# Converting to el natural



## The Naturalist (Jan 3, 2007)

I have been browsing this forum for some time, and am planning to convert my 40 gallon and 5 gallon aquariums to Walstad-style natural tanks.I have not read Walstad's book but plan to soon. My 40 gallon aquarium has white cloud minnows, cave tetras, and mollies for fish and a dying Amazon Sword and a few crypts for plants. The five has a baby molly, a guppy, and some crypts. Lighting is a 15-watt compact flourescent on the 5 and two 30 watt flourescents on the 40. Filteration and water flow are provided by a small powerhead and a Fluval 204 on the 40 and a small HOB on the 5. Substrate is currently plain gravel. All advice and comments are appreciated, especially on how to add soil to the substrate of a full tank.


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## sb483 (May 29, 2006)

Are you sure you want to add soil to the existing tank, instead of emptying the tank out and starting from scratch? In Diana's book she suggests wrapping soil in wax paper, pushing the wrapped up wax paper soil packets into the gravel, then poking a knife through the packets -- eventually the paper disintegrates and the soil enters the substrate.
But I'd recommend thinking about keeping the fish in a temporary storage tank (throw in some hornwort or duckweed), and emptying the tanks out and starting over. A quick summary of the low-tech method: 1" common potting/garden soil, covered with 1" gravel, plant many different varieties of plants and let them fight it out (mass planting will help keep algae away), try to use available window light. The sticky above explains in more detail.


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## essabee (Oct 11, 2006)

Walstad-style natural tanks, I like this Nome culture, lets shorten it, 'W-style'.

You wish for W-style, go for it from a baseline start, handling soil with standing water would be a disastrous start of pehaps the most important aspect of the style. The second most important aspect would be to balance your plants & fish/invertibrates & feeding.


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## sb483 (May 29, 2006)

essabee said:


> Walstad-style natural tanks, I like this Nome culture, lets shorten it, 'W-style'.
> 
> You wish for W-style, go for it from a baseline start, handling soil with standing water would be a disastrous start of pehaps the most important aspect of the style. The second most important aspect would be to balance your plants & fish/invertibrates & feeding.


I recommend you read Diana's book, she discusses all these in more detail. The gravel on top keeps the soil from mixing with the water when you pour it in. Bacterial biofilms keep the soil from clouding the whole tank afterwards.


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

Another option I hear mentioned a lot is freezing small clumps of soil and pushing the "tundra" under the soil. Although most of the people that ask about how to add soil to an existing substrate usually just tear down the tank and start over.

Also, 15W of light on a 5 gallon might be a little much if its close to the water surface.


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## The Naturalist (Jan 3, 2007)

One option that I have thought of is keeping the gravel substrate and just adding pots of soil to grow the plants in.


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## Steve Pituch (Jan 25, 2004)

*Adding Soil to an Old Tank*

If you have an established tank you don't need to add the soil, or restart the tank from new with soil.

If you have a lot of mulm in the gravel, the gravel and mulm are your soil. When you read "The Book", you will see that the soil is very good at providing trace nutrients and carbon, but a little off at providing macronutrients on the long term. The excess fish food and fish effluent provides the macronutrients.

If your gravel is dirty, it probably has enough mulm in it to provide the micros and carbon in the form of CO2. You might want to add a few more fish if you think they will not be too crowded. Your light on the 40 gallon tank seems about right. Remember to always add a little more fishfood than they will eat as it becomes fertilzer for the plants. My tanks are doing well with just a very dirty dirty gravel substrate.

Don't use the powerhead. The Fluval is plenty. You just want enough circulation to slowly move the water. Any extra circulation (agitation) will cause the natural CO2 to escape the water.

As far is the CO2 issue goes, I had problems with plant growth for years, and algae growth. I always liked open top tanks. About nine month ago I finally broke down (I'm cheap) and purchased a glass top for my 125 gallon tank. The algae went away and the plants are growing nicely. My theory is that I was losing the natural CO2 too quickly to the atmosphere. A similar story I have heard is when people with tight fitting lids on their tanks have a fish kill after they add CO2 injection. The fish did not die from CO2 poisoning, rather the co2 rose to the surface and pushed out the O2 from the air space above the water and beneath the lid. So the fish died from lack of oxygen.

So I feel the lid keeps more of the CO2 in the water and less escapes into the air. I can't explain it presently any other way.

The sword might need a little help unless the soil is presently very dirty. Eventually the soil will keep the sword happy. To cheat you can insert soil beneath the plant or add liquid ferts to the water. I used to wrap soil in wax paper and insert that into the soil. You can jab it with a knife afterwards to help the wax paper to deteriorate.

