# Setting up first NPT 10g



## melauriga (Mar 20, 2009)

Hello everyone,

I'm just about to take the plunge and set up my first NPT. I've read the book and I think I have everything I need, but for those with experience, would you mind checking my setup and answering a few questions?

I wasn't able to find plain potting soil so I picked up a bag of topsoil, will this be ok?

As I said in the heading, this is a 10g. I was going to use one regular fluorescent strip light 15w. The tank will get a little morning sun from an east-facing window. I could add another strip light if you don't think one is enough.

I found a box of grit that is supposed to be for caged birds. It contains oyster grit as well as ground gravel I think. The box says it also contains charcoal: will this pose a problem? Should I search around for lime or something else instead?

And finally, the plants. I have available an Argentine sword, crypt lutea, crypt wendtii red, Hygrophila compact, rotala rotundifolia, pond penny (I think its Lysimachia), stargrass, a couple of different kinds of mosses, Pistia statiotes, frogbit, and riccia. Anything I'm missing, or you don't think will grow well? 

I haven't decided on the fish yet but I'm thinking a honey gourami and some checkered barbs.


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## melauriga (Mar 20, 2009)

Oh yeah, I forgot about gravel.

I have either some fluorite left over from my 20g DIY CO2 tank, or some regular aquarium gravel that has mixed sized pieces. I think the largest pieces are around 6mm. I also have some very finely ground silica gravel, but I think that would be too small, almost like sand.

As you can probably tell, I am nervous about trying an NPT, so please set my worries to rest! I have been toying with the idea of setting one up for awhile now, and today I had an accident where some yeast co2 mixture flowed into my 20g. So now I am willing to do anything I can to eliminate CO2 injection. If the 10g works out I am hoping to convert the 20g as well.


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## Erin C. (May 12, 2005)

No need to be nervous, NPT's are easy to set up and even easier to maintain. As for the grit you were talking about, I wouldn't use it personally. I have used fluorite in my NPTs and haven't had any issues but regular gravel will work great too. I have also used just topsoil in one of my tanks and it is going strong. It has a heavy fish load so that helps. You might consider mixing in some mud as has been stated in other posts, as to where you get said mud, I haven't a clue. I guess you could dig some up from your back yard if it hasn't been chemically treated for anything. Mineralized soil is all the rage right now it seems but I have always just used regular potting soil in my tanks. 

I don't know much about individual types of swords but have found that they grow too big for a 10g tank in my opinion. 1.5w per gallon should work fine, but some of your plant choices might not care for it, best thing to do is give it a try and see what works. Just make sure you plant heavily. That will make things better for the fish when you add them. 

What are you going to use for water flow? I use both powerheads and HOBs, I find that both work equally well. 

Best of luck!
Erin :wink:


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## colinsk (Dec 29, 2008)

I would ditch the bird grit. And make sure you measure for ammonia after you submerge your soil. It may have nitrogen as a fertilizer. If it does you have to wait till it settles in before you add fish. If you live near any clay add a couple of handfuls but if not don't worry.


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## melauriga (Mar 20, 2009)

Thanks,

I won't use the bird grit then. Using the API test kit, my water is 4dKH, ~54 ppm KH/GH (water turned light green at 3 drops). Should I add something to the water or substrate to increase hardness? If so, what is best and easiest to find?

I have not decided for sure what to use for water flow. Probably either a HOB or I kind of like the idea in Diana's book on p184 of a submerged powerhead with an attached Quick Filter cartridge (I am having a little trouble letting go of the idea of a filter as you can see!) Something fairly inexpensive anyway.


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## Erin C. (May 12, 2005)

I use cuttlebone in my aquariums.

Erin


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## melauriga (Mar 20, 2009)

Erin C. said:


> I use cuttlebone in my aquariums.
> 
> Erin


This might sound silly, but do you chop the cuttlebone up into pieces?


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## Erin C. (May 12, 2005)

You can chop it up if you want to or just put the whole piece in the filter and it will slowly disolve. I have a piece in all of my tanks.


