# Converting to Natural Planted



## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

Oops, please ignore this repeat post. I thought my first post didn't get through because of an error.




Hi, this is my first post on this forum.

I'm from Singapore. What started for me as a single 20 litre fish tank with some plants to help the filter along evolved into a collection of many tanks of the High light, CO2 enriched, daily dosing kind. 

But now, I'm thinking of winding down to tanks that's truly natural planted. This change happened after someone remarked to me that my planted tank may be lushly grown, but it certainly isn't natural. In fact it looked like something out of the hospital ER.

That's when I realised that all that tech: Chiller, CO2 cylinder, reactor, T5HO lights, autodoser, timers etc made the tank look like a patient hooked up to life support. And before that, I was blinded to all the bits of tubes and wires sticking out of it until the innocent comment of a kid. If only I took a step back to see it as it is instead of myopically focusing on pearling and the shape of the 'scape.

So now, I seek your collective wisdom for advise on the move to avoid the trauma of the conversion.

I wish to start off with a 1 foot cube tank whose current specs are:

This was set up 6 months ago
Soil: ADA AquaSoil Amazonia 1.5 inch deep, sloping to 4 inches behind
Base layer: ADA powersand special, half inch deep. 
Lighting: 1x13 watt PC, 1x18 watt PC, 10 hours daily (windowless room).
Filter: 300L per hour powerhead only for circulation
Fertilisation: Daily E.I. 
CO2: Cylinder injected, pH 5.9

Fauna: 
3 Sphaerichthys osphromenoides, 10 Boraras brigittae, 10 Neocaridina sp "malayan", 2 Dario dario and 2 Parosphronemus deissneri

Flora:
It is densely planted (no more floorspace) with 3 specie of Eleocharis, Hottonia palustris, Hemianthus micranthemoides, Vallisneria nana, Microsorum pteropus v. 'needle leaf', Elatine triandra, Anubias barteri v. nana 'petite', Cryptocoryne pygmaea, Cryptocoryne tonkinensis and Cryptocoryne parva

Plan for conversion:
Reduce lighting to 18watts PC, 10 hours daily
Stop CO2 injection,
Reduce fertilising dosage by two thirds,
Remove powerhead to stop any surface agitation

Will this work? AquaSoil is re-constituted earth, and there are bits of wood and roots and some peat embedded in them. Would that be sufficient to replace the topsoil layer?

Can anyone who've made the changeover share your thoughts?

Many thanks for reading.

Lawrence Lee


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## imported_chrisP (Jul 7, 2004)

*Dont remove the powerhead*



Lawrence Lee said:


> Remove powerhead to stop any surface agitation
> 
> Lawrence Lee


This water agitation business is a big one and you will have to figure out what current, direction, and strength works for your plants and critters. I don't know the formula myself but it seems to be central in this el natural set up.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

I would def. try to avoid water surface circulation. That being said, many who have NPTs use hang on back filters which agitate the surface. One way to reduce the amount of movement is to include a large number of floating plants.

-ricardo


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Lawrence Lee said:


> But now, I'm thinking of winding down to tanks that's truly natural planted. Will this work?
> 
> AquaSoil is re-constituted earth, and there are bits of wood and roots and some peat embedded in them. Would that be sufficient to replace the topsoil layer?
> Lawrence Lee


I think it will. You've got established plant growth and a decent soil (i.e., some organic matter).

The water circulation does seem a bit much. You can turn the return holes towards the glass, if you think it needs to be reduced, or you want to accommodate floating plants.

Without CO2 injection, some plants may falter. The bicarbonate users will do better. Make sure the water has some alkalinity (KH of 4 or greater).

I would stop the water fertilization altogether unless you see clear signs of nutrient deficiencies (yellowing leaves, etc). Remember that fishfood, which provides all nutrients as it decomposes or is processed by fish, is the fertilizer in natural tanks. It's better than a chemical mix, because being 40-50% carbon, it also provides CO2. Just feed fish more!


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## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

imported_chrisP said:


> This water agitation business is a big one and you will have to figure out what current, direction, and strength works for your plants and critters. I don't know the formula myself but it seems to be central in this el natural set up.


