# [Wet Thumb Forum]-Tips, Tricks and Questions



## Matthew Hacon (Apr 8, 2005)

Hi All,
I am finally getting around to setting up my tank. I wanted to attempt to get some feedback from people about what they would do differently if given another chance. I do have Diana's book and I have read it. You're all such a helpfull group I thought I would chance my arm







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For some background; this is the tank that I have.

31 US gallons
80cm long, 35 wide, 45 deep (31.5" x 13.8" x 17.7")
2 20W flourescent (Hagen Aqua-Glo and Sun-Glo which came with the tank) T8 bulbs.
Aquaclear 200 (now 50) HOB filter
150W heater.

*Water*
As far as I can tell, I have soft (55ppm/3gH) slightly alkaline (7.5) water. I have no idea what the water company do to my water to get it like that! Allegedly from an oldish water quality report i have 8ppm calcium, 0.1 iron and zinc; 0.002 phosphates and 0.8 potassium.
Do you think that I am going to need to supplement my water? I would rather not have to mess around with it every week to keep things topped up. I plan on having some driftwood in the tank. Perhaps a certain rock might help?

*Substrate*

Obviously I plan on getting some potting/top soil and some small gravel with both being about 1 to 1.5" deep. I think that means I need about 9 litres/2.4 gallons of each substrate.

How much weight of gravel and soil do you think that comes to?
Is there a particular substrate I could add to harden up my water? If it needs hardening.

*Planting*
Does anyone have any tips or tricks here? 
Should I wet the soil before adding it to the tank? Should the height of the substrate be 1 to 1.5" wet?
How much water should I add before planting? I get the feeling that any over the height of the substrate will mean that it will go cloudy as I plant. Does it 'hurt' the plants to be planted out of the water?
I need a heavily planted tank, how many plants should I look to be buying from the LFS?
Should I to look for stem plants or not?

*Cycling*
Is it worth adding ammonia to my water for a while to help cycle the tank? I don't have any biological 'gunk' to add from any other tanks.
I had planned to wait a week or so before adding fish, mainly becuase I have never planted a tank and I don't want the fish hanging around all day while I mess about!

Any other advice or tips that anyone can think of would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Mat.

p.s. I will hopefully take some pictures, as you can't have a 'build it' thread without them!


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

Hey Matt! Welcome to the forum! The first piece of advice I would have to give, based on my mistake is to do a bottle test before setting up your tank. Basically just set up a bottle with the soil and gravel you'll use in your tank and add water (you can even add a small plant or two, depending on how big a bottle you use (large mason jars will work, as will soda bottles, mayo jars, etc...)). Then give it a good month, testing fairly frequently (every couple of days) to see if your water leaches any harmful compounds like nitrite or ammonia into the water. That will give you a good indication of what to expect when you set up your tank.

As to increasing your water's hardness see this thread on increasing GH for a comprehensive discussion on the matter. You can also add additives to the soil such as small amounts of oyster grit or cuttle bone. I added broken up cuttle bone around my vals and noticed a huge growth spurt. I think your soft water would def. benefit from the addition of supplements to harden it and provide some trace elements for your plants.

As to the actual planting, I think the best bet (or rather, what has worked for me) is to add the soil right out of the bag. Then rinse and add the gravel. Next, carefully fill the tank with enough water to cover the substrate plus about three inches or so. Then proceed with planting. Once you got everything where you want it, change out the water and refill the tank. (I'm not sure what you mean by "planted out of the water"). There's really no exact number of plants you need. I usually just buy a package from an online source. If you wanted, I'm sure Robert could help you with a nice selection of plants for your tank. Stem plants, I believe, generally require stronger light requirements than what you're providing at 1.5 WPG, but I would go ahead and try them anyway. The point here is to add as many plants as possible and see what grows and what doesn't.

Speaking of your lighting, at 1.5 wpg you're on the lower side and might have difficulty growing many varieties of plants unless the tank receives ample light from a window. You might want to consider upgrading to at least 60 watts of light, especially if your tank won't be in front of a window. That being said, I'm having great growth of out my 10gal w/ a 15 watt bulb. But then again, that tank is in front of a really bright window (read: gets hours of direct sunlight on sunny days).