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## Forgotten Path (Apr 3, 2009)

Everything sounds great.
I think I would get rid of the bird grit as well. I think we carry that at the PetSmart I work at, and I think the carbon would pull out beneficial nutrients.
I've found that aragonite from CaribSea works well. It has some good macro (Ca, K) and micro (Mg) nutrients and can also be placed in your filter... The only downside, it seems, is that it will continue to raise your pH to marine levels. I just waited until GH, KH, and pH was where I wanted them and took it out.
Also make sure your topsoil isn't Scott's brand! 
Check out the "Mysterious White Cloud" thread for more info about the aragonite and Scott's topsoil.
I think you'll do great... I freaked out a lot about setting my tank up correctly, but my plants are growing great without hardly any effort! Enjoy the look people give you when you tell them you put dirt in your tank!  Have a lot of fun too!


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## prBrianpr (Nov 18, 2007)

I think that the light is not enought for riccia. if you can put 2 light instead of one would be great. if you want more Gh-Kh do that the other members says but not use a lot of a buffering products marine levels is bad for most plants. try to mantain pH 6.5 to 7 for hardy plants the pH can up to 7.6. acid substrate is good but not too acid.Use gravel on top of soil or comercial main nutritive substrate like fluorite, mud and clay are good additives, peatmoss too. Use a pump, circulating water are good but only low water current for most plants.


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## colinsk (Dec 29, 2008)

> Use a pump, circulating water are good but only low water current for most plants.


I have found that this is one of the most important parts of making the water healthy for both the fish and the plants. I fine tune the location and flow of my pumps all the time.


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## Alex123 (Jul 3, 2008)

Definitely go with topsoil over potting soil. You want as little fertilizer as you can or you run into this so called break in period. I think 10 gallon is a fun size to start with. The plants you want depends on the water chemistry. If it's hard water with high PH, you should consider hard water plants. Since it's 10 gallon you don't want plants that grow big. 10 Gallon is not much to work with, you probably want one tall grower and everything else to be small. The single strip is good since 10 gallon tank is not very tall so more light will reach the bottom than the other larger tanks. So your single strip will be pretty effective. NPT is the easiest way I think to planted tank. I start reading micro/macro nutrient, CO2 injection, high light and my eyes glazed over and I get a headache thinking about the cost and effort involved to maintenance. The most important for NPT is to set it up correctly in the beginning to avoid the algae outbreak as the plants don't grow as vigorously as high tech method. That means plant a lot.


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## melauriga (Mar 20, 2009)

Thanks for all the advice!

The topsoil I found is "Jolly Gardener" brand, says it's all natural and I couldn't find any additives listed on the bag. Just a few sticks to pick out.

I may not use the riccia on this tank then, but I have frogbit and salvinia that I think will work.

I found some water wisteria, echinodorus tenellus, and dwarf sag that I can use also. I'm finding it difficult to think of small plants that would might grow without high light and pressurized co2. Any suggestions? 

Also, is it really difficult or detrimental (as far as disturbing the substrate) to add plants after the tank is filled and established?

I have a medium light planted tank that I'm tired of dealing with problems with DIY yeast co2 and I am absolutely against having a pressurized tank in the house. I also don't want to endanger my fish again with yeast mixture in the tank or worry about overdosing the co2. I'm experimenting with adding some floating plants to that and see if just adding Excel will be enough.

So, I'm really looking forward to having a tank that is much less maintenance. It would be great to just enjoy the fish and do a little pruning now and then. I also like the idea of a more natural, balanced approach.


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## Forgotten Path (Apr 3, 2009)

prBrianpr said:


> if you want more Gh-Kh do that the other members says but not use a lot of a buffering products marine levels is bad for most plants.


Yes, this is very important... If you decide to go with aragonite or similar product, make sure you watch your pH/KH/GH closely. It took my 5 gallon only two days to reach levels I wanted.



melauriga said:


> I'm experimenting with adding some floating plants to that and see if just adding Excel will be enough.