The reason I wanted to remove the powerhead was to prevent surface agitation which degasses the precious CO2 needed by the plants.

Previously with high amounts of CO2 injection, I needed surface agitation to degas excess CO2 from the water which was not needed after lights out, hence the powerhead.

It's been 12 days since the abrupt halt of CO2, reduced lights and the powerhead. Here's an update on the tank's transition:

In the first few days the tank reacted with fishes and shrimps rising to the surface to breathe. I guess the plants need a more gradual reduction to the lighting cycle, so I returned the same wattage of lights to the tank. Fishes returned to normal behaviour.

Water also took on a slightly white haze which I suspect to be bacterial bloom.

I also decided to lay off all water column fertilisation altogether.

Day 4: Water even more hazy. 1 Chocolate Gourami perished, Malayan shrimps also died. But Ammonia tested negative. Decided to add 10 Yamato shrimps to serve as my "coalmine canary" since all the malayan shrimps were wiped out. 
Day 5: 2 yamato shrimps dead. I attribute it to transportation stress.
Day 6: 2nd Choc Gourami dead. Concern building up in my thoughts, whether I need some form of circulation going.
Day 7: 2 more Yamato shrimps dead. A very slight ammonia content (less than 0.5ppm) tested. Decided to run an airstone after lights out to get some circulation going.
Day 8: Water is still cloudy. Although no more deaths, I decided to transfer an old 120 Litre per hour filter from another tank for good measure, and removed the airstone.
Day 11: Yamato shrimps stable. No ammonia tested. Although water had not cleared up, I transferred 2 Otocinclus to further test the waters.
Day 12: Otos look very happy. Water not cleared up, but seems to be improving (maybe I'm imagining it) The oily surface scum from the CO2 days have also disappeared.

I have one question: Is this a normal reaction to the cutting off CO2?

This tank was cycled a looong time ago, and plants were pearling with the CO2 injection. Needless to say, water was crystal clear before the powerhead and CO2 was removed. Why then, is there a bacterial bloom followed by a slow rising of ammonia quite like new tank syndrome?


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

Is it possible that w/out the CO2 your plant's growth has slowed and can't take up excess nutrients/ammonia/etc. as quickly as it used to? Maybe you can try adding the CO2 again and then slowly decreasing it?

Just some thoughts...

-ricardo


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## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

I've thought about that too. However the lack of CO2 is a big cause of BBA in CO2 supplemented tanks of mine. I notice this when the CO2 level drops when the cylinder empties of the gas. 

So I figured it's better to "cold turkey" the plants into adapting to a much lower CO2 level, than to gradually cut CO2 and risk a BBA invasion.

That's also the reason why I so quickly reintroduced Yamato shrimps when my Malayan shrimps died on the 4th day of conversion -- Yamatos are much more hardy than malayans, and their presence will serve as a primary defence against algae, as well as early warning against poor water parameters since they're more sensitive than fishes.

I expected the plants to slow down when I cut the lights and took off the gas. What I didn't expect was the fishes to be gasping when the lights went off. 

I now realise that in that new environment, the plants "froze" in growth from the double whammy of being deprived of light energy and carbon, and so with whatever little O2 produced during the light period, it consumed with the fauna after lightsout, thus by "daybreak", there is insufficient O2 to go around, hence the gasping.

I am still undecided whether I did the correct thing by re-introducing high intensity light. My other option which I didn't take was to maintain the 18 watts PC lights but extend the duration to 12 hours.

But I don't understand what caused the bacterial bloom. Perhaps I didn't remove a carcass or two (as it is so densely planted that I can hardly see very far into the tank) and the rotting flesh caused the bloom. 

But since it's a cycled tank, shouldn't the filter bacteria (whatever it's called) break down the carcass? In my cycled, CO2 enriched tanks, I sometimes leave carcasses of shrimps in situ if it's too difficult to reach, and I never get a bacterial bloom.

That's why I say the tank behaved like it is just going through cycling. Could it be that in a high-tech setup, the plants are so highly driven that they've even outcompeted the filter bacteria, so when the wattage and gas is taken off, and the plants go into hibernation, the tank restarts its cycling?

