# 486l (128g) Walstad as a complete newbie



## diskoerekto (Dec 12, 2011)

Hi everybody,

The people:

My name is Emrah, I live in Istanbul and I have no past experience as an aquarist but I always was interested in the hobby. Half a year ago a friend of mine moved in and he used to have an aquarium before he came to Istanbul. For the past few months we planned about starting an aquarium so I started to do some research online. I am an engineer, I have a decent understanding of biology and I love to research and read so before too long I came across the book by Diana Walstad. 

My obsession of efficiency may be a side effect of my education and occupation to my real life but that obsession makes the el Naturale method a first choice for me. A system so nicely designed that everything cancels each other out, every cycle is complete and it needs very little to no intervention from outside. That is an ideal approach to every system as well as the aquarium in my opinion.

My friend's father had an aquarium so he had aquarium since he was small but it was nothing big. He knows the lingo of the Turkish aquarium shopkeepers and he knows the trade but he lacks theory.

So he knows the practice and I am eager to learn the theory but there is one problem. I can believe in a theory I have read and makes sense to me but he does not know much about theories so for him to believe he needs something working practically.

The place:

I have a corner in my living room where I am going to put the tank (we are still negotiating with carpenters etc for the stand and the tank, it is no easy or cheap thing here in Turkey  ). The tank is going to be 90x90x60h cm (35x35x25h inches, I will try to include imperial units as well since many of you are from the US). The tank is not right in front of a window but the window begins where the tank ends (on 2 sides of the tank) so the tank will hopefully still receive a fair amount of Turkish sunlight. One window is facing northeast, the other is facing southeast and the flat is on the 6th floor. There is central heating and one of the pipes are running behind where the tank will be. 

The substrate:

On the internet I saw that John Innes No:3 was an ideal recipe but of course it is not sold here. I will try to find some gardening soil which is suitable for this but there is a big problem, on the packages the percentages of what's inside is not written. I checked the recipe of the No3 from the internet. I know what peat is and I can find it. The same applies for sand or gravel or other stuff, but I have no idea how to translate "loam" to my florist. I am not sure what to do about it. I found some substrate they call "soil" and I guess that is what is meant by "loam" but it is probably collected from the nature (no proper packaging, just a pile of soil  ). My friend wants to use a peat fortifier (loose translation, processed peat with some trace elements etc I know this is a product for aquaria but I am not sure what is inside) named "Sera Floredepot" and I guess it is ok. I am not sure what I should use. 

The water:

There is a pond (a water dam to supply tap water to city actually) nearby and I plan to bring water from there instead of using tap water so that I will have some natural bacteria up and running in my tank. Is this an idiotic idea? My friend wants to put a bacteria culture (lost in translation again) by JBL. Is that ok?

The equipment:

My friend loves equipment. The way he knows to make planted aquariums is go high tech or at least DIY high tech. So he keeps asking about buying CO2 tubes, fancy filters, reverse osmosis device etc. This is the part I have to make him believe in this but we will see in time. We bought a Fluval 405 filter (1300l/h or 343 gallons/h) which has 4 baskets and a sponge shelf (I am translating some terms as far as I know and I probably am translating them wrong. I hope you understand what I am trying to identify). He plans to put ceramic rings in 1st basket, biological sponge in 2nd, thin layer of fiber and porous bioball in 3rd and lava stone in 4th. I know much biological filtering is not needed but he insists the water will be bad without those and I want him to feel happy and confident about the tank so I did not object. In the end filtering would not hurt unless it is very fine filtering like carbon right? Do you have any suggestions or advices regarding filtering, what to put in the baskets, in which order, etc?

About heating, since there is central heating installed the flat is very warm itself (~25 degrees celcius or 77 degrees fahrenheit) and the tank will receive some sunlight but of course heating will be needed. We have 2 100W heaters at the moment and will probably use one in a small quarantine tank. The remaining 100W will probably be weak for the big tank so we plan to buy another heater and use it along with the 100W one so that a smaller heater will be sufficient and there will be some redundancy in case one of them breaks down one day. What should be the sufficient wattage for a 486l (128g) tank?