As to supplements, I think you should consider dosing with trace elements (see the link above) to harden your water, but that should be all you need: the plants, fish, fish waste and extra food will provide the rest.

Lastly, the answer to your question on cycling really depends on the results of your bottle test. If you don't have any problems w/ ammonia or nitrite during your bottle test, then you should be ok to add fish shortly after setting up the tank. Although, I think it's best to wait a couple of days just to make sure everything is on the up and up.

Well, I hope this helps. I'm sure others will add more tips and tricks as there are many ways to go about setting up a soil based tank. This is just based on my experiences and what I've gathered from the other wonderful folks here!









-ricardo


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## Matthew Hacon (Apr 8, 2005)

Thanks for the feeback Ricardo, very thorough.

We'll I'm off and running. This weekend was my designated weekend for set up (I had most of Saturday available for once) so unfortunately I didn't get a change to do a bottle test. Perhaps I will also wish I had.

I followed your technique for planting and the substrate wasn't disturbed too much. I thought I would get lots of soil in the water as I planted but it wasn't too bad. I drained off the excess 3 inches or so, and then used a clean cloth to wipe off the soil that had stuck to the glass.

I'm not sure if I have enough plants I will take a picture tonight. I hoping that they will grow in. I bought _Vallisneria spiralis _, Java fern, some kind of dwarf grass, and maybe 3 others, one being a stem plant with roundish leaves that are in pairs (from looking at Tropica it might be a _Bacopa_). One other being a tall (6inch) thick leaved grass like looking plant).

One problem I did have was that my HOB's case was cracked (only noticed this when filling up late on Saturday), so I was unable to get a filter running the same evening. My LFS replaced it for me yesterday, no questions asked. So for Sat night I had no water movement, and finally got some going on Sunday lunch time.

My lights are on a timer 10 hours a day (lunch onwards), and the room is west facing and so gets morning light, but not directly into the tank just the room.

This morning I observed some cloudiness in the tank similar to this observation by DLevy. I am hoping that it is a bacterial bloom, I added someCycle to the tank on Sat (because it came with the tank kit, and I didn't think it would do any harm, it probably wont even do any good either) as well as water conditioner. Hopefully the cloudiness will clear up in a day or two. The wife already gave me a funny look this morning, so I hope it doesn't persist!

Tonight, I will do some water tests, and take some pictures - for some plant confirmation, and advice about the number and size of plants I have. They are more expensive than I thought/remember and quite small when you first get them. I am willing them to grow, but I don't see it happening as I watch ;-p.

Thanks again all/Ricardo.

Mat.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Dear Mat,

The cloudiness might be some chemical precipitation or clay particles released from soil. It just seems like it would take longer for a bacteria bloom or algae to take off this quickly. I assume that you set this tank up just two days ago.

If it is really cloudy, I would do a water change. It can't hurt. You don't want all that stuff (clay or chemicals) in the water settling on your plant leaves. It will encourage algae and bacterial growth on the leaves.

Adding water conditioner and cycler is probably a good idea when first starting out....especially if you have them on hand. 

It's always tricky first starting out. Anything can happen!

But it sounds like you've planned well and are proceeding reasonably.


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## Matthew Hacon (Apr 8, 2005)

Diana and others that are interested,

I think it might well be tannins and soil particles in the water column. I have taken some pictures that follow.

I think that I might have to start dosing with Ammonia to try and build up some biological filtration (as I currently don't have fish in the tank). I did a water test last night, 0 ammonia (suprise suprise), 0.1 nitrite and 5 nitrate (probably what it is coming up out of the pipe). Does this sound like a reasonable idea, or will the plants suck it all up before any bacteria get a chance to form?

Here are some pictures that I took last night, and advice on planting density and identifying plants would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Full tank










Right side










Left side


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## Dave P (Dec 13, 2005)

> I think that I might have to start dosing with Ammonia to try and build up some biological filtration (as I currently don't have fish in the tank). I did a water test last night, 0 ammonia (suprise suprise), 0.1 nitrite and 5 nitrate (probably what it is coming up out of the pipe). Does this sound like a reasonable idea, or will the plants suck it all up before any bacteria get a chance to form?