So many questions... but I'm rambling.

Thanks for reading. Your thoughts are appreciated.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Lawrence Lee said:


> The reason I wanted to remove the powerhead was to prevent surface agitation which degasses the precious CO2 needed by the plants.
> 
> It's been 12 days since the abrupt halt of CO2, reduced lights and the powerhead. Here's an update on the tank's transition:
> 
> In the first few days the tank reacted with fishes and shrimps rising to the surface to breathe. Why then, is there a bacterial bloom followed by a slow rising of ammonia quite like new tank syndrome?


I would return the powerhead and get some oxygen into this tank....for the sake of the fish. This tank has gone anaerobic and is danger of a meltdown. 
When you deprive tank of oxygenated water (via the filter's water circulation), the substrate bacteria start to die and release toxins. Also, some plants aren't going to make it without their "CO2 candy", so they will release their organic stuff into the water fueling even more bacterial growth. In this situation, you can almost certainly expect an ammonia spike. But the main problem is low oxygen.

Folks, when you see fish gasping at the surface, its time to take immediate emergency measures. For now, I woudn't worry about the plants not getting CO2. If the bacteria are growing so well that they deprive water of oxygen like this, _you can be sure_ that there's plentiful water CO2 (CO2 is the main product of decomposition). Please reread my book's chapter on bacteria, with particular emphasis on page 73.

There's always a balance between oxygen and decomposition. The trick is to add enough oxygen to keep fish/shrimp happy and keep bacteria decomposing aerobically.


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## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

*Day 14*



dwalstad said:


> I would return the powerhead and get some oxygen into this tank....for the sake of the fish. This tank has gone anaerobic and is danger of a meltdown.
> When you deprive tank of oxygenated water (via the filter's water circulation), the substrate bacteria start to die and release toxins. Also, some plants aren't going to make it without their "CO2 candy", so they will release their organic stuff into the water fueling even more bacterial growth. In this situation, you can almost certainly expect an ammonia spike. But the main problem is low oxygen.


Diana,

Aha. That is something I've not considered and now that you mentioned it... I realise that I didn't seed this tank with mulm when I started it some months back. Instead, I transferred a filter from another tank to this and that was all to the cycling that I did. On top of that, I realise that ADA soil and Powersand contain NH3/NH4 to kickstart the plant growth and peat to maintain viability after the NH4 wears out. So with the low stocking levels and meagre feed amounts high tech planters give to their fauna, there'd be hardly any mulm to speak of in the 6months of this tank's life.

So when I took the powerhead off, the great dose of ammonia at the plant's roots would probably be poisoning them as there'd be no circulation to redistribute the ammonia around to other parts (leaf and other floaters), and hardly any bacteria to convert the excess NH3 into less poisonous NO3, so the plants go into hibernation, taking up O2 instead.

And as you mentioned rightly, the tank starts to turn anaerobic, beneficial bacteria dies, other bacteria blooms to fill the gap, CO2 shoots up as they suck up whatever little O2 there is... The classic signs of a newly set up tank going through cycling.

Day 14: Water have cleared up. Last night at lights up, there was a slight haze present in the water, but this morning just before lights out, the water was clear. That's 6 days into the re-introduction of a cycled filter.

Now that the tank is on its way to becoming stable again, I can go back to focusing on growing the plants. Two questions now come to mind:

1) I'm a bit concerned about the extra light energy that I'm giving the plants since I don't inject CO2 anymore. Should I revert back to my original plan of 18Watts PC light in this 1 ft cube (2.4wpg) and extend the lighting hours to 12 hours?

Or should I continue with the present energy blast of 4.1wpg for 10 hours?

2) Is there any reason to be concerned that I've no oystershells mixed in the substrate? After all, I've used this substrate sans oystershells in my high tech tanks with no problems.

Thanks for reading.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Lawrence Lee said:


> Diana,
> Two questions now come to mind:
> 
> 1) I'm a bit concerned about the extra light energy that I'm giving the plants since I don't inject CO2 anymore. Should I revert back to my original plan of 18Watts PC light in this 1 ft cube (2.4wpg) and extend the lighting hours to 12 hours?
> ...