The lighting:

LEDs seem to be consuming less electricity than fluorescent lamps so I may try to use those. I absolutely have no idea about how much lighting to put, which color temperature, where... I need any ideas here. My friend says 1 T5 grolux sylvania and 1 T5 daylight sylvania and some LEDs will be ok but he has many question marks as well. What is the ideal color temperature and wattage?

The plants:

I do not know what plants are available here in shops. My friend does, but he knows the common names not the latin names. Some plants available in north america may be unknown/rare here, and some plants unknown/rare in north america may be common here. I have no idea which plants to use.

The invertebrates:

We already have some cherry shrimps in a temporary tank but we want to add some bee shrimps once the real tank is alive. Also there should be some snails to help mulm and leftover fish food to decompost. 

The fish:

In the temporary tank there are also some fish. ~10 albino deep pink guppies, ~10 bronze corydoras, 1 dwarf catfish, 1 L144 albino longfin and 1 butterfly catfish. The translations may be extremely wrong but we will see .

To sum it up, I have some big question marks about the substrate and lighting. I will be very happy if you can help me a little.

Cheers,
Emrah

EDIT: I am sorry for my English, it is not my primary language.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Hi Emrah, and welcome to APC! We're delighted to have you here. The description of your project is very good, and your English is excellent.

Even a Walstad aquarium requires much input from the aquarist to flourish, but the key is finding a good balance of that input--enough, but not too much, of everything. It is not too hard to get it right, and when you do the tank will be very stable and easy to take care of. Overall, your plans for the aquarium sound good, with no obvious problems in store. I'll try to comment on each the major topics.

*Place:* The location sounds fine. The windows should give some helpful indirect light without being so intense as to cause algae problems.

*Substrate:* To a civil engineer, loam is a soil composed of approximately equal parts of each of the three classes of soil particles: sand (largest), silt, and clay (smallest). You can do a rough test for this by putting a handful of soil in a 1 liter jar, and shaking it well. A description of this is in post #13 at http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/el-natural/75221-ideal-soil-type-2.html#post572387 Most natural soils will work as long as they do not contain colloidal clay. Other things to avoid are large percentages of coarse, undecomposed organic matter, and any kind of manure or fertilizer.

It helps a great deal to mineralize any soil, you can find excellent articles in the Library section of APC.

*Water:* If your tap water chemistry is suitable for aquaria, I would just use that. Water from a pond or lake would have small numbers of beneficial bacteria, but might also have fish disease organisms or parasites. Remember, most of the beneficial bacteria in the aquarium are not suspended in the water, but growing on all the surfaces: gravel, soil, plants, filter media, etc. And your fish and plants will bring their own bacteria with them.

There is disagreement if commercial bacteria cultures do any good. But they almost certainly don't hurt, so let your friend use one if he likes.

*Equipment:* I believe that good water circulation and biofiltration are excellent enhancements of the Walstad method. Your Fluval filter is good for both. Don't use carbon or other chemical filtration beyond the first month or so. It is important to maintain good flow through the bio-media so that the bacteria get enough oxygen to function efficiently. For this reason, I like to use coarse filter media that does not clog, like lava rock, and nothing else.

Ideally, you would like to circulate about 10 times the tank volume per hour. Your filter won't do this by itself, so you might add a power head. You can read a long discussion of this at http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/...club/75400-excited-word-about-filtration.html

If your apartment is at 77 F all the time, you don't need a heater unless you are planning to keep fish that require very high temperatures, like discus.

*Lighting:* This is complex because there are so many different types of lighting equipment available, and because plants use a different part of the spectrum than human eyes are most sensitive to. LEDs are efficient, but we don't know what types produce light that is useful to plants and how much.

Color temperature is a measure of how light looks to human eyes, not how useful it is to plants. So really, color temperature is a matter of personal perference. Most people think that the range from 6,000K to 8,000K looks most like natural sunlight.

Plants use the red and blue parts of the spectrum. Human eyes see the green and yellow parts best. Grow lights (grolux) produce lots of red and blue light for plants, but they look unpleasantly purple to people.
"Daylight" fluorescents give a white light that looks good to most people. So your friend's combination is a good one. I assume that he is talking about T5 high output. Two tubes of T5 HO should give you enough light, especially with some sunlight. Because your tank is 25" deep, I would keep the tubes just above the surface of the water so that you get sufficient light all the way to the bottom.

