with angel fish ju at on a bigger scale in a 30 gallon high tech planted tank with hella floaters I just use a different floater I don’t like duckweed it’s to messy I like using the water lettuce but the smaller kind that grows just as fast heck if not faster than duck weed ,...I’m taking out handfuls every week in place I of my water changes
Also make shure u still do a small water change every couple months to freshen up the water phosphates calcium phosphorus and any other stuff that’s in the water I’m missing father fish said it was a good idea anyway
Guppies can live without any filters. I have guppies with only duckweed in a small pond.. They have breed well.. Started with 2 and now I hv more than 30 guppies.. And I nvr did water change.. Only adding water if its evaporated a lot.. More than a year and still going
Hi Jay first of all thanks for your videos they helped me a lot. I would like to ask you about if is possible to use fertilizer, i think it could be toxit without removing old water but idk you are a no water changes boss hahaha so you may have the answer the aquarium is 2 years old so i dont want to destabilize it. Keep doing it your info is gold !!!
5:30 - fake plant 7:22 - ammonia was always 0. Nitrates 12.5 is max. Duckweed on top is only thing here that rids nitrates. Can have tank with duckweed, strong enough light n sponge filtr only.
Thank you for contributing some actual concrete knowledge to the hobby - it's a rare thing!
I thought this is gonna be a multiple videos at first ...1 year progression in 1 vid. very nice.
This is the smartest video I've ever seen. Every so called hobbyist will tell you a little truth, try to sell you some product and try to scare you with daily water changes when the actual truth is simple, this makes sense and cheap too.
I have a planted 40 gal Guppy tank with about 50 adult guppies and removing scoops of duckweed periodically is my main form of nitrate control too!
Amazing video, more than a year of footage, what patience!!
OMG, you're alive ! Welcome back Jay, i thought something happened to you. You were out for a long time.
I really enjoy your videos man, keep them comming.
Sorry was a bit busy
Finally...good to see you're back.
Nice video, very informative to confirm that duckweed works for no water changes. I have duckweed in my 400L tank and it is really good at balancing nitrates. Most of the time it just grows steadily and slowly fills up the surface of the tank. When something happens it quickly responds to this.
One example is when 4 mussels died at once, I was alerted because the complete surface of the tank got filled up with duckweed within a few days. apparently a big nitrate spike happens when these die.
Second example is when the bioload is higher the duckweed fills up the surface much faster. I had about 25 guppy fry growing up, together with about 300 shrimp, every month the duckweed would grow back faster. I gave away most of the guppies and about 100 shrimp, then it started growing back more slowly.
Love your experiments. Thanks for the work you put in for the fish keeping community!
Thank you for following through with this experiment because it is interesting to learn how much live plants can help a tank sustain a balance that is healthy for fish. Awesome work!
I've run my tank like this for 4 or 5 years. Just occasionally remove excess duckweed.
One thing you will run into is snails will be unable to build shells properly once they have consumed all the calcium & stuff from the water. So might have to suppliment that if you care about snails.
My betta tanks are all like this except without the filter. After about a year, the duckweed stopped growing as prolifically probably because I started feeding less. I also found that adding more plants created lots of competition and usually the duckweed and only 1 submerged plant species ended up surviving.
Maybe add some nutrients slowly
Perfect, thanks for the research and expirement. Perfectly answers some of my questions on the power of floating plants in aquarium
great video 👍 I have a 10 gallon tank with one betta fish and half a dozen shrimp it's been going steady for 20 months with no water changes just topping it off I have duct water lettuce a anubias and it's been just fine 👍👍
Good info. Did your betta eat any shrimps? Thanks
@@ht9252 surprisingly no I keep him fed really good he's pretty fat I don't think he has the strength to chase them haha that would be my only advice is keep the betta of fed well
So happy you're back! Just watched your most recent video, too--sorry to hear about the quarantine situation...Stay safe, Boss!
