UPDATE!

It's been over one year without water changing. Last month I started to liquid test kit the tank for ammonia and nitrite only once per month. I wanted to see if I could rely on observation alone.

Today, I tested the tank for ammonia and nitrite: both tests were 0. Therefore, observation alone can and will work. I plan to test once per month for six months, then every other month, then once every three months, then once every six months, then once per year, and then in about a few years from now, no testing unless observation deems it appropriate (of course I will read the (glass stick-on) temperature every day which will place me in a position to observe on a daily basis as I have since May 2008 (the time I started this hobby or tank).

Therefore, the only two human interventions I will have in the tank will be: feeding and pruning the naturally grown cladophora (algae).

In the last 9 months, I lost less than a handful of fish. The tank chemically balanced itself. Via observation and a chemically balanced ecosystem I have achieved an all natural habitat.

I have had those on this forum and elsewhere - even those with much more experience in this hobby than I have had - tell me this type of ecosystem will potentially harm the fish and/or does harm the fish. I have proven this to be a fallacy.

So I will continue to update you guys with the tank. Once again, only the highly advanced in this hobby should attempt this type of ecosystem in their tanks. If there is any hesitation, my word of warning is, do not do what I am doing; instead, continue to water change at least 25% per week, have overhead lighting and at least twice the gph (gallons per hour) filtration system (that is, if your tank is 40 gallons, you should have at least 80 gph running through the system or 80 gallons of water running completely through the filters) - note: there is never enough filtration, in this case, the more the better), stay away from any type of algae growth and do not mix semi-aggressive and community fish in the same tank (and if you need to, periodically vacuum the gravel, the top layer).

Until the next update, happy fishing!

Talkin to some of the old fish heads I used to work with, they told me in the old days water changes were done rarely and or if something was wrong.Nowadays most keepers do frequent changes. Working at a pet store tho, I talked to people who never changed their water, of course that usually explained the problem they were having. With good plants to control the nitrates the only reason to do water changes is to regulate salt content. Tap water has small amounts of salt that build up over time from top offs for evaporation loss. Not a problem if you use r/o or distilled water.