*Plants:* This is the fun part! First of all, you need lots of plants for a Walstad tank--about 75% of the substrate should be covered by foliage when you look at the tank from above. Plant heavily right from the start.

Since you are not sure what is available, try many different kinds of plants. Buy whatever looks healthy. And you can collect plants from ponds and streams, but wash them well in tap water before putting them in the aquarium.

Not everything you try will grow--this is typical. As some things grow and others don't, encourage the ones that you like, and remove the ones you don't.

Try posting the common names if you can translate them; someone here may recognize them, and we do have members from Turkey. Also, take photographs and post them. There are some great experts here who can identify most aquatic plants from good photographs.

*Invertebrates and fish:* Everything you list sounds fine, but I'm not sure what you mean by "dwarf catfish" and "butterfly catfish". There are some great fish websites. My personal favorite is Seriously Fish at http://www.seriouslyfish.com/news.php. This is a UK site, so they are familiar with what fish are available in the European market.

I hope all this helps. Please keep us updated, and post some photos!


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## singolz (Oct 27, 2011)

diskoerekto said:


> Hi everybody,
> 
> The people:
> 
> ...


welcome to APC! as Michael said keep us updated, i find it very interesting to hear from people around the world, especially with people who share common interests.
cheers

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## diskoerekto (Dec 12, 2011)

Thank you all for the warm welcome.

We found a carpenter who happened to be a very far relative. Normally aquarium keeping is a little niche hobby so prices are high but with his help we will have a nice stand. As of now we are waiting for him to start building and hopefully in a few weeks the tank will be ready to roll.

Water:

It seems using tap water is the way to go. I will try to collect some rain water and add it. I am worried about the existence of anything toxic in tap water (non-toxic to human but toxic to aquarium like copper). Talking about things in water, what tests should my kit contain? PH, KH, GH, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia are probably needed by default. What else should I test? Iron? Copper? Magnesium? Potassium? Are there tests for all of those? What stuff should I be wary of in tap water except chloramine?

Substrate:

I will try the test about the soil to understand if it is loam or else. By the way, loam is not aluvion (if the word even exists in english), right? I am worried about parasitic problems about using natural soil. Will it produce problems? I ask the florist guy if it contains manure as if I wanted the soil to contain manure. Thus, I will be confident even if he is lying, he is unknowingly manipulating me to behave safer . 

About mineralizing the soil, I will check the articles in library but this is the first time I hear the term soil mineralization.

Equipment: 

I will try to find a power head but wouldn't that much waterflow rip the plants off their roots?

I will keep track of heat going up and down (at night it may fall below 77 F) and decide if a heater is needed. I will keep you informed about my findings.

Another point is, is it nice to add an ultraviolet thingy to filter?

Lighting:

I probably understood most of the stuff wrong but if I go purple with the LEDs it will help plant growth, am I completely wrong? About the HO stuff, I am not sure if that notation is used here or not. Is it about the watt/luminosity of the bulb? How many watts should we go for? About the height, the bulbs will be about 3-4 inches above the tank I hope it will not cause much problems. If that is a problem, how should I compensate for that?

Misc:

The carpenter is going to start working next week (this means if the world really ends when the year 2011 ends I will never have a tank) and I will visit his shop from time to time so expect some photos to arrive then.

What chapters of Ms. Walstad's book do you advice me to read one more time? Which parts do you want to underline?

Any other general pitfalls? I tried to read some general newbie threads but I may be missing something.

Thanks again for the attention.

Cheers,
Emrah


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Emrah, see my answers below.



diskoerekto said:


> Water:
> 
> It seems using tap water is the way to go. I will try to collect some rain water and add it. I am worried about the existence of anything toxic in tap water (non-toxic to human but toxic to aquarium like copper).*In the USA, about the only things that give us problems are water that is extremely hard, or high in salt (NaCl). These problems are usually found in well water rather than surface water. Standards may be different in Turkey, but it is rare to find public system water considered safe for humans that is toxic to aquatic life.*
> 
> ...