Good luck and have fun.
Steve Pituch


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## The Naturalist (Jan 3, 2007)

Actually, two of my reasons for converting my tank to a soil substrate NPT is the current decline of my swordplant and the high nitrates in my tank. My tank is a little over two years old, and so is the swordplant. Up until recently, I treated the plants as an afterthought and, though I never had very many, they did just fine. Since my swordplant started to decline, I have been researching aquatic plant care more and have decided that NPT methods are what my tank and my swordplant need to recover without me revving up water changes, fertilizor, CO2, and light. My tank is already semi-natural, and the gravel is a bit dirty. I dose once a week with Kent Freshwater plant fertilizer, and do a water change once a month with a gravel vacuum. I also use the powerhead because the circulation from my fluval is very slow, even though it is not clogged.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

I'd highly recommend going with the soil substrate for non-digging tropical fish. Low maintence, plants and fish are happy and no more fighting with nitrAtes or dosing with anything. Start with plenty of rooted and floating plants. Your amazon sword may even get too large for your 40 gallon if it's happy like mine is. Mine's taking up about a third of a 125 gallon tank.

do a bottle test first to make sure your soil is happy. I've had some that was instantly cycled and another that took a month to settle down. and them more months to chil out bubbling out gasses. it may also be a good idea to spread it out and let it air out for a day or so before setting up the tank.


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## The Naturalist (Jan 3, 2007)

Another question: Is there a such thing as too many or too little water changes in an el natural tank? 

I think that I might try Steve Pituch's idea of just adding a lot more plants and allowing mulm and fish waste to build up and form the "soil." Does anyone else think this will be okay, or should I go ahead and add soil?


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## sb483 (May 29, 2006)

The Naturalist said:


> Another question: Is there a such thing as too many or too little water changes in an el natural tank?
> 
> I think that I might try Steve Pituch's idea of just adding a lot more plants and allowing mulm and fish waste to build up and form the "soil." Does anyone else think this will be okay, or should I go ahead and add soil?


If you change the water too often you remove the nutrients plants need. Only perform a water change when there's a problem with the tank, otherwise do it infrequently - a 25% water change every 6 months is recommended in _Ecology_.

There may be a problem with not adding soil. Soil offers plants the nutrients they need from day 1, so during the time it takes for mulm to build up without any soil layer you may experience poor plant growth and corresponding algae problems. Unless you're sure there's a substantial mulm layer there already.


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## The Naturalist (Jan 3, 2007)

With longer time between water changes, the aquariums will need occasional topping off. Is regular, dechlorinated tapwater safe to use or will that eventually cause a buildup of minerals and heavy metals?


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

Steve Pituch said:


> If you have an established tank you don't need to add the soil, or restart the tank from new with soil.
> 
> If you have a lot of mulm in the gravel, the gravel and mulm are your soil. When you read "The Book", you will see that the soil is very good at providing trace nutrients and carbon, but a little off at providing macronutrients on the long term. The excess fish food and fish effluent provides the macronutrients.
> 
> ...


I have a very established tank. I have bubbles that escape from my substrate. I have lots of mulm, mostly because of my thick carpet of spiral val's. I can stick my finger in the gravel and a few bubbles will escape. How can I tell if this is CO2 or "bad gas"? I hope this is CO2!!!


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## Brocklee (Feb 5, 2007)

What is "bad gas" in the substrate? I've never owned fish before, but I've setup two tanks in the last month, trying for a Walstad natural planted tank. The first tank has Eco-Complete as the substrate in a 10g tank with a betta and some corys (I got the betta as an xmas gift in a tiny bowl, which I thought was sad, so I upgraded him... and well, now I can't stop buying fish stuff). The other has topsoil I bought from Lowes with gravel on top (ended up being about 2 inches of soil and 1.5 inches of gravel). This is a 29g tank with an assortment of fish I've been adding.

Both tanks have a lot of (new) plants. I'm experiementing with plants and fish, learning the many varieties and whatnot.

Anyhow, I can poke both of these substrates with a stick and get bubbles that come out. I assumed this was good. Is this bad??


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## rohape (Feb 7, 2005)

From my reading, what you have should be CO2 from the soil. What I thought I may have is from feeding my fish mexican food.   (heh heh, bad gas...bad joke?)
No, when dead plants, fish food, fish afterfood, etc. break down it makes H2S?? I think I read somewhere. But it's definently not CO2, thats why I was asking.


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## schaadrak (Aug 18, 2006)

"Bad gas" (H2S) will smell like rotten eggs, and large amounts are produced by bacteria in anaerobic conditions. If your substrate is not too thick and not not compacted, then what you both have is probably CO2.


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## brennewoman (Feb 6, 2007)

When I want to add plants to my tank I always take a bit of my own soil mix (laterite, my own backyard soil and leaf compost, sand, and vermiculite), wrap it in a doughy consistency around the roots, and then wrap that in an unbleached coffee filter. Works to keep it from messing up the tank. I have had pretty good success with adding soil packets like this to my tanks even without adding plants. Starting from scratch is easier, but if you don't want to do that, the packets work just fine.


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