Matt, I would stay away from the ammonia. There are too many things that can go wrong if you dose ammonia, and you may end up pushing some of your water parameters (particularly pH) in directions that may become harmful to the plants and other organisms.

In my opinion, your goal should be focused on getting nutrients to the plants rather than stimulating bacterial filtration. This will come quickly on its own. Remember that aquatic plants are in competition with nitrifying bacteria...the plants _are_ a major part of your biological filtration.

In planted aquaria, whether it's high tech, or low tech, you can begin stocking with fish much earlier (even within a few hours of setup) than unplanted aquaria. I would begin by adding a few fish *now* and starting a feeding regimen as detailed in Diana's book. By regimen, I mean that you should be feeding the aquarium, not just the fish! Fishfood _is_ the fertilizer in El Natural aquaria.

Floating plants like salvinia, duckweed, limnobium, etc. are a good insurance policy should ammonia get out of hand. They well quickly absorb excess ammonia. Also good to have on hand is some hornwort. This can all be removed later if you don't like it, although I keep a small bunch of this in my aquarium. These plants are particularly good at competing with algae, which is also something to keep in mind.

Hope this helps,
Dave


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## Avenolpey (Jun 28, 2005)

To avoid slushing up the soil by doing major water changes I did a simultaneous syphon and fill until the water cleared. Since you don't have any fish in the tank yet this should work for you. I just put the syphon out the window and the hose into the tank and matched the flows.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

Matt: I think the other important thing to remember is to have patience. That's the most important lesson I've learned from this forum (even so I often find myself being impatient!) I mention this b/c it seems like you want to add ammonia to hurry things along (ie the establishment of nitrifying bacteria). Just see what happens for a little while. Add a few fish and relax. Keep testing the water every couple of days, things might change, especially when you add new fish. 

The reason you don't have any ammonia is b/c you just set up the tank. Freshly set up tanks are not going to have ammonia. That comes from decaying plant matter and fish waste. Tanks aren't really going to have ammonia three or four days after it has been set up if they have no fish. That's why we add fish a few a time, to slowly build up the bacteria colonies that will eat the ammonia. The nice thing about a soil based tank is that the soil contains lots of bacteria so you can add a larger number of fish sooner. 

So.... add your fish and see what happens. I would also recommend you get some more plants. You're off to a good start, but you really want a well-planted tank to soak up all the nutrients that are about to be released by your new soil. I'd especially follow Dave's advice and get some floating plants to help w/ filtration.

-ricardo


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Matt,

With zero ammonia, I can't understand why you would _not_ put fish in this tank.

People unaccustomed to El Naturale tanks underestimate the power of plants and soil to naturally purify the water and make it safe for fish.

Plants will remove ammonia and what they don't get will be processed by all those nitrifying bacteria that came with the soil you added.

Take a chance on your soil and plants. I think you'll be surprised, pleasantly I predict. You've done the hard work, set up the tank with soil, plants, etc. Now you can kind of relax and let nature take its course.

There's no need to cycle this tank. Add fish and start feeding them well. A few floating plants wouldn't hurt.

I predict that the cloudiness will go away as the tank establishes itself.


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## Matthew Hacon (Apr 8, 2005)

Update:

I have some fish in the tank now. I bought a KH & GH test kit, and have a KH of 12/13 and GH of 2/3 ... so I need to add some Ca/Mg. I have read the water hardening thread and I am working on it.

The water has cleared up, it's pretty clear now, just some tannins from the soil and drfitwood creating a yellowish colour.

One major problem that I am having is that I have a algae growth on the substrate. It is white, and looks like cotton wool, and grows like a mat about 1/2 an inch thick. Any ideas to what it might be? I can get a toothbrush and tease it out, and wrap it around the end, it's just that it comes back real quickly. I am hoping that when the plants get growing they will take over. I can only hope.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Dear Matthew,

Your KH is pretty high (12-13), in comparison to GH. I wonder if the city doesn't add bicarbonates to the water supply. The initial white ppt in the tank might have been fine particles of calcium carbonate.