You shouldn't need Excel. Since you have "low" light (as opposed to 3+ wpg found in high tech tanks), your plants won't be preforming enough photosynthesis to need elevated CO2 levels. And the bacteria breaking down organic material in the topsoil will also provide CO2, even before you add fish. I would try it without Excel.


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## Alex123 (Jul 3, 2008)

Dwarf sag I heard does fine at lower light however, they can grow tall as some have informed me. Maybe consider having the lower growing plants near the window to get the sunlight. Or have 1/4 area on both side of the tank have tall plants and the middle have low growing/grassy plants so that the sunlight don't get blocked by the tall plants. That 3-4 hour morning sunlight should be good enough for the plants that need more light, depending on how you setup the position of the tank it might work. Adding plant should not be too bad. It's not good to disturb the substrate but if you trim the roots before planting, it should not disturb that much. Now moving plants around when they are well rooted is a problem. If you must, it's probably better to trim around the roots so you don't pull up a large chunk of substrate in the tank.


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## Forgotten Path (Apr 3, 2009)

How's it coming??


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## melauriga (Mar 20, 2009)

Forgotten Path said:


> How's it coming??[/QUOTE
> 
> Some of the plants haven't arrived yet, so I actually haven't set it up yet. I'm planning on this weekend. Also, I bought some Miracle Gro Organic Choice potting soil to use instead of the topsoil. I think I read on another thread that Ms. Walstad and others have gotten pretty consistent results with it, and that makes me feel more comfortable.


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## Forgotten Path (Apr 3, 2009)

Yeah, it seems pretty easy to find, and has worked great for me. Eyeball your ammonia if you plan to add fish right away, but otherwise you should have no problems. My ammonia was at 1 ppm for a while, but if there are no fish, this is just food for your new plants. And if they don't take care of it all your tank will begin to cycle (without fish, ain't it great?) and take care of the rest.
Let us know how setup goes! Looking forward to it.


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## melauriga (Mar 20, 2009)

Ok, I set the tank up last night! I ended up using Miracle Grow Organic Choice potting soil. Picked out the larger pieces of bark, then read after I had filled the tank that I probably should have sifted it through a screen to get more out. So, as expected, tannins leaching out by this morning. Added charcoal to the HOB filter. I capped it with my plain gravel instead of fluorite (was concerned about the acidic soil plus iron-rich fluorite combination). I also added a piece of cuttlebone and some baking soda and epsom salts to increase hardness.

Plants include Echinodorus angustifolia, crypt lutea, crypt Wendtii 'Red', Hygro 'Compact', Valisneria nana, dwarf sag, Hygro difformis, java moss, ludwigia, and pennywort. The Hygro 'Tiger' I bought ended up looking not so good after all, mostly stems with few leaves, so I trimmed my other tank and got some rotala rotundifolia and rotala sp. green to replace the hygro. Also some water lettuce and what was sold to me as frogbit, but I think it is actually duckweed. I'm excited to be able to try the valisneria, as I can't grow it in my other tank with Seachem Excel added. I hope I have enough plants.

I found out my strip light doesn't work, the power button broke off and fell inside the fixture. Will have to run out on my lunch break and get a new one. Too bad, I was hoping to mostly use stuff I had laying around for this tank. I hope it will be ok with just window light for today.

No fish yet, I'm waiting to see how things go in the next week or so. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping the plants grow and I don't have any major algae breakouts.


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## Forgotten Path (Apr 3, 2009)

I hardly sifted through my Organic Choice at all... My water was a little tannic, but a water change and charcoal cleared it up pretty fast.
You may be surprised about the plant growth. Also, my tank has been up about three weeks now, and I'm just starting to see a little algae on the glass, but thats it... And the only floater I have is hornwort, which was added a little late. With your floater being a faster grower and in from the start, your tank may take even longer to see algae.
Do you have any pics? That would be great!


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## melauriga (Mar 20, 2009)

Thanks for the encouragement. I will get some pics as soon as the ub cord for my camera comes in (I lost the other one during a move) sometime in the next few days.


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