# Another person making the leap to El Natural



## Wiedertäufer (Nov 17, 2007)

I'm starting up my first NPT over the next day or two. A 27 gallon. I live in a rainy clime (Vancouver, BC, Canada) and found that the topsoil in my garden is going to work great (did the test bottle thing already). The rain constantly falling on it means that the stuff that would normally make it cloudy has long been washed away and it's teeming with bacteria/life. 

I have the following plants ready to go:

- 8 or 9 mature E. Tenellus (Pygmy Chain Sword) for the front of the tank. It should reproduce quite quickly with the topsoil substrate and make a great fore-ground plant. These should make a great carpet quite quickly.
- Windelov Java Ferns - 5 or 6 of different size - to be tied to my driftwood
- Riccia - plan on making either a carpet or a wall using some sort of mesh. I'll have to figure out how I want it to fit with the E. Tenellus being in there as well.
- Rotala (nanjenshan) - planning on putting it about half way back.
- lots of thornwort. I'm going to weight down some of the ends and use it in the back of my tank as well as letting some float-- I'm hoping this plant's anti algae properties will help with the algal bloom cycles NPT tanks often go through.
- Blyxa Aubertii - another plant for the background. This one should be a challenge to get it to propagate and to turn red (from what I'm told, they only change colours when they are healthy and have enough iron). From what I understand, it's not a very common plant and it'd be cool to really get it propagating nicely.

Fish:
2 young Cutter's Cichlid

I normally would never consider a cichlid for a NPT, but Cutter's cichlids are not agressive, leave plants alone and dig very little. Of any cichlid out there, they should be one of the only ones that will work. My only concern is that if they do thrive and reach full size and have babies, the 27 gallon will be too small.

I'm going to grab a couple cheaper incandescent lamps and some 6500K+ full spectrum compact fluorescent bulbs. I'm also going to cut an acrylic sheet to help cut down on evaporation.

My fish and plants are hanging out in an extra tank and are ready to go in. Tomorrow I'm going to strain enough substrate through some window screen, plant the plants, and get it going. I have one sizable piece of drift wood (which has already been prepped and has been in different tanks for years). I'm definitely going to have to give some more thought to the aquascaping side of things.

I'll take pictures throughout the process tomorrow.


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## Homer_Simpson (Apr 2, 2007)

Wiedertäufer said:


> I'm starting up my first NPT over the next day or two. A 27 gallon. I live in a rainy clime (Vancouver, BC, Canada) and found that the topsoil in my garden is going to work great (did the test bottle thing already). The rain constantly falling on it means that the stuff that would normally make it cloudy has long been washed away and it's teeming with bacteria/life.
> 
> I have the following plants ready to go:
> 
> ...


Sounds like an excellent plan. With respect to Cichlids, I have a Bolivian ram in a 10 gallon non-natural planted tank with lots and lots of plants. He pretty much leaves the plants alone and does no digging at all. Bolivian rams are hardier than german rams and stay dwarf size. Also Kribensis Cichlids may also be good, but this is "iffy." I have a couple in my 40 gallon planted tank. They left the plants alone for a while and I had a hygrophilia compact growing beautifully. When I increased lighting, it developed some string/thread algae. One of the Kribensis in its attempted to eat the algae off the leaves also tore off pieces of the leaves, thinking that if the algae was edible then probably the leaves were also. She did such a number on the leaves that my whole aquarium was littered with torn leaves and I was left with nothing more than a leafless stem that never grew new leaves.


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## Wiedertäufer (Nov 17, 2007)

Homer_Simpson said:


> Sounds like an excellent plan. With respect to Cichlids, I have a Bolivian ram in a 10 gallon non-natural planted tank with lots and lots of plants. He pretty much leaves the plants alone and does no digging at all. Bolivian rams are hardier than german rams and stay dwarf size. Also Kribensis Cichlids may also be good, but this is "iffy."


I've had kribs in the past and they were real excavators! I know the Cutter's won't dig much at all. Even if they do dig right down through the gravel to the dirt though, my soil settles so quickly that clouding won't be a problem.

I had a couple things come up and I didn't get to start working on my tank yesterday like I thought I would. Put my digital camera batteries in their charger though, so we're ready to rock tomorrow.


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## HoldingWine (Oct 7, 2007)

Wiedertäufer said:


> I've had kribs in the past and they were real excavators!


100% agree.  I made two little coconut caves for my pair to see if they would stop digging so much. So far, they prefer to dig under the rocks anyway.


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## Wiedertäufer (Nov 17, 2007)

Progress report - got to the water filling stage and right when I was pouring water in, a bug flew in my face. I jerked my arm and poured a few litres, missing the bowl. I blasted right through the river gravel and turned my water a nice murky brown colour. It's settling quickly and I've set up a filter with just poly in it to help clear the water, but it's not the start I was hoping for. I'm going to give it a couple days and see if it sittles/gets filtered until it's clear, otherwise I might be completely draining it, thickening the gravel in a spot or two and trying with the water again.


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## Wiedertäufer (Nov 17, 2007)

Progress Report - tank has cleared considerably, but not enough to take any pictures of note. Hornwort is growing like mad. Soon the water will be clear enough that I'll remove the floating plants and the drift wood and plunk down extra gravel on the soil that got opened up in the making of this cloudy mess. Then everything goes back in and it should be picture time.

EDIT: Update - I removed the driftwood, put down extra gravel wherever I thought it needed it, attached some java fern windelov to the drift wood and repositioned it in the tank. I cleaned the poly inside my filter and it was almost black. I returned it.

I can now see through the tank and can see the gravel from the top of the tank (16 inches). I also took the opportunity, now that I can see, to do a little picking of gravel here and there because I had buried some of the E. tenellus leaves.


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