brymack
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
My first dirted tank, upgrading from a 29g gravel-only tank. Well it's still a work in progress but I'm following a lot of advice from this site and others so I hope it turns out ok in the end. I spent days researching ways to do this so I hope my success (or failure) can provide some good info to those like me who want to go with a planted/dirted tank. Comments and advice are more than welcome.
In this 75g I've used 2 1/2 bags of miracle grow organic garden soil. Seems the advice around the net was split about 50/50 on using the garden soil or the potting soil. I triple rinsed to get rid of a lot of the small suspension particles and that seemed to work pretty well. I did not use fluorite or the other specialty soils/clays just due to my increasingly smaller budget ; ) I put it in when it was pretty wet which seemed to help me in being able to build up some areas into the 'scape I desired. And then I packed it down pretty good by hand prior to putting the gravel cap on. I have a min of 2 1/2" of soil in here. I was going for about a 1 1/2" gravel cap on top but I am realizing I need to add a little more in some places.
Pic after putting in the gravel (rinsed thouroughly), and some AR field stone to hold back a berm area as well as provide a "cave" like hiding place for my pleco "catty" (named by my daughter), although you cant see that bermed-up area in the pic very well. I skimmed off as many "floater" pieces as I could and after one day the water was still very cloudy.
I removed about 50% of the water and after another day the water was still very cloudy. This pic is just after that water change. Then I decided to do almost a complete water change: 1] I took the water out down to about the gravel. Then as I ran the hose slowly to fill it back up, at the same time I was using my gravel siphon to remove water out at a slightly slower pace than I was putting it back in. The next pic is after that, now the water is pretty clear. I haven't hooked up my canister filter yet but am running my new aquatop 300w heater and hydor koralia 425 circ pump. Going to set up my Eheim 2217 filter in the next day or two.
The few plants you do see are ones that never did well in my existing gravel-only substrate tank (3 Amazonia swords and one ferm of some type) I'll see if they perk up now that I've transplanted to the dirted tank... they all actually had pretty good root systems for being in gravel only. Ive also planted 2 packs of aquatic bulbs from petco so I'll see how they do - it's only been a day since I planted those.
I'm going to go for a heavily planted tank but I haven't decided exactly what all I want in there but I'll work on this over the next few weeks. And the few that I have found that I do want I can't find in my area (weeping moss and a few others). I'll add some more pics as I move along in the process of planting my money-pit.
In this 75g I've used 2 1/2 bags of miracle grow organic garden soil. Seems the advice around the net was split about 50/50 on using the garden soil or the potting soil. I triple rinsed to get rid of a lot of the small suspension particles and that seemed to work pretty well. I did not use fluorite or the other specialty soils/clays just due to my increasingly smaller budget ; ) I put it in when it was pretty wet which seemed to help me in being able to build up some areas into the 'scape I desired. And then I packed it down pretty good by hand prior to putting the gravel cap on. I have a min of 2 1/2" of soil in here. I was going for about a 1 1/2" gravel cap on top but I am realizing I need to add a little more in some places.
Pic after putting in the gravel (rinsed thouroughly), and some AR field stone to hold back a berm area as well as provide a "cave" like hiding place for my pleco "catty" (named by my daughter), although you cant see that bermed-up area in the pic very well. I skimmed off as many "floater" pieces as I could and after one day the water was still very cloudy.
I removed about 50% of the water and after another day the water was still very cloudy. This pic is just after that water change. Then I decided to do almost a complete water change: 1] I took the water out down to about the gravel. Then as I ran the hose slowly to fill it back up, at the same time I was using my gravel siphon to remove water out at a slightly slower pace than I was putting it back in. The next pic is after that, now the water is pretty clear. I haven't hooked up my canister filter yet but am running my new aquatop 300w heater and hydor koralia 425 circ pump. Going to set up my Eheim 2217 filter in the next day or two.
The few plants you do see are ones that never did well in my existing gravel-only substrate tank (3 Amazonia swords and one ferm of some type) I'll see if they perk up now that I've transplanted to the dirted tank... they all actually had pretty good root systems for being in gravel only. Ive also planted 2 packs of aquatic bulbs from petco so I'll see how they do - it's only been a day since I planted those.
I'm going to go for a heavily planted tank but I haven't decided exactly what all I want in there but I'll work on this over the next few weeks. And the few that I have found that I do want I can't find in my area (weeping moss and a few others). I'll add some more pics as I move along in the process of planting my money-pit.