As to the matt, maybe fungi? That's good that you can just roll it up with a toothbrush. I predict that you'll see less and less of this matt growth with time. 

Soil submergence inevitably sets off a wild cascade of biological activity. Makes aquarium keeping interesting.


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## Matthew Hacon (Apr 8, 2005)

Thanks Diana, I think the city must add bicarbonate .. probably to help keep the pH stable.

Anyway, I forget to mention, as I was cleaning the substrate of the 'cotton wool' bubbles of gas were released from within the substrate. I tried a sniff test, and they didn't seem to be 'eggy'. Any thoughts - I think you mention it in your book, I will probably need to scan it again.


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## Matt S. (Nov 3, 2005)

> Originally posted by Matthew Hacon:
> Update:
> One major problem that I am having is that I have a algae growth on the substrate. It is white, and looks like cotton wool, and grows like a mat about 1/2 an inch thick. Any ideas to what it might be? I can get a toothbrush and tease it out, and wrap it around the end, it's just that it comes back real quickly. I am hoping that when the plants get growing they will take over. I can only hope.


I had this white stuff once when I first set up a tank. I had no lights on the tank for a week after setup and it still grew - so as Diana suggests very likely to be a fungus. I found that the Otos and SAEs made quick work of the stuff when I added them into the tank. Haven't seen any of this for a year now so it's probably just a new setup phenomenon.


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## Matthew Hacon (Apr 8, 2005)

Thanks for the comforting words Matt.

I did a 10% water change on Saturday, and used a gravel vacuum to try and suck up more of the white stuff







. It hasn't come back as of yet, before it was back in 24 hours or so. I can only hope. There is still some at the back of the tank behind some driftwood, but it isn't growing.

Yesterday I loaded up with some more fish, 5 Serpae Tetra, 4 Dwarf Neon Rainbow fish; these are in addition to the 9 Neon Tetras that I already had. The bigger fish are causing the Neon's to shoal a little better than they did before, so it's looking good now. I wanted a small Pleco but the LFS only had the regular ones; and I know that get large so I don't want to have to send him/her back. They had Clown Pleco's for CA$15 but that's a little expensive right now - I want to make sure that it will live!

I still have some cloudy water, but hopefully that will clear up. It seemed to happen after the water change. I am not sure if it caused by the dechlorinator? Can you add too much?

One thing that I have noticed is how much my plants have grown, compared to the pictures from above. I'll have to do a photo update.


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## Matt S. (Nov 3, 2005)

Hi Matthew. I think the amount of cloudiness shown in the picture of your tank above is nothing to be alarmed about. I also had that in my 100G tank when I first started it. I think I did do a 100% water change one time and I've never seen it again. However, I don't know if you have to do water changes to get rid of it. It'll probably clear up on its own if you leave it. One of the pleasures of the natural aquarium is not doing regular water changes (unless you count once in 3-4 months as regular). 

I don't know if there are any adverse effects from adding too much water conditioner, but I wouldn't exceed the amount recommended on the packaging. I don't think anything is gained by adding more and you might get into trouble. They put odd stuff into most conditioners these days - like aloe vera & special coloidals for the fish.


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## Matthew Hacon (Apr 8, 2005)

Thanks Matt.

Hope you enjoy life in Singapore, I had great chilli crab to eat there on time; and I think it is a wonderfull city.

Here are some pictures.

The tank now (well actually before a little clean earlier). Also I found out that Java Fern doesn't grow in the substrate so I moved it to the wood.









And an example of my 'white stuff'.










I think some of the cloudiness (which looks green in the picture but is actually white) comes from me messing around in the substrate lots, and I think it will settle eventually ....


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## Matt S. (Nov 3, 2005)

Hi Matthew. The food is one of the best things about Singapore so I'm not suprised you mention that. Eventually I got used to the heat - can't say the same for many aquatic plant species I'd like to grow. 

I don't think the haze in the tank is anything to worry about. Still no fish in the tank and this is week 2? As long as your water parameters are checking out alright I'd get the fish in there ASAP. Perhaps, put some otos or SAE's to work on that white stuff.