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## diskoerekto (Dec 12, 2011)

I had the chance to read more about mineralizing and lights and stuff so I come up with new questions:

1- As far as I understand theoretically mineralizing is turning biologic matter to "chemical' matter. Bacterii in oxygenated and damp soil break larger organic molecules into smaller inorganic ones and the result is what we call mineralized soil. On the other hand, isn't decaying of organic matter in substrate a CO2 source for the plants?

2- Would you recommend putting a thin layer of aqualay (a kind of clay targeted for aquariums I guess if you do not have the brand in the US) between the soil and gravel? My friend says it would be nice keeping the soil down. Will it hurt?

3- About lighting, I checked the lighting forum and that is another world. I understood the basic principles and now trying to see which brands and models we have available in Istanbul. Aquarelle by Philips seem to be nice. I will do some experimenting here. Also with power LEDs. We will see.

4- I was worried about water because there was a lot of mentioning in Ms. Walstad's book about copper levels in tap water being ok for human beings but toxic for aquarius life. If that is a rare case then I think I'll take the risk.

Update: still waiting for the stand and tank to be ready. Will start taking photos when carpenter starts working. Also will start mineralizing the soil in the meanwhile. My friend will be gone to his hometown for 20 days and I will use his room for drying the soil <sinister laugh>.


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Emrah, see below:



diskoerekto said:


> I had the chance to read more about mineralizing and lights and stuff so I come up with new questions:
> 
> 1- As far as I understand theoretically mineralizing is turning biologic matter to "chemical' matter. Bacterii in oxygenated and damp soil break larger organic molecules into smaller inorganic ones and the result is what we call mineralized soil. On the other hand, isn't decaying of organic matter in substrate a CO2 source for the plants?
> 
> ...


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## activesize (Jun 26, 2011)

@diskoerekto. I'd just like to add that I'm glad that you're thoughtful enough as an engineer to grasp in theory the benefits of the Walstad method compared to your friend who seems to like the gadget side of the hobby a lot just for it's own sake. Of course, there's equipment involved with the Walstad method also. However, the difference compared to the so called 'hi tech' method is that Walstad uses some of the same equipment as 'hi tech' for the purpose of creating a more natural system, not to 'rev up' nature just because you might like the results. (To be fair, Walstad even recommends a UV sterilizer but I personally haven't needed it, and I keep rainbow fish too. However, I obtained them from a reputable breeder). For me personally, I got pleasure in proving my 'hi tech' electrical/water engineer friend wrong who was so adamant that I will kill all of my plants without CO2 injection. Now, he has a whole different attitude.


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## diskoerekto (Dec 12, 2011)

New small questions:

1- I was going to include this in my original post but forgot. The recipe of the ideal soil as I found on the internet is as follows: 7 parts loam, 3 parts peat, 2 parts sand. Additional stuff is 0.6 kg ground limestone, 3,6 kg hoof and horn, 3.6 kg superphosphate and 1.8 kg potassium sulphate per cubic meter of soil. Regarding I will use the "pile of soil" as my loam, is this an ideal mixture?

2- I am still undecided about the mineralizing. It sounds very very helpful in many many ways but I am afraid of CO2 deficiency. Will I experience such problem? I do not want to use CO2 supplement. What other natural ways are there to introduce CO2 to water column?

3- There is something called "mosquito fence" that we put to window frames to keep mosquitoes out of the house when the windows are out. It is a plastic or metal net that is quite fine. We are planning to lay this between gravel and aqualay to make sure soil and stuff are kept down. Does this make sense? Will it prevent plant roots from reaching the soil?

Other questions will follow from time to time when they come to my mind. When the carpenter starts working (hopefully he will start early next week but carpenters are reputable for their late starting and late finishing but hopefully that won't be the case) photos will follow as well.

Cheers,
Emrah


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

See below.



diskoerekto said:


> New small questions:
> 
> 1- I was going to include this in my original post but forgot. The recipe of the ideal soil as I found on the internet is as follows: 7 parts loam, 3 parts peat, 2 parts sand. Additional stuff is 0.6 kg ground limestone, 3,6 kg hoof and horn, 3.6 kg superphosphate and 1.8 kg potassium sulphate per cubic meter of soil. Regarding I will use the "pile of soil" as my loam, is this an ideal mixture?
> 
> ...


