# El Natural/High tech tank?



## battipatti (Jan 28, 2007)

I might be setting up a planted tank soon, but I really can't afford the substrate I'd like for it like ADA aquasoil or eco complete. I might wind up using a natural substrate like potting soil and gravel, but still have 3-4 watts per gallon lighting, CO2 injections and a filter. My question is, have any of you set tanks up with a mix of el natural and high tech components? If ssooo, which and how did it fair?


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## DonaldmBoyer (Aug 18, 2005)

I did several years ago. On the advice of a friend, I used iron based clay which I bought at a garden center, put a layer of topsoil (don't used potting soil.....it has styrafoam in it!), and filled the tank very, very, very slowly. It worked very well! I think that I had about 4 watts per gallon, and all my ludwigia started flowering (eventually). Cabomba looked great, anubius flowered constantly, etc.

Just be careful because you still need to fertilize the water column, but not too much because you'll be having algae blooms.

Also, let the substrate settle for a few days before you start running your filter, or you'll just keep moving around dirty water and it will take weeks for it to clear up.

Hope this helps you, and good luck! Get us pictures!


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Some around here would argue this thread does not belong in the El natural section even though you want to use dirt, but since you asked Somewhere in this forum there is a post by AaronT called "El Natural, with a twist" It is his journal for several tanks he setup using soil substrates/techniques but with high light, CO2, etc. If you search for posts by AaronT you should find the thread very easily. It really is a good and informative thread about an interesting mix of plant growing techniques.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

you can get schultz's aquasoil... It's like flourite.. A 5lb or 10lb bag is $6.00.
It's pretty cheap. If you want some nutrients in the soil, you can let it sit in some ferts of K2SO4, KNO3, iron, and trace elements. Do this after you wash the soil.

or after you put it in the tank, just put some root tabs under the soil.


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## TigerLilly (Feb 11, 2007)

That's what I'm doing right now. I bought 2 bags of top soil and added flourish tabs to them. I'm not going high tech thought. Low to medium tech.


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## wiste (Feb 10, 2006)

I have used soil beneath gravel and beneath SMS and the issue of nutrient deficiencies become pertinent. A supplemental nutrient dosing regimen becomes necessary. Because of these issues, I would not consider the approach in any way related to the strategies discussed in this forum. If you are using high light and CO2 injection the nutrient dosing regimens discussed in other forums should be considered.



> Some around here would argue this thread does not belong in the El natural section


It is not really an issue of whether the thread belongs in this forum. Rather, you are proposing a high tech setup with CO2 injection and high light and the issues that will be encountered will not be the same as those who are following a low tech or el-natural approach. With high light nutrient deficiencies even with a soil substrate become an issue.

It is possible to find a balance, possibly temporary, where you can get away without dosing a tank with a soil substrate. I do not dose a tank that I use just to grow plants. This tank has 350Watts over a 75 gallon tank but this tank has huge number of feeder guppies and algae on the glass.

If you are using soil, then water clarity can become a problem. Initially, fill the tank slowly over many hours. I did not see any issues running a filter immediately with this method.

Choosing plants that can be pruned and do not require topping and replanting will help with this problem. In the area where I was growing Cabomba in such a tank (175Watts/35 gallons), there was not much soil left in this area when the tank was tore down.

My preference is to perform a water change and run a diatom filter after weekly pruning.


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

> Some around here would argue this thread does not belong in the El natural section even though you want to use dirt, but since you asked


Yeah, well, if people want to make this the substrate forum, who am I to argue! It just gets people mad at me. Might as well close the substrate forum!

There are lots and lots of people that have been using soil in tanks for years and years and years. Long before Diana Walstads "El natural" method. Her method uses soil for different reasons. Soil with high light and C02 added is not the same as the Walstad method. You are using it just as a substrate fertilizer basically. If you are just looking for a cost alternative to ADA and Eco complete, there are other alternatives. There are many different kinds of substrates used, and if you want to read up on them, there is much more discussion on them in the substrate forum than there is here.