Thanks for the experiment. Missed you 🍀
Great stuff, Jay. Thanks for sharing.
I've had two deep substrate (Safe T Sorb) tanks built partially on your videos running for almost three years and they seem very healthy.
Wow, this is really eyeopening
Hi, did you wash the sponge filter?during that period of time
Wonderful experiment. Thank you...
I am aiming for this but with my 2 2 month old axolotls...my question is..what else can I feed my duckweed to survive and be healthy?
I have no substrate, no other plants and only 1 snail at the moment..
Jay your channel is freaking amazing 👍👍
- Feel Free Jay to come by every morning at Father Fish - im 100% sure we all would love to have you up and talk about all your awesome experience!!!
- Glad to see you well and made a new awesome video!
Duckweed tamed a hair algae problem I had in a tank. Now it's totally under control. Red eye tetra's eat duckweed. I've seen them do it. Duckweed is a great plant that should be on every aquarium surface..
Nice work Jay!
That's awesome my son did a similar experiment about 3 years ago and we're still up and running and we don't even have an aerator we started with just a duckweed only problem we do have is an abundance of algae as well
So duckweed didn't totally prevent algae?
@@ricwhk nothing completely prevents algae lol.
Good to see ur videos again ...
did you provided co2 for the plants . do the duckweed or any other floating plants need co2 setup
Good to see you back. Another great video.
Great video, how long do you leave the light on?
How often did you feed was the sponge cleaned at any point
I had duck weed & some other pond plants that grew tall stemmed flowers,
In a tall 20 gal tank
It sat in front of my bedroom window for over a year until literally today
That way is some how super clear
Idk how cause there bunch of plan decay on the bottom top of way was completely covered in duckweed
I never put a filter or air stone or anything
Can I ask how often you cleaned your sponge filter during this year?
I need this no water change aquarium. Ty for all the tips
Hi Jay! Question: how often did you remove duckweed from system and about how much of the surface area did you clear? And did you clean or do anything else to your sponge filter? Great video, great experiment. I hope you are doing well.
Removed about 20% of the surface every week. Rinsed the sponge filter every month.
Kind of chilling, in a way. Duckweed is crazy invasive, and this demonstrates why; it'll suck up nutrients and choke out the surface like no one's business with nothing but a little light to encourage it. Please be careful to dispose of it responsibly, everyone!
It's good grow alot of it
Duckweed is good fish food. There ways to keep it rather than dispose it.
Hi thank you for your awesome and eye opening videos. You have inspired me to setup a similar setup just to see what would happen. I have watched almost all your videos and they have been the most informative and information dense videos I have watched since I started keeping fish. Hope you keep up with the channel, you deserve a lot more subscribers, I guess it is a tragedy of TH-cam which prefers sensational content over actual information.
I have one question though, why does the duckweed only tank need a sponge filter? Would a substrate along with some rooted plants replace the need for the sponge filter?
The sponge filter adds a lot of stability. It provides oxygenation, water circulation, and fast breakdown of ammonia.
The tank would be fine without it. But it would survive a shock to the system much better with it.
That's dedication..👏🏼👏🏼
Such a neat experiment. Do you have any ideas as to why the nitrates spiked at 8 months on your graph?
Underrated video
Ever try the same thing but with hornwort?
How long did u on the light on?
Thanks for devoting the time 👍🏼
I wonder what happens when there is no more space left on the surface to spread out?
I heard that duckweed is originally fast to multiply. - From Korea
Your vid are awesome. Though you do have a deep substrate in this tank. It's the rocks. Which have anoxic zones inside them without a doubt. Depending on the stone they might be even more effective than 6 inches of silt at the bottom.
Brilliant experiment. Thank you so much for sharing... I should be able to replicate something similar. Cheers. 👍🙏🙂
Quick question did the fish only survive on the duckweed?