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## diskoerekto (Dec 12, 2011)

Update:

Failing to find the soil of my dream (most had white foamy stuff inside or was mostly peat or had animal manure in it), I took a day off from work tomorrow. We will drive to a nearby creek that ends in a lake and collect some soil/loam/alluvium/whatever with a shovel and bring it home for mineralizing. 

Question:

What should I look for? Any pitfalls? Any tips & tricks? Should I just shovel the richest looking pile of soil and bring home?

PS: Work on the tank is starting, this means photos are starting. Yay .


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Sounds like a good plan. You may bring home some other aquatic organisms with soil collected from a stream, so look for loam that is dry and well above normal water level. Let the soil thoroughly dry several times during the mineralization process, and this will reduce any unwanted hitchhikers.

You are right to avoid the soils with large amounts of manure and the "white foamy stuff". This later is probably perlite, which will float until the end of the world and look terrible on the surface of the water.


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## diskoerekto (Dec 12, 2011)

--- Chapter 1 - The field trip ---

Last Friday we went for the field trip to collect some soil (or loam for that matter). There was a creek that ended in a lake nearby so we thought there would be some stuff we've been looking for. Firstly, it was quite hard to reach the shore. This is my friend going under some barbed wire:









And this is me pulling the same stunt:









Keep it in mind that I have some autoimmune joint disease that makes hard to move at all, so this is big stuff for me .

When we made it to the shoreline, we were disappointed a lot. There was a lot of litter around (Istanbul is a city with around 20 million inhabitants and even though this is outside the city the trash of the city somehow had found its way here it seems) like empty soda bottles, plastic bags etc, even a baby diaper!. Besides that, the soil was not loam-y at all. In fact, it was full of little stones and pebbles and it seemed just wrong. See a photo me and the pastures which does not include the trash:









So, leaving my friend (Mustafa) who is disappointed from the general view, I started to wander into the treeline and saw the trees were oak trees and the ground was covered with dried oak leaves and some acorns. There was even some peaceful looking mushrooms. So I cleaned the ground a little and there was some black soil. It was not loam but at least it was some natural soil with no perlite, animal manure or artificial fertilizers.









I called Mustafa and he started collecting soil. We only took the top few inches where the soil seemed to be richer.









It makes sense I find the soil and he does the hard work, after all I am 10 years older than him .

--- End of chapter 1 part 1 ---

EDIT: attachments fixed


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Of course it is hard to tell from photos, but that looks like a great place to collect soil. It should have some well-decomposed organics along with the mineral componenents. Good find!

For some reason, the first 3 photos are not visible.


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## diskoerekto (Dec 12, 2011)

--- Chapter 1 - The field trip - part 2 ---

So, you can see here what the soil looks like:









We brought it home after a very, very, very hard trip back home. Carrying that amount of soil up a very steep hill to the trunk of the car was really tiresome. When we got home, we put the bowl of soil in the balcony and started to add water for mineralization:









The resulting mud seemed like this:









We crushed most of the big chunks of soil and stirred a lot. Many worms, a centipede, some leaves, some roots, some stones came out of the soil. Lastly, there was a lot of floating stuff. It was freezing cold and the tap water I put to make mud was freezing cold so making a mud dough with hands was a freezing experience.

2 days went by and last evening I changed the water. It clogged the water drain 3 times but fortunately I managed to open it every time. I put new water to it and will repeat this a few times until I start laying the wet soil on a tarp and start drying it (again a few times until the soil is mineralized). See the second time with water and notice the difference in color:









I also took a sample of water from the mud to check its color:









Bad news is, after I change the water I see that there is around 10-12 liters (3 gallons) of soil in the container. I guess I will have to find some more soil.