The new one everyone is currently talking about is Soilmaster, which is a fired clay gravel used as ground cover for golf courses and baseball fields. Then there is Schultz clay conditioner which I have been using for years. This is also a clay gravel. Pretty cheap.

There is laterite, a type of soil that is nothing but iron and aluminum oxide that you layer underneath regular gravel. Estes has a new product which is course sand encased with time released laterite. They say it is completely dust free.

Some people have been using worm castings. This is a highly concentrated form of nitrogen soil. Steve Pushak has worked with soils for years and wrote this: How to Grow Beautiful Aquarium Plants (cheap)!
or How to Build a Soil Substrate

When he wrote this, soil substrates were real popular. Nobody talks about it much any more. His recipe for a soil substrate is a three layer process:
*Bottom layer*, iron rich clay, Micronized Iron or subsoil. 
*Middle layer*, (New) 1 inch depth of mixture of garden soil mixed 4 parts to 1 part of fluffy sphagnum peat moss by volume. 
*Top layer*, 1 inch depth regular 2-3 millimeter aquarium gravel.

There is a reason why clay gravels were developed for the aquarium and became popular. They are inert. They do not break down. They do not release anything harmfull into the water. They provide iron and hold other nutrients from the water. Soils on the other hand are messy, somewhat difficult to work with, and can be dangerous if you are not careful.


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## bpimm (Jun 12, 2006)

If you keep the light around 2.5-3 WPG you shouldn't need to dose ferts. I run several tanks in that range on just the soil and CO2. personally I would cut the light instead of dosing.



> Yeah, well, if people want to make this the substrate forum, who am I to argue! It just gets people mad at me. Might as well close the substrate forum!


Robert, before I joined this forum I did a lot of reading on it and at that time I found almost nothing on the substrate forum about soil, it was all the commercially available products and when soil was mentioned most were referred to the El natural forum. I agree that this forum is for the natural planted tank but does that have to be the strict interpretation from Diana's book or can it vary some? I use CO2 in some of my tanks. I have heard of natural streams having upwards of 25ppm CO2. does it make it a non natural tank to keep the CO2 lower than it can be found in nature. With my tanks I find almost no correlation with the techniques used in the High tech tanks and many correlations with the techniques used in the El natural forums.

I have been noticing an increase of soil topics in the substrate forum so maybe over time it will switch there, but I don't have a problem with it being in the El Natural forum.

Brian


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

> I agree that this forum is for the natural planted tank but does that have to be the strict interpretation from Diana's book or can it vary some?


No, of course not. It can be whatever people want it to be, I just do not understand this insistence by some people that any discusion that involves anything to do with the use of soil is automatically associated with low tech and this forum. Soil is only one part of the picture. For people who are coming to APC strictly to find information on the "Walstad method", people who have been reffered to APC for that purpose, are only confused by this. This is the only place on the whole internet where people can discuss and learn about the Walstad method. On any other forum it is laughed at, picked apart, scoffed at, debated, argued, and water downed with other approaches. Why is that so hard to undersand?

But I am not arguing about it any more. Dennis made a little comment because I ruffled feathers the last time this was brought up, I understand that, but I will not make a big deal about it any more. I will keep quiet now. I promise!

Besides, at least we should agree to address this persons question right? So battipatti, are you still interested in soil, or just a cheap substrate? What do you think of any of the substrate methods I mentioned? What seems to make sense for what you wnt to do?


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## TigerLilly (Feb 11, 2007)

Robert Hudson said:


> For people who are coming to APC strictly to find information on the "Walstad method", people who have been reffered to APC for that purpose, are only confused by this.


I was one of those people



Robert Hudson said:


> On any other forum it is laughed at, picked apart, scoffed at, debated, argued, and water downed with other approaches.


Yes, I asking about using topsoil as a substrate at TPT as I was told it wouldn't work and I was referred here.


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