From: jwinter@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (winter julia robin)
Subject: low $, low tech aquaria
Summary: a description of successful low-tech aquaria
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 03:18:52 GMT

Hello, this is (hopefully) my first posting to a newsgroup, so please be 
patient with any weirdness at the end of my message.

I'm writing for the benefit of any beginners who worry that they'll need
to spend a lot of money and but a lot of technical equipment in order to 
keep fish "properly."  Although gadgets and tools can make some things easier,
I want you to know that you can have beautiful, verdant tanks with very little
equipment or expenditure.  I am a graduate student on a limited budget, but
I still am able to maintain three very nice tanks, with just a little care
and attention.

I currently have a standard 30G and two non-standard "tanks", one ~18G and the
other ~7G.  All have simple undergravel filtration.  The 30G has a single power
head off to one side and the other two just use air pumps to push water up the
lift tubes.  Besides heaters and lights, there is no other equipment involved.

The 30G is thickly planted with various crypts and swords (which prefer the 
left side of the tank, away from the lift tube) and is literally overgrown
with "giant hygro," rotilla (sp?) and java moss.  The java moss is growing on
a collection of slate that I have assembled in front of the lift tube, both to
hide it and to provide a lurking place for my less outgoing fish.  When I do
my near-monthly water changes, I mostly vacuum the gravel between the vertical
pieces of slate, near the lift tube.  I probably don't have much water flow
through the gravel on the left side of the tank, which is why the crypts prefer
it over there.

I set up this particular tank five years ago and have never "broken it down."
I don't see why you'd want to, unless you've have some horrible disaster/plague
or you're going to change the aquarium to salt.

The 18G is a brackish tank and has no live plants thanks to the very destruc-
tive natures of the puffers.  There is a figure-eight puffer, a greenish spot-
ted puffer and a third puffer I haven't seen in basic books which looks like a
cross between the first two.  A small archer fish patrols the top of the fairly
vertical tank.  I've had the first two puffers for over six years, and I highly
recommend them--they have a lot of personality.

The smallest tank is in a salvaged pyrex cylinder thing--I don't know what its
original function was because it's awfully large.  Anyway, this tank also has
"partial" undrgravel filtration, meaning that much of the gravel has no water
flow.  In this case, it's because I'm using a small "goldfish bowl" round
plate with a tiny lift tube.  The great thing about this tank is a melon sword
which has grown to be almost two feet tall, with most of it out of the water.  
Other more typical plants, like crypts, grow in the areas away from the lift
tube.

I don't use CO2 supplementation or lapiderite (?sp) but I do provide chelated
iron drops daily.  I feed all my fish (and the dwarf frog and newt in the 
"bowl") frozen brine shrimp almost exclusively.

I invite other people who have successful "low tech" setups to respond.
I don't wisch to offend people who use lots of equipment, only to encourage
those with smaller budgets such as my own to try fishkeeping. 

Julia Winter, Med Scholar at University of Illinois
(jwinter@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu)
.
D
with "giant hygro" and rotilla (sp?)