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## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

dwalstad said:


> If you haven't had to add calcium to your tank, when it was high-tech, then there's no reason why you would need to do it now.


Diana,

I was referring to the substrate. For my other high maintenance tanks, substrate acidity is never a problem as I'm keeping with watercolumn fertilisation that adds NPK and GH by daily dosing and a weekly waterchange routine plus the dosing of Equilibrium, so the plants are foliar fed, with the roots mainly for holding them in place or to store excess carbo in the case of crypts.

But with no foliar feeding, plants now have to rely on root uptake. ADA soil is infamous for lowering pH and softening water because of its encapsulation of peat. (in fact it lowers a tank's pH to 5 on the 2nd day of setup. Fortunately, this peat effect slowly wears off with water changes).

So I was thinking (or perhaps worrying prematurely), that since I didn't have any oyster shells to neutralise the acids in the soil, it'll be a matter of time before the exceedingly low pH stop root uptake and cause problems.

I intend to set this tank up and put it in my place of work, so I won't have the privilege of doing major planting and maintenance works once the tank is transferred there.

Since the substrate is already laid, and bearing in mind this is only a tiny 1 ft cube, is there any method to put in the oyster shell without tearing the whole tank down? Otherwise, I'd just let it be till some problem crops up. It'd be interesting to observe how each way develops any ways.

Thanks for replying.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

There's no need to tear tank down. Oyster shell is a little like gravel. I'd just poke some of it into the substrate.


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## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

*Day 20*

Here's an update on the tank's 20th day.

All flora and fauna are living well. I didn't get any plant meltdown even with the crypts! Praise the Lord. Initially, there was a bit of staghorn algae growing on the surface floating leaves of the Vals. That's probably due to NH3 from decomposition of excess food that's floating among the leaves.

But because of the slow growth of these algae, the Yamato shrimps made short work of them. Now there is no algae whatsoever to speak of. Amazing! I used to think that I need to drive plant growth with a 30ppm CO2 in order to prevent algae from taking a toehold in the tank.

The Vals are starting to send out runners again. I had to snip off 3 offending plantlets that is outgrowing its intended territory. Other than that, I didn't have to do any trimming. 

The water however is not crystal clear like it was in the past. Testing the hardness, I got a shocking reading. The water was 8 dkH and 15 dgH! One or more of the rocks that I used for the hardscape must be dissolving and giving out all that minerals. Too bad, I can't remove any as they're all half buried in the substrate.

With weekly water changes in the past, I didn't bother to do testing and must have missed this problem totally. So I did a massive 80% waterchange to dilute some of those dissolved salts. Guess the plants need to adapt to the higher TDS now, and somehow, I have a hunch that they will still do nicely.

I'll give it another month to grow out before I move it to my office. Already, I'm itching for another conversion.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Dear Lawerence,

As long as fish and plants are doing well, I would just enjoy your tank.
Many aquarium plants seem to do well in hard, alkaline water.


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## Matt S. (Nov 3, 2005)

Lawrence, 

I agree with Diana. Don't sweat it. One of my NPT also has GH and KH values similar to yours on an almost continuous basis - and Nitrates up to 50 ppm+. I change 40% of the water maybe once in 3 months and it doesn' t appear to pose any problems for the plants & Critters. Vals love it. So do most of the Crypts.

Matt


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## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

Haha. Took a look again at my last few posts and realise I sounded like a hypochondriac.

Makes me realise how much I've been relying on the gas to grow my plants that I've become "vulnerable?" without it.

Seems that I'm suffering from CO2 withdrawal more than the plants.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

Lawrence: I'm glad to hear that your tank is finally doing well. I think the hardest thing to learn (now that your tank has settled down) w/ NPT tanks is that as long as plants and fish are doing well, then just leave the tank alone. The soil based tank is like a capitalist economy; it requires a "laissez faire" approach.

-ricardo


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## Lawrence Lee (Jul 17, 2004)

Yup Ricardo,

Doing nothing is probably the hardest thing for me to do about this tank since it started as a high maintenance.


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