Do you know how I can quarantine my duckweed? I'm going to grow it in a separate tank with just duckweed and it to my fish in a different tank.
What about the other parameters? Ph? Hardness? I heard the ph would gradually drop, but the hardness slightly increase. A bit like probably a limestone swamp.
do you clean the inside part of the glass? Or do the snails and shrimp able to clean it?
Snails do a good job. Shrimp cant clean glass
For the first tank with duckweed, how long after u add water before you put fish?
Do you have a heater in there?
Does a "successful" no filter setup rely solely on Nitrate level at 0 or just remaining consistent aka not raising? Is that the key or just what you would consider a success? Thanks 😊
If it reaches 0, you'll need to supplement the plants, so imo, you want a stable, low level of nitrates.
Are you using the snails to clean the poop on the bottom and algae growth on the sides of the tank? Or how are those things not appearing? Is the duckweed eating any algae and poop solids?
Duck weed cant get rid of solids. The snails do a good job cleaning the glass and they can help turn solids in to smaller pieces
Excellent video! Thanks for sharing.
i had done the trial for 3 years no water change.. only to throw over grown plants here and there... but i will recommend you to have blue light more and larger rocks where algae can grow and the algae can be eaten by the suckerfish. so essentially you have a circle where sometimes you need to throw over grown plants.
Rationale for extra blue light?
Duckweed is a god level threat to some people's fish tanks
But i do like it
Yes. Its considered a pest in most cases.
Does the duck weed need light ? I have my aquarium outside in the shade?
Yes
Awesome video and knowledge my friend thks for the share and curious can you do one like this and just use shrimp and snails to see if it will still work are do you know if it will work
Awesome video! Happy I have duckweed in my 10gallon lol.
Does the duckweed get sucked into the sponge at all or does it stay at the surface? Im thinking of starting a minnow tank with duckweed and only a sponge filter
Sponge filter is too weak to suck in duckweed
I've been running a gallon jar with no filtration, full of duckweed and malaysian trumpet snails. I do water change once a week but other than that no filtration. Duckweed grew like crazy but now it appears the roots have all fallen off and they are growing new ones. I wonder if this is normal.
Another question? Did you do any other tank maintenance such as cleaning glass or bottom? Curious if no algae growth on glass while having high duckweed coverage (reducing light available to algae) and nutrient uptake (so not enough available for algae.) And if no bottom cleaning, the decay of fish and shrimp waste in lightly fed and stocked tank was not more than the duckweed could handle. I'm sure my questions point to a simplified way of viewing the situation, and not necessarily cause/effect. Still interested though.
didn't clean anything else. I find that the snails do a good job eating algae on glass
@@Jaysaquarium thanks again:)
Jay, can you please share how many hours a day the light was turned on? How many was required for the duckweed to grow fast and to prevent the algae at the same time?
All the animals in the tank are algae eaters (even guppies i believe, but i might be wrong about them).
if there is no filter but good quality subtrate and plants would it work?
thank you
yes. but it won't be able to support as many fish
Great video Jay. Do you have any recommendations on types of fish? I was interested in using guppies in my 55 gallon but learned that they don't live very long (~2 yrs). Tetras live much longer but probably won't be breeding so the upfront costs will be much higher. The setup of my 55gal is 4inch sand substrate with moss and elodea.
galaxy rasboras, white cloud mountain minnows are nice.
Female bettas
Guppies should breed faster than they die provided you use both males and females.
Floating plants have the advantage that they get more Co2 from the air than plants that are more deeply submerged.
what kind of fish is the black one with the big tail?
Moscow black guppies
Did you have any casualties?
have you done any testing of nitrate levels? and are your top offs with distilled water? without distilled water eventually you will build up TDS to a toxic level> keeping a low bio load is a plus as well.
Yes. Nope. Nope.
have you tried to use only green water and natural sunlight without sponge filter?
no
Cool experiment, thanks for sharing. I haven't purchased a tank as of yet, still gathering information. About how long do you wait to add fish in a new tank? Thus far what I've read, folks say wait to add fish around 1 or 2 months.
