Filters and Axolotls

mackinthebox said:

for everyone saying that you dont need a filter please, post up pics of your tank without a filter, then post your water parameters over the course of a week or so and lets see just how well your filterless system works against one with a filter...
otherwise no one has provided any direct evidence supporting this assertion

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Nope.... Can't be bothered to prove anything ....... I have about twenty unfiltered tanks set up at the moment and the water quality is good. If you actually take the time to peruse other newt/sal species in this forum you will see hundreds of examples of unfiltered tanks.

i doubt any of them are truly unfiltered
in order for your water to be free of ammonia you are going to need a) media b) water movement
If you have neither of these you will have an ammonia build up
If you have either of these you are using a filter, it doesnt matter if its not a power filter, if its plants in sand with a powerhead or something else to provide flow, that is still a man made filter

mackinthebox said:

i doubt any of them are truly unfiltered

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Filter is defined as a mechanical device - no mechanical device = unfiltered.

mackinthebox said:

in order for your water to be free of ammonia you are going to need a) media b) water movement

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a) 'media' can be substrate, ornaments, even tank walls, bacteria only need a surface to adhere to
b) Movement within water happens without mechanical help - thermal currents, axies moving water as they move.

mackinthebox said:

If you have neither of these you will have an ammonia build up

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Since the above is untrue, so is this

mackinthebox said:

If you have either of these you are using a filter, it doesnt matter if its not a power filter, if its plants in sand with a powerhead or something else to provide flow, that is still a man made filter

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The discussion is about having a powered aquarium filter, the whole purpose of the discussion to look at natural or filterless methods of maintaining water quality, so I really don't know why you are arguing.
And since thousands of axies are kept in an environment without a mechanical filtration system it obviously works.

I tried without a filter for a while but decided to put one in as I wasn't happy with the water. I'm a novice though so someone with more experience may well be able to keep the water better.

mackinthebox said:

I would agree with this but only if youre using an undergravel filter, if you are not forcing water through the sand then you are only using a small fraction of the surface area...

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Not entirely true. I use a filter in my axolotl tank, but your reasoning here is flawed. Having studied water and soils in college, I can tell you that, even though it may not seem possible, water is "actively" moving throughout the substrate layer even when there is no filter present. Just by the nature of water, it is constantly circulating throughout any container it is in, however slowly. Sand, unless it has been extremely compacted, has a good amount of empty space between particles. This empty space is what allows water to pass throughout the entire substrate layer. Though it may take quite a long time, all of the sand in an aquarium substrate will be utilized in the filtration process. This is not to say, however, that an undergravel filter would not aid in and speed up this process.



This is a very interesting thread, I hope it keeps going.

Axolotl Canada indicates you can keep an axolotl without a filter. I imagine it is the same as a goldfish tank this way - you can keep it without a filter, but adding a filter with DRAMATICALLY decrease the amount of time you have to spend on tank maintenance and the frequency of water changes.

The Sick Axolotl page explains how to 'fridge' and an axolotl and this is an excellent example of not having a filter - but you need to do daily water changes. In a larger tank you might only have to do 50% water changes weekly to keep the axolotl happy, but a filter still makes it waaaay easier.

Having had years of experience with aquaria of various sorts, I can attest to both the temptation to not get a filter in order to save on upfront cost as well as ongoing costs of replacing filter media, and how quickly it gets old doing water changes all the time.

If I had a very large, heavily planted, naturalistic tank with only a few axolotls (relative to size) in it, I might try going filterless because my husband finds the noise irritating, but only then.

Also, I imagine you would get water movement through a) the movement of your axolotl and potentially any live feeders, and b) thermal currents if any part of your tank is near a heat source such as a sunbeam, heating vent, other appliance that radiates, heat, etc., or in a stream of cool air such as a draft or air conditioner.

It might not be much compared to a current driven by a pump, but it would be plenty from a bacterial point of view.

Anaerobic bacteria on lake bottoms produce oxygen as a by-product of metabolism, resulting in a thin layer of highly oxygenated water right above the substrate - I imagine something similar would happen in an unfiltered tank given enough time.

Microbiology is fun.

A goldfish tank? I'd never go filterless with goldfish, they're incredibly messy animals that have a high bioload and require double filtration for their tank size.