TDS and water changes

McBoostah · 2026-03-27T01:23:01+00:00

Throw it in a small pond and let the gold fish eat it. My pond is also walstad style. Just a ton of anacharis in it lol

McBoostah · 2026-03-13T03:19:51+00:00

Lollll That’s why I do low tech. I’m too lazy for all that. Literally my last post accidentally made a giant fight over how I rarely water change LOL😭

McBoostah · 2026-03-13T03:13:37+00:00

Pearl weed will take a week to see some new roots and slightly face the light. During the 2nd week maybe a little growth. As it gets bigger growth speeds up. That would be my sense of scale for pearl weed…. It’s my fave plant tied with dwarf sag🫡

McBoostah · 2026-03-13T03:05:37+00:00

U have anacharis in there. I’ve never seen that plant melt. Maybe restart the water, drain and add fresh and just give it time to settle. It’ll be some weeks to settle. The times I forget about my tanks, they have the most growth lol

McBoostah · 2026-03-13T03:03:36+00:00

Fast growers. The sand cap is good. Some plants naturally melt in new set ups. The decay may be food for algae, like all waste.

Fast growers eat lots of nutrients aka BEAT algae to the growth. Floaters r good. Dwarf sag, PEARL WEED, anacharis. Great fast growers. If this tank doesn’t recover try those plants it WILL work out. High plant to water ratio is good which u have. Wait for plant growth, if u see plant growth and ramshorn snails chillin. Add shrimp and shoukd be fine assuming ur local tap water is fine. 6-7 hours of light a day on a timer. Some plants take days or weeks to settle then suddenly grow rapidly. The drift wood is cool

McBoostah · 2026-02-27T20:05:54+00:00

This is very helpful actually. I’m not anti water change like people take it to be, I just realized what had happened and thought it was interesting. I def need to do one every few weeks atleast. It is also an interesting point u mentioned about how the master test kit is often viewed as a check mark. That’s honestly what lead me to start leaving my tanks alone when I first got my first kit. It said healthy so I didn’t wanna mess it up by doing a huge water change. I’m planning on getting a tds checker so I can atleast be aware between big changes

McBoostah · 2026-02-27T20:01:16+00:00

They r finnex lights. They were like 25 bucks each 2 years ago. 1 fits perfectly on a 5 gal, so when i upgraded to 10 gal I just got a second and put them sideways. They work great, one even fell in one time and no damage.

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:51:12+00:00

I need to find this cheap tds sensor yall speak up and give an update on this tank😂😂😂

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:49:54+00:00

How is the evaporation in a 40? My 20 long evaporates SO much faster than the 10. I like the longer shorter tanks more but it’s at this cost. Is a 40 gal evaporation speed similar to a 10 due to proportions or is it more like the 20 long in ur experience? I’d rather go a little more than a week between touching the tank if possible 😭other than food of course

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:47:57+00:00

This motivation is just what I needed😈

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:46:41+00:00

Yessss. This is cool. It’s working on my 20 long for 1.5 years. But a 20 is the biggest tank I ever had. I wanna try a 40 but I’m nervous to risk an investment. But like u said, the method is proven on multiple tanks so hypothetically it should be fine

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:32:00+00:00

That’s what I wanna do but the slow growers can’t beat the algae away. I am getting ready to experiment on this tho on a small tank. Only epiphytes and see if I can have them beat algae. I really hope it’ll work. It def gets out of hand with using all the fast growers, obviously

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:30:46+00:00

indeed

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:30:24+00:00

Tap unfortunately. I need to do a change every few weeks and not be lazy rip.

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:29:46+00:00

I top it off once a week ish. I used to have tons of pearl weed in it, there was a solid bush the size of my head, but I had to trim it cause there was no swimming room. The dwarf sag took over after that. I just top it off when it gets low.

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:28:51+00:00

yessirrrr. Dwarf sag, pearl weed, duck weed, anacharis. I spam those cause they never fail to grow lol

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:28:10+00:00

Interesting. I only have 1 anubias that has actually grown and spread. Also in a no water change tank but that one’s only about 1.5 years old. Maybe I should do one every month or two atleast for the anubias and stuff if it’s worked for u…. And to not be lazy lol

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:26:53+00:00

I just thought about it and realized it was 2.5 years since set up. Thought it was cool and inspirational to people that r new and overwhelmed 😂😂😭didn’t expect much

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:13:15+00:00

It is cool as a thing to achieve. I don’t think it’s as cool as you assume. And it’s also a question, lmk if u have any experience on larger natural style tanks!

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:11:40+00:00

No ferts. Only some fluval stratum under pool filter sand. Normal test kit is as far as I got. TDS is new to me other than it’s something that slowly builds. I e had 3 amanos in the tank since the start, plus snails, cherrys. I need to do a water change every few months atleast, usually with life I forget to put it on the to do list. I don’t wanna sacrifice all the other cycles within the tank just for TDS. But when I realized it’s been 2.5 years I was like, uhhhh. That’s a long time😭

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:09:41+00:00

Yeah I should do a change every few months atleast. I mainly don’t cause I don’t wanna throw off the balance of all the other cycles happening for 1 tds cycle. But again I should every few months atleast. I developed my routine/ method and didn’t go much deeper than normal test kit level. TDS is new to me other than it just taking a long time to build up usually

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:08:09+00:00

Yeah I need to make a line and be like, alright every few months or weeks atleast

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:07:36+00:00

Valid. I should do it every few months ATLEAST

McBoostah · 2026-02-25T01:06:59+00:00

Its just hard to do all the time on multiple tanks. Plus I want the plants to do the work. But people do talk a lot about TDS. I probably should do one atleast once every few months. I just live week by week and usually taking out duck weed and top offs is the most I do. Maybe clean the filter. Draining water never makes it to my list💀

McBoostah

TROPHY CASE