# Our first low tech planted tank



## Nano A (Feb 28, 2015)

Hello all!

Just wanted to share our experience with our first low tech planted tank inspired by Diana Walstad's book.

A bit of an intro...

We started a couple of years ago with a couple of little plastic ponds were we had some tadpoles. Then we added some soil and plants we got from a small wetland near the house. We never did much to it except for topping it up with tap water when it evaporated, and we loved seeing how frogs came to it, plants thrived and water was crystal clear.

We also built a paludarium next to it, where we raised some Green Tree frogs so kids could learn about their life cycle.

Then we started adding some fish, which quickly reproduced, so now having lots and lots of fish in our 2 ponds.

We live in Sunshine Coast in Australia where the average temp outside is this:










Some things we learned: Floating plants are great help in keeping temperature down during the hot months. Because we have mostly tropical fish in there, for the winter months we got a heater to keep temp around 20C at least (in summer it gets to 30C at the top but closer to the bottom it is a few degrees cooler.

Fish we have: Swordtails, Platties, Guppies, Mollies, Angelfish, Withe Clouds, Neons, Corys...

Here's a picture of each so you see how they look like.

Our pond:


























Our Paludarium









Now, we thought of setting up a tank outside that also behaved as an ecosystem which balanced itself.

This is our first attempt at a low tech planted tank.

We setup our 50 Gallon tank like this:

- 1 layer of "Miracle Gro Organic Choice Plan food"
- 1 Layer of ""Miracle Gro Organic Garden Compost"
- Layer of coarse sand
- Layer of gravel










We set it up outside in an area where it gets morning sun light. We added plants and fish from our little ponds that live next to the aquarium. During the first two weeks we made a few water changes (70%) and everything seemed to be settling fine, but then we went on holidays so we didn't touch it for two weeks. when we came back the tank was covered in algae, really badly. we realised that we left the water pump off so the water was still. We think this might have contributed to the algae spike. We also noticed algae grew on the dirt along with a red colour covering some of the dirt.

We didn't know much at that stage and in the local aquarium shop they recommended a White block algae killer (bearing in mind that they were quite shocked when we told them that we were putting dirt in our tanks!!). It was a bad decision, but anyway... we think this killed some plants as well although algae is gone now.

We have a filter setup, but it's empty inside, it's just there to circulate the water and create some water movement.

We don't know the names of the plants we have except for the Amazon Sword.

what worked: 
- fish are still alive 
- some plants are slowly growing (amazon sword, and long ones covering the background)
- different species getting along (Swordtails, mollies, platties, corys, guppies, angels and bettas)
- Soon later found out we have a pair of angels that laid eggs so they where moved to another tank on their own.

What didn't work
- plants seem to be growing very slowly or dying while in the pond next to the tank they thrive. (we are thinking of setting up a DIY co2 system to encourage plant growth for a while until they are strong and settled)

Here are some photos so you can see.

Our tank

























Here is also a small video if you want to check it out.






Thanks for reading.... We appreciate any comments you have about our setup and how we can improve it, bearing in mind that we want to keep it as an outdoor tank.


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## qwe123 (Jun 15, 2011)

I can't tell what all the plants are, but that one on the far left looks like an arrowhead plant, which is not aquatic... it grows fine like you have it in the tubs, where the leaves are above water, but not fully submerged like in the tank. Maybe that's why you have some plants dying...

I really like your experimenting, though! I'm curious if it's in a spot where it will get rain water, thus naturally topping it off for you?


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

G'day mate, and welcome to APC!

Ah, the tropics, where you can put your aquarium outside. We have a few members from SE Asia who have done this with success. It is interesting to see another experiment.

I'm not familiar with all the substrate ingredients you used, but my guess is that the fertilizer and compost layers are too rich in nutrients and organic matter. Then the fine sand cap encouraged anaerobic (oxygen poor) conditions. This can cause a number of problems, including poor plant growth. Species like Amazon swords have very strong root systems that move oxygen down into the substrate which counteracts anaerobic conditions.

Does the substrate ever release bubbles? Try poking it with a slender stick. If it bubbles and the bubbles smell like rotten eggs (hydrogen sulfide) then the substrate is definitely anaerobic. There is a lot more information on this in the sticky, "Suitable soils".

It is hard to tell from the photos, but some of your plants may actually be terrestrial species. These will hang around for a while, but don't grow and eventually rot. It's a common problem because many pet shops sell these plants for use in aquariums! The arrowhead plant that que points out is an example. It is a _Syngonium_ which will grow with leaves emersed and roots in the water as in your pond, but not completely submerged.

I love little ponds and paludariums like yours.


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## JMG (Feb 28, 2015)

Hi everyone, I'm Nano's son and we're writing this post together with me and my dad .