So this is it I guess 

--- End of Chapter 1 - The field trip ---

Now the questions:

Is the soil ok for the job? Should I start over? Should I add anything in it?
It is not very warm outside and it is sunny only on some days and on those days it is not the scorching August sun but rather something milder, how long would it take until the soil is mineralized?
I plan to put some snails in the tank, do they burrow too much and reach the soil?
I found some LFS that also work online and found lists of plants they carry. There are many other stores around but this list came in handy so that I can share with you and ask which species to try and which to avoid and why (keep in mind Mustafa says he does not like Vallisneria).
*Alternanthera Reineckii
*Crinum Thaianum
*Glossostigma
*Hemianthus Micranthemoides*
*Limnophila Aromatica
*Moss -Willow Moss (Fontinalis antipyretica)*
*Myriophyllum spicatum
Moss Ball
*Microsorum Pteropus (Java Fern)*
*Nuphar Japonica*
*Aponogeton Ulvaceus Compact
*Riccia fluitans 1 tabaka 5x10 cm2*
*Rotala rotundifolia
*Hygrophila difformis
*Hygrophila Siamensis
*Echinodorus - Red Ozelot
*Eleocharis Vivipara
*Limnobium laevigatum
*Micranthemum Umbrosum
*Vallisneria Americana Gigantea
*Echinodorus - Green Ozelot
*Lobelia Cardinalis
*Aponogeton crispus
*Aponogeton Capuroni
*Lilaeopsis brasiliensis
*Nymphaea lotus (zenkeri)
*Ludwigia Repens
*Limnophila sessiliflora
*Rotala Wallichi
*Vallisneria Spiralis
*Hygrophila polysperma Ceylon
*Anubias Barteri Broad Leaf
*Ceratophyllum demersum
*Echinodorus quadricostatus
*Hydrocotyle verticillata
*Sagittaria Platyphylla
*Barclaya longifolia 'Red' bulb
*Hemianthus callitrichoides ''Cuba''*
*Moss "Java Moss" (Vesicularia dubyana)*
*Cryptocoryne albida
*Cryptocoryne Walkeri
*Hygrophila corymbosa
*Christmas Moss
*Anubias Barteri var. Nana
*Elodea Densa(Egeria)
*Echinodorus - Osirirs
*Cabomba Caroliniana
*Cryptocoryne wendtii brown
*Cryptocoryne wendtii Green
*Parvula (Eleocharis Parvula)
*Aponogeton madagascarensis 'Broad Leaf'
*Bacopa monnieri

I had many questions in mind but I forgot most of those when I started typing. We'll see later if they pop back 

Cheers,
Emrah


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

See below:

Is the soil ok for the job? Should I start over? Should I add anything in it?
*It looks good. Assuming that your water is not very soft or very low pH, you don't need to add anything.*

It is not very warm outside and it is sunny only on some days and on those days it is not the scorching August sun but rather something milder, how long would it take until the soil is mineralized?
*It just depends on how long it takes the soil to dry between soakings. Spreading it in a very thin layer helps. This soil probably will not need more than 3 soak and dry cycles.*

I plan to put some snails in the tank, do they burrow too much and reach the soil?
*The only common burrowing snail kept in aquaria is the Malaysian trumpet snail. I have not kept these myself, but others with soil substrates have them without probelms. You should probably post a question on the Shrimp and other Invertebrates forum.*

I found some LFS that also work online and found lists of plants they carry. There are many other stores around but this list came in handy so that I can share with you and ask which species to try and which to avoid and why (keep in mind Mustafa says he does not like Vallisneria).
*This is a great list of plants to choose from! I suggest you go to the Plant Finder, and do searches for "difficult" and "very difficult" plants. Compare those results to your list, and cross off the species that are rated difficult and very difficult. Then go back to your list, and look up the species that are left. Make note of the ones that you especially like, and work from that list for your tank.*


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## diskoerekto (Dec 12, 2011)

--- Chapter 2 - An indoor hobby? Doubt so ---

Well, I've been slacking off a lot lately and was intending to write this post for quite some time but was too lazy for this. Mineralization is still underway and is going slowly because weather is not so suitable. It snows and rains and the sun seldom shows itself so the mud in the balcony is not drying quickly. On the other hand I feel like it is good for the mineralization process where the mud half-dries, then hit by rain, then half-dries again etc.

