No water change aquarium with only duckweed possible? 1 Year experiment. 

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!

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.

Love your experiments. Thanks for the work you put in for the fish keeping community!

Finally...good to see you're back.

So happy you're back! Just watched your most recent video, too--sorry to hear about the quarantine situation...Stay safe, Boss!

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.

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!

Amazing video, more than a year of footage, what patience!!

Thanks for the experiment. Missed you 🍀

Perfect, thanks for the research and expirement. Perfectly answers some of my questions on the power of floating plants in aquarium

Good to see you back. Another great video.

Wow, this is really eyeopening

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.

Thanks for devoting the time 👍🏼

Excellent video! Thanks for sharing.

Nice work Jay!

I need this no water change aquarium. Ty for all the tips

Brilliant experiment. Thank you so much for sharing... I should be able to replicate something similar. Cheers. 👍🙏🙂

That's dedication..👏🏼👏🏼

Good to see ur videos again ...

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!

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 this idea.

Underrated video

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

Awesome, thanks for sharing

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.

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 👍👍

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 RU-vid 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?

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

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?

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.

Awesome video! Happy I have duckweed in my 10gallon lol.

Excellent

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.

Good work

did you provided co2 for the plants . do the duckweed or any other floating plants need co2 setup

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.

Great video, how long do you leave the light on?

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..

Such a neat experiment. Do you have any ideas as to why the nitrates spiked at 8 months on your graph?

Hi, did you wash the sponge filter?during that period of time

Thanks.

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..

Finally your video

How often did you feed was the sponge cleaned at any point

Can I ask how often you cleaned your sponge filter during this year?

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.

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.

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 !!!

Do you have a heater in there?

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.

For the first tank with duckweed, how long after u add water before you put fish?

Love the rocks

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.

Ever try the same thing but with hornwort?

How long did u on the light on?

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.

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.

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?

Quick question did the fish only survive on the duckweed?

Hey Jay. Do you know Father Fish on youtube?

do you clean the inside part of the glass? Or do the snails and shrimp able to clean it?

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

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?

Did you have any casualties?

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?

if there is no filter but good quality subtrate and plants would it work? thank you

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 😊

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

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!

Floating plants have the advantage that they get more Co2 from the air than plants that are more deeply submerged.

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.

Duckweed is a god level threat to some people's fish tanks But i do like it

I have very similar tanks, this is really interesting. I wonder about less hardy fish!

Does the duck weed need light ? I have my aquarium outside in the shade?

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?

what kind of fish is the black one with the big tail?

I have done the same thing 👍👍

were you removing duckweed from the tank or just letting it die/regrow in there?

Hi, may I ask you what the dimensions of your fish tank is?

have you tried to use only green water and natural sunlight without sponge filter?

Duckweed is a friend.

Funny this is almoust my aquarium setup ... i even got rid of the sponge.

hello, how come you dont have any problems with algae?

What are those moving strands? Worms?

I'm going to try to replicate this in about a month!!!!

A week in... New Tank with Sponge Filters and Salvinia. I hope it works. 🙏

Is the rock inside the tank from old aquarium or new rocks?

No algae?

My 20gal outside pond is exactly like this. No WC for 8 months already this is possible

and the more aeration the better... if you can get it..

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

i doubt that anithying could screw up the duckweed.

So you haven't changed the water in this tank for 12 months?

Its also because of sponge filter

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.