Thanks both for your responses.



qwe123 said:


> I can't tell what all the plants are, but that one on the far left looks like an arrowhead plant, which is not aquatic... it grows fine like you have it in the tubs, where the leaves are above water, but not fully submerged like in the tank. Maybe that's why you have some plants dying...
> 
> I really like your experimenting, though! I'm curious if it's in a spot where it will get rain water, thus naturally topping it off for you?


Yes QWE, we removed the arrowhead and put it at the top of the aquarium emerged and it seems to be happy now.

The tank is under cover so it doesn't get much rain, but your idea is great! we'll just put buckets where they will get the rain and use it to top the tank up.



Michael said:


> G'day mate, and welcome to APC!
> 
> Ah, the tropics, where you can put your aquarium outside. We have a few members from SE Asia who have done this with success. It is interesting to see another experiment.
> 
> ...


Michael, thanks for your response as well. Yes, bubbles are coming out from the soil, but plants seem to be fine (although we can't see the roots). No plant is really bad yet, so fingers crossed we can fix the problem. We are going to read the suitable soils now.

The ingredients we used were what we could find in the shops based on this post http://www.theaquariumwiki.com/Walstad_method. We understood that we needed to put a layer of soil, a bit of plant food, a layer of sand and gravel. Maybe we messed it up as we used compost instead of generic potting soil?

The Amazon Sword has reproduced so I guess it's very happy (we have 2 big ones and 6 small ones now).

Yes, we like experimenting with whatever we find around in our garden and we don't expect 100% success... we didn't want to spend a lot of money in plants before learning well about this method.

We changed this setup a little bit two weeks ago, so soon we will post some photos.

This is what we did (maybe another mess up here):

- emptied it and stirred the soil mixing it with the exiting sand to remove the gases.
- put another layer of sand on top of it, to keep the dirt settled.
- we filled it up
- added 3 logs

Planted:
- All the amazons
- quite happy
- a Mexican Sword (echinoderms palaefolius)
- Seems to be happy and growing
- a few Bacopa monnieri
- Also happy 
- a couple of bunches of some kind of grass (bought from the aquarium)
- they are not growing, but nor they are dying 
- some kind of 3 leaved clover like plant (from the backyard, that was growing with the grass.
- one fully submerged (which is not growing, but not dying either).
- and one partly submerged (which is choosing to submerge itself??)
- and 2 varieties of moss (that we also found in the backyard) as a carpet covering 50% of the bottom.
- after 4~5 days they started showing new growth.

Do you think we can fix the soil? or do we have to start from scratch again? Maybe all the swords we have now help? maybe we can add some other similar plant as well?

The logs seem to have released tannin, which we don't mind as it gives it a natural look... will this affect the soil in any way?

Photos in next post!


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## Nano A (Feb 28, 2015)

Thanks so much for your responses QWE and Michael 

After my son's explanations, I'm just adding some photos of how the tank looks today

Our Tank


































Experimenting with plants

Water sprites die in the tank. They seem to like the ponds more, where they can grow both fully and partially submerged.


















Clover like plant (we don't know it's name)

We added this attached to the emerged part of the log and it started to submerge itself, so we thought we woudl also try fully submerging it...


































Moss
It's rainy season here so we found some lots moss in the backyard. We tried to submerge them to see how they react.

Moss type 1 (don't know it's name)

Submerged









Emerged

























Moss type 2 (don't know it's name)

Submerged

















Emerged









Log










Salvinias in the pond... we tried this in the tank as well, but all the brown dead leaves go to the bottom and make the tank look messy (maybe it's good for it?)

















Substrate









Unknown plants we found in the backyard...


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## qwe123 (Jun 15, 2011)

I love the documentation of experimentation you're posting! That moss looks like sphagnum, which I don't think usually does well submerged, but I could be wrong... Love the way you decorated that log. The log shouldn't affect the soil, btw.

Do you have any soil sifters(MTS or blackworms)? If not, I'd definitely look for some, they would help keep the soil from becoming anaerobic, which those swords should help with as well. MTS have a better chance of working, as blackworms may all get eaten...


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

MTS = Malayan trumpet snails


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## JMG (Feb 28, 2015)

qwe123 said:


> I love the documentation of experimentation you're posting! That moss looks like sphagnum, which I don't think usually does well submerged, but I could be wrong... Love the way you decorated that log. The log shouldn't affect the soil, btw.
> 
> Do you have any soil sifters(MTS or blackworms)? If not, I'd definitely look for some, they would help keep the soil from becoming anaerobic, which those swords should help with as well. MTS have a better chance of working, as blackworms may all get eaten...


By looking at photos it seems that the sphagnum moss has longer stems... but, maybe it's a variety of it....

We will definitely get more snails from the pond then.


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## JMG (Feb 28, 2015)

Hi all.

Quick update:

The moss seem to be drowning, so we took it out.

We also removed more than half of the soil, to try to fix the anaerobic soil. We also added lots of new plants.

We will post some photos tomorrow.


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