Explaining the Walstad Method: The Plants, Part 1 Metal Toxicity

[DEVILtonight]

Thank you for this. This is incredibly helpful. Liking the way you explain things. Definitely checking out your other vids!

[asher45kate]

Great videos, very informative. i love that nature can self regulate in a small self contained environment. The only thing with metals is that because they cannot be degraded, only stored or can change valency, metals which are able to accumulate in plant tissues are released back to the water once the plant tissue decays. If i knowingly had a serious metal toxicity problem i would run a carbon filter cycle and then discard it. this way the metals are physically removed from the aquarium.

[MrJoeGecko]

@asher45kate Excellent points which i will add to. Plants too can succomb to metal toxicity and even chemical toxicity. Ive seen other people, especially with new tanks, watch their plants die of ammonia toxicity. In your case of metal toxicity, I would not consider an aquarium without pretreating, as you mentioned. Under "normal" conditions though, the stored metal is removed during normal plant trimming or through chelation by the DOC in the tank, if released in the water.

[vgalvanrico]

Awesome tank by the way, can't wait to see the other videos. :) very helpful

[vgalvanrico]

What kind of plants are you using for this tank? Is that a sand substrate?

[MrJoeGecko]

@vgalvanrico from background to foreground: Vallisneria americana on the left, Anacharis on the right, large and small Ozelot swords and in the very front are 4 bronze crypt wendii. There are 2 green crypt wendii behind the small sword which are hard to see and also a spiral vallisneria which I was hoping would grow out more than it has.