Also aslmx you should know that Walstad dirting provides co2 for a long long time/ years using no machinery
My hair grass has doubled now and it’s only been about 15-18 days since start. By this time next year the whole tank will be full if i don’t clip it out, that’s why I only planted in the back.
If you put organic, unfertilized potting soil as the bottom layer, then a very fine capping substrate on top, grains small enough to prevent nutrients leaching upward into the tank (algae) then you can grow any plant you want with no pressure co2 gas
Lacking substrate and co2 agreed are top issues with elocharis.
Ferts: try EI dosing, go to plantedtank.net and buy someone’s cheap two part ei powder mix, lots make it on that site. A guy sold me twenty bucks of the two part mix in 2013 and I estimate to have another decade of use from what he sent, not joking a twenty year supply for twenty bucks.
Additional trick to consider that I use in my micro planted tanks
Don’t dose the water, inject the bed. When you want to fert, and when your substrate has an organic component, use a meat flavor injector to inject your ferts into the bed, not the water, for myriad benefits.
Hey check out this little guy. This one was Pressure gas co2 and perhaps one of the smallest tanks to ever have gassed co2:
The distribution mechanism for the gas was a panflute array of api tubes arranged as bubble distributors
Twice a day a solenoid powered system would auto fill the array. It takes six hours for these tubes to emit their co2 into the tank, so two fills was plenty for all day gas
Here’s the tank at end of day
Lol my whole tank is as tall as Water’s elocharis foreground heh.
I changed to Walstad for the rest of my micros because it grows plants just as well and there’s no machinery. It’s a planted tank cheat I wish I’d known in the 90s.
Pressure gas can be refilled and is consistent for sure, it’ll run the same forever. I'll still use it with exacting control in other setups. for simple runs, Walstad can deplete over time, but with the injection technique that’ll help and we are talking years before exhaustion anyway and with -zero-machinery for injection required, handy in some builds.
Here is ~15 yrs running planted tank no co2. It's not Walstad either, it's my own substrate technique. Ten foot canopy + all plants in bulk supported forever by the substrate. I still occasionally dose EI every few mos it needs lots of iron and mg. The system is a production system not an aquascaped one, it's simply to pump out plants which I trade and sell. Three total gallons of water ha it looks more but it's three. The sphere holds nineteen gallons full i run it partial fill bog
New long term ecosystem
