# 2800 gal El natural



## rhinoman (Oct 11, 2006)

Well no harm in asking.... I'm planing a 2800 gal or so tank when we build our house (fall "07" or spring "08"). I currently have a 180 gal that I had initially set up El natural. I have about 2.2 wpg on the tank. Many of my plants died and things weren't looking so good. So I added CO2, than ferts and now viola I have a high tec tank. I am thinking that the 2800 gal (concrete) tank will be much easier to maintain if set up as an El-natural tank. It will be 18'L (+2' "sump") x 8'W x 3'T, the viewing "glass" will be 8' x 32". So I have a few questions:
1) Light recomendations?
2) Is pond soil a suitable substitute for regular soil?


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## snowy (Jun 6, 2006)

For light, diffused natural light would be the best option. Perhaps solar tubes could be installed? Otherwise I think you'll need metal halide lights to get any sort of coverage and penetration. At least four or more 1,000W bulbs would be needed, strung high above the water surface and with wide reflectors. That sort of setup would also give you a fair space above the water surface to look in on. I don't think fluros would be an option, but you might want to use some to provide low light in the early morning and evening.

I think you want to approach the project as a more of a pond than a tank. Try to have some shallow areas where you can put some reeds or other emergent plants, as they will be the most effecient at sucking up the nitrogen waste.

Whatever you want to use as a soil should probably be tested in a small tank first. If you plan on having plants like water lillys that have extensive root systems then you could probably go deeper that in a normal tank.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

Pond soil may or may not work. As snowy pointed out, your best bet is to set up a couple diff. tanks w/ diff. soils and see which ones give you the best results then use that. You probably could use pond soil, but honestly, you can get excellent results with plain old regular potting soil. Plus, it's cheaper and you're already investing a ton of money to set up a 2800 gal. tank!

-ricardo


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

I hope you know what you're getting into. I would go to the pond people for advice. 

I see two potential problems right off the bat: 

Concrete needs to be "cured", or it will kill fish.

This pond is too deep (3 ft?) for decent light penetration to grow submerged aquarium plants in a soil substrate. You'll need to use raised planters and/or just floating plants.

It will take more than finding the right soil to make a go of this.


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## rhinoman (Oct 11, 2006)

dwalstad said:


> I hope you know what you're getting into. I would go to the pond people for advice.
> 
> I see two potential problems right off the bat:
> 
> ...


A) You cure the concrete than apply paint-on pond liner.

B) 250w MH + CF over the part of the tank that's planted. Also the tank will be sloped so that the planted portion of the tank is only 2' deep! The "unplanted portion of the tank will have floating plants over it.


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## rhinoman (Oct 11, 2006)

At one point my idea was for an indoor pond inside a solarium. It turned out that it was going to be cost prohibitive. I came up with this idea after seeing that something similar has been done many times on monsterfish.com. It just hasn't been done with a planted tank.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Sounds better. 
We'll want pictures.


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

I am not sure light penetration will be an issue. It depends on how high you hang the lights. You could always use 400watt mh I suppose. 3' really is not that deep. Amano's monster home tank is 4-5' deep, and he has no problem growing plants. I think he is using 250 or 150mh several feet above the surface.

Sounds like a cool project. The are photos of something similar similar posted on this site. I believe they are from one of our Asian plant sponsors.


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## rhinoman (Oct 11, 2006)

There's a guy on the planted tank forum using [1] 150w MH over a 5' x 3' x 3' tank and it's doing fine! I think though that I'll use 250's and keep a short photoperiod for the MH. I'm thinking of using 7 Aqualight pros over the planted portion of the tank. Most of the day I would just run the CF's than have the MH's on for 5 hours or so. Above the floating plant area I'll hang some greenhouse lights. I think the shorter photoperiod for the MH's will control algea growth better than running 150w MH's 8 or so hours a day. At least that what I've been led to believe. 
They'll be pictures.


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