I wait 1 month
Hey Jay. Do you know Father Fish on youtube?
I have the same plants on my shrimp only tank, i hope i have the same results but im still going to change 25% water every week just in case
Hi Jay,
I saw the tank above with small amount of substrate only. If the tank were to remain more than 1 year with no water change, how do you handle the accumulation of fish poop in the tank?
I'm thinking of adding detritus worms that is the only thing I know of that actually eats fish poo. If you have a sand bed the beneficial bacteria break down the waste faster
Love this idea.
Funny this is almoust my aquarium setup ... i even got rid of the sponge.
I'm going to try to replicate this in about a month!!!!
Hi Jay, just wondered if you thought about removing the duck weed to check if the uncleaned filter had developed anoxic zones substantial enough to influence the result?
Love the rocks
Hi, may I ask you what the dimensions of your fish tank is?
About 30cm wide. 22liters
Duckweed is a friend.
Is the rock inside the tank from old aquarium or new rocks?
From old aquariums i think.
@@Jaysaquarium Where did the duckweed get its nutrient?
The water
@@Jaysaquarium How does the water has nutrient? Is it from the aqua soil or fish poop?
hello, how come you dont have any problems with algae?
I do have algae problems. I just keep it under control most of the time
I have done the same thing 👍👍
I have very similar tanks, this is really interesting. I wonder about less hardy fish!
Yea but really it’s the same nitrate poisoning is nitrate poisoning guppies are hardier but shrimps will die over 40 ppm usually in my expierence so with that and the fact that he recorded the results of nitrates u should be able to understand how much u can actually push the no water change concept on other fish ... I do it with angel fish ju at on a bigger scale in a 30 gallon high tech planted tank with hella floaters I just use a different floater I don’t like duckweed it’s to messy I like using the water lettuce but the smaller kind that grows just as fast heck if not faster than duck weed ,...I’m taking out handfuls every week in place I of my water changes
Also make shure u still do a small water change every couple months to freshen up the water phosphates calcium phosphorus and any other stuff that’s in the water I’m missing father fish said it was a good idea anyway
@Dani Masterson that is actually just the same as a small water change
Awesome, thanks for sharing
Excellent
What are those moving strands? Worms?
Plant debris
@@Jaysaquarium bro they move... Those look like worms
Good work
Guppies can live without any filters. I have guppies with only duckweed in a small pond.. They have breed well.. Started with 2 and now I hv more than 30 guppies.. And I nvr did water change.. Only adding water if its evaporated a lot.. More than a year and still going
Finally your video
were you removing duckweed from the tank or just letting it die/regrow in there?
Removal is essential
Thanks.
Hi Jay first of all thanks for your videos they helped me a lot. I would like to ask you about if is possible to use fertilizer, i think it could be toxit without removing old water but idk you are a no water changes boss hahaha so you may have the answer the aquarium is 2 years old so i dont want to destabilize it. Keep doing it your info is gold !!!
The plants will convert the fertilizer into biomass. So you can use ferts in moderation.
My 20gal outside pond is exactly like this. No WC for 8 months already this is possible
Hey Jay! Super crazy good video. I wonder how long it took the roots of duck weed get that long? I like that long root scene how can I achieve that?
not sure what causes the roots to elongate.
Jay's aquarium haha how can u not knowing that
Jay's aquarium weird
Jay's aquarium I asked some people they said it may correspond to the intensity of the light
No algae?
5:30 - fake plant
7:22 - ammonia was always 0. Nitrates 12.5 is max. Duckweed on top is only thing here that rids nitrates. Can have tank with duckweed, strong enough light n sponge filtr only.
Duckweed is a blessing from Aquarium God
A week in... New Tank with Sponge Filters and Salvinia. I hope it works. 🙏