What makes and keeps a tank stable and healthy - "prevention is better than cure"

[Yugang]

It is great being an expert in identifying algae and knowing how to eradicate them, but arguable preferable to be the one who hardly ever has any algae or plant health problems.

Problems in the tank are hardly ever the result of just one thing being wrong, but most often a combination of contributing factors. Same for tank health and what we often describe as tank "maturity".

Let's share our experiences what factors contribute to a robust tank, and how do you stay as far away as possible from the point where problems start to manifest themselves.

• What do you observe, green/yellow/red flags, for an assessment of overall tank maturity and health?
• What would be do's and don'ts (think of start-up, maintenance, stocking, changing tank parameters, rescaping)?
• When do you feel confident about your tanks health, know that it can absorb some disruption without getting into trouble, and when would you be more careful and first and foremost focus on health improvement?

 

[Yugang]

My personal opinion on the above is what is says, an opinion, a working model that I follow without having a scientific proof for it.

I would summarise my health indicator for my tank as the sum of three main components

1. How much healthy and growing plants mass do I have in the tank. I believe that the more healthy growth the tank has, the more punishment it can endure before problems manifest themselves. Plants that do temporarily not grow, or slow growers do not add to this equation, I really want to have a lot of healthy growth as measured by weight.
2. How low do I keep ‘organic waste’. For this I take into account unhealthy and/or decaying plants, waste accumulated and water changes. I believe that well maintained tank and filter, with regular water changes, can endure a lot of punishment (for example CO2 instability) before algae breaks out. More livestock means increased demands on this part.
3. Stability, stability, stability. I believe that stability is far more important than measuring/optimising the exact value of any parameter. When I mess with one aspect in the tank, I try to keep all others as stable as possible. When I want to address two issues (like filter maintenance, and substrate deep cleaning or perhaps adding livestock), I try to avoid doing these at the same time and will take one after the other with a recovery and observation week in-between.

So when I see that my plants are healthy, and I have a lot of good growth (measured by plant mass added per week), I have my organics low, then I am confident that I can mess with my CO2 without losing control. When the tank is not in good condition, or not very well maintained, I will not take the risk playing and focus first and foremost on building a healthy stable environment.

I am a believer that micro organisms are an important factor, and that I want to avoid too much disruption at any time. I will not touch the substrate and the filter the same day, I rather touch the substrate only and use the filter as a safety buffer to keep my tank stable. And, if I touch the substrate, do a lot of water changes while keeping the filter closed until the tank is clean enough. Also, and I may be the only one, I believe that the glass and tubing in the tank provide a significant and oxygenated surface area for microorganisms, so when I mess with my tank I will limit how much I clean these.

In summary, I always have some invisible score for my tank in mind that reflects how confident I am with its maturity and vitality. I try to avoid pushing the limits too far, and if needed I will time/moderate any actions that I plan to do and try to always be on the safe side.

 

[ElleDee]

This is a great question.

My general approach is to design set ups that are robust by nature (lower energy, fewer stem plants, less temperamental plants overall), so I front load the work in the set up period getting everything balanced and then coast for years. So I expect a high maintenance initial phase for a new tank, possibly culminating in some sort of algae intervention, and then once stability is achieved I try to keep things as consistent as possible. And after things have been stable for a long time I can get away with all manner of nonsense. I try not to push it too much - consistency is my main weapon against problems, but I spent most of 2023 doing the bare minimum (I had a baby - I was busy!) and it was basically fine.

The start up phase is tough - lots of water changes, removing dead and dying debris, and more than a little stress about getting to the other side of it. I usually add a few temporary helper plants to help get the biomass up quickly - floating plants, anacharis, and water sprite have done this job well. - and stay away from introducing anything more sensitive at the beginning. I might spot treat with some hydrogen peroxide here and there, but if everything is going well the new growth outstrips any melting or algae and the algae problems magically go away with time. The start up phase peters out with time and is usually completely done by the time all the plant mass in the tank has completely turned over (i.e. all the biomass grew in the tank rather than being planted from somewhere else).

There have been a couple times where algae has been more of an issue and I have had to take action (what exactly depended on the situation), but more often it's a matter of maintenance and waiting.

I keep low tech, dirted tanks, so I'm not big on making huge changes or rescaping in general. I do tinker with things here and there, one section at a time.

Now, my highest energy tank has never been totally balanced. It's not too bad, but there's more algae on older tissue than I am ok with. I have some thoughts about this (2023 was rougher on this tank than the others), but at this point I'm just trying to keep things stable before it gets torn down and all the plants get moved. I think I *could* fix it, but I don't think it's worth the effort at this point. I'll try to do better next build.

 

[RickyV]

How much healthy and growing plants mass do I have in the tank. I believe that the more healthy growth the tank has, the more punishment it can endure before problems manifest themselves. Plants that do temporarily not grow, or slow growers do not add to this equation, I really want to have a lot of healthy growth as measured by weight.

I really agree with this point and it is why I like growing as many emersed plants as I can. Unlike aquatic plants any unhealthy growth won't leech nutrients back into the water.

 

[Mr.Shenanagins]

Keeping this clean for sure has an impact. Not to mention, looks real pretty when it’s clear

 

[PeerUnk]

Yes, this is a great question. There are numerous ways to run a tank, which all have their pros and cons. Whenever you look at your tank or do maintenance, you scan for indicators, consciously and/or unconsciously. Watch what you do and think when you see a new tank to observe this process...

Stuff I look at often:
- How are my tank janitors doing? (I like tank janitors like lots of ramshorn snails and neocaridinas, so processing organic material like dead leaves and uneaten fish food is maximized.)
- How are the plants doing? Things like: Pale new growth? Is recent growth getting smaller than old growth? I think a lot of us do this, and everybody has their indicator plants.
- No need to talk about algae presence as an indicator
- When I change water, I like to fill a white bucket, siphon it well above it and having splashing water in it. When air bubbles aren't gone immediately and the surface stays foamy/soapy, it's an orange flag for me. 'Yellow' water is an indicator for me as well (I don't use organic hardscape like wood)
- I always check for good water flow, even without supplementing CO2.
- an increasing surface (scum) biofilm is an orange flag for me as well.

In terms of bigger maintenance items and changing something structural in the tank, like rescaping a section, add fish, change a filter, alteration of nutrient dosing. My preference is keep changes small as possible and not doing more than a single one every period (currently 4 weeks in a low energy tank), and watch it's (un)expected effects. Balance is key for me.

But I'm well aware this works for me, and others do it entirely different for their obvious reasons. There is no good or bad.