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## Matthew Hacon (Apr 8, 2005)

I have had 9 small Neon Tetra's for a week, and 5 serpae tetra and 4 dwarf rainbows since Saturday. The LFS didn't have any decent bottom feeders, so I will have to try another one in the area.

I'm not worried about the water, but the wife ... sheesh ...







.


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## Matt S. (Nov 3, 2005)

Ah yes, now I see the shadows of fishes in the mist. 

Just tell the wife it's your cloudland aquascape. Or you are faithfully trying to recreate the turbidity of natural waters.

Once the organic matter in the aquarium builds up I think the cloudiness will subside. If you want to speed it up you could perhaps try filtering with a diatom filter insert. I've also seen reference here to the use of aquaclear powerhead with quickfilter - it has some kind of insert that might be fine enough.


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

Matthew: I think the tank is looking good and will look even better when it fills in some. If you want to hurry up the clearing of the water, you can get a powerhead and the Aqua Clear Quick Filter attachment which should take care of the cloudiness pretty well. You mighte even be able to attach the Quick Filter to the bottom of your HOB intake tube...

Good luck!

-ricardo


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## Matthew Hacon (Apr 8, 2005)

Natural cleaning is coming along well. I think I need to scrape some of the soil from the back glass as it is making the image look cloudy, along with my poor quality 5 year old digital camera.

Here are the latest photos.

Full tank









Left side (Java fern now on the wood).










Right side. This plant (whatever it is) seems to have grown a lot over the last week, at least an inch in height.









I really need to fill in the foreground. I have this dwarf hair grass but it doesn't seem to be doing much. Some new shoots but spreading is slow.









Any thoughts on foreground filler? Also I have brown spots on many of the plants, I think that it is the soil that has 'fallen' out of the water - is this an issue? Should I try to clean it off somehow?


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## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

For foreground plants, I'm a big fan of E. tenellus "broad leaf" (broad leaf chain sword). I don't know, I just love the way it looks, like grass.

-ricardo


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Matthew,

It looks like the plants are adjusting. Note the frayed, decomposing E. tenellus leaves alongside the greener ones. Promising. 

Nit-picking, but I wouldn't plant rooted plants as deep as this E. tenellus. Just remove a little gravel around its crown, so it can "breathe".

Main thing: I would have doubled the plant order for this tank. I see too much bare gravel. If there aren't enough plants right at beginning, algae can easily gain foothold. Also, sometimes plants inadvertently help each other by bringing oxygen down into the substrate. One alone may die, whereas multiple plants may do fine. Scientists call it "the neighboring plant effect".


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## Matthew Hacon (Apr 8, 2005)

Thanks for you advice Diana. I take all comments constructively.

So last week I did about a 40 to 50% water change, before I did this I checked my ammonia (close to zero), nitrite (about 0.5) and nitrate (about 15 to 20) - it's hard to get the exact values as all the purple/pink colours look the same to me!

So my change wasn't because of water quality, but because I wanted to clean the tank out a little and replant the E. tenellus as Diana suggested. My tank seemed to have quite large soil volcanoes, which were caused by the bubbling from the substrate blowing soil out into the water, so I wanted to cover them up and smooth out the gravel as everything was getting covered in soil.

So as of last week (Thursday), this is what the tank looks like.









The plants are growing like mad, especially this one, I thought that they were supposed to grow slowly in a natural tank, this seems to grow at about 1/2 an inch a day.









I just got back from a weekend away and this plant has easily reached the surface, and is bending over and part floating at the top. Any suggestions on whether I should prune it? And indeed what kind of pruning I should do?

Mat.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

That's anacharis. It is a fast growing stem plant which should be helpful while your other plants are getting established. It's also supposed to secrete chemicals that inhibit algae growth.

I'd just cut off the top about a third of the way up from the bottom of the tank, then you can plant the top an inch or so from the other stems. It will shoot out roots at each node. Also, the bottom part that you left rooted will send out new shoots at the nodes and it'll get bushier over time. It can also be left floating.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Tank looks like its doing pretty well, in comparison to Feb photo.

That's great that you've got a fast-growing plant like Elodea taking off. I'd take Betty's advice on propogating it.

So you didn't think plants could grow fast all by themselves.


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