So this is the mud washed twice that I had started the drying on 3rd of January:









I poured the pile of mud on some tarp:









And evened it so that I make a thin layer (a little thinner than an inch I guess). The ruler you see there is 16 inches long so you can measure how much mud I have. It feels like it is half the amount I need:









So I did some little traveling to find some more mud albeit this time it was quite a short trip. I looked around in the backyard of the apartment and found some soil that looked like terrarossa (does this mean anything in english?) under a cherry tree. So I dug some soil from there and carried upstairs:









I made some mud out of this new soil. It settled quite quicker than the first batch of soil. So I washed it in the evening and filled with water again so that I can lay this on the tarp the next day. See the difference in color of the mud. The first batch was much more brown-black while this is orange-red:









The next day, I laid the new soil next to the old one. The black soil was like chewing gum or pizza dough and was holding together. In fact, using a piece of mud, I was able to clean the plastic container as the mud tended to stick to other piece of mud instead of staying on the container. The new red mud was much more "muddy". It was lighter (when mixing with a stick), left less particles in water, sedimented (I guess I keep on making up words) quicker, and felt less messy. On the other hand, since it was not "chewing gum-y" like the black one it left the container dirtier. You can again notice the difference in color when laid on tarp:









In the previous picture, you can notice a vase filled with water. We took some moss from a tree bark and placed it in the vase to see if it would survive. The thing is, it survived and started to happily do photosynthesis:









I even took the liberty of taking some cloudy water from the mud that was being washed and thinking it contains CO2 and ammonia the plants need to grow I put it in the vase. It was not clear water but the next day the water became very clear and the moss was very very happily pearling:









Now actually there are now 2 orange apple snails, a nerrite snail, 5 cherry shrimps and 1 sakura shrimp in that vase. I also added some java moss I tied to a yati branch and a water lettuce but I ordered the water lettuce from some internet store and it was half dead when it arrived. It seems like it will not survive. There is no substrate to speak of in the vase, just some lava stone, pebbles and "ovened" (I guess this word does not exists in English either) clay. We just keep it to pass some time and to observe if the moss from the tree will survive. There is an E14 spiral economic fluorescent lamp (osram, 865 color code) for lighting. It quite an ad-hoc tiny aquarium which I try to use as a showcase that CO2 supplement is unnecessary to Mustafa. He is amazed about the pearling of mosses but he still went behind my back and bought some DIY CO2 stuff. So I bought him a 10 gallon which will be used as a quarantine aquarium and told him he can only put his CO2 stuff there not the main tank. Whatever is, here is a picture from the vase:









Back on the mineralization topic, it took quite long for the mud to dry the first time. There was cracks and stuff that shows it is drying but it was still quite damp:









After waiting for around 2 weeks we decided that was as dry as it gets. It was not scorch dry but at least it was not mud so we started to break it into smaller pieces. The method we did was putting some soil pieces (bark of soil, to describe) in a bag and jumping over it until it feels like dust. It took quite some time and was a tiring process but that way we managed to turn all half dry soil into dust. The black soil from the forest that came under oak trees which was like chewing gum when I was laying on the tarp surprisingly felt easier to become like dust. I would have expected the "lighter" terrarossa like soil to crumble easier and become like dust easier but it was the other way around. Maybe it was damper or maybe there is another factor to it, I do not know.

So, we jumped on all the pieces of soil and filled the container with water (warm water this time because making mud pies with bare hands in winter makes your limbs to feel as if they will fall off) and made a big mess of mud again. The 2 types of soil was now mixed in the container. To see if it will leave some mess in the water we left it overnight and discarded the water that stayed on top again. Next day Mustafa laid the mud on tarp and he did a way messier job than I did . I am not sure if I am a tidier person or the bitterness of 30 years of age puts me in a state of mind who is like squidward from the spongebob cartoon.

Now we are waiting for the mud to dry again but it either snows or rains and we'll see when the drying happens. I intend to repeat this cycle until we receive the tank from the carpenter. Speaking of which, carpenters here are famous for delaying work. He was "starting the work that week" for nearly a month, and now he will "finish at the end of the week" for last 2 weeks. The soil will get mineralized to hell until then.

Cheers,
Emrah

--- End of Chapter 2 - An indoor hobby? Doubt so ---


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