# Setting up 125g El Natural



## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Hey everyone,

I'm going to get started on my aquarium this weekend (starting on Friday) and want to make sure I don't get off to a bad start. The aquarium is a 125 gallon (72"x18"x22") and will be my first NPT that I don't want to learn the hard-way on (I have a 20 gallon for that purpose!! - poor frog...). So far, my plan is to use Organic Choice soil to a depth of 1 inch, and then put 2 inches of sand on top of it. I'm hearing from other sources that substrate depth on top of the soil layer should not be that deep, so I'm hoping for a bit of solid guidance. My reasoning was that I originally planned to have 1.5 inches of each, but decided to go a bit shallower on the organics. Obviously that's not sound science coming from a wetland biologist, but it's honesty. I'm still waiting on delivery of Diana Walstad's book, which I eagerly await from what I've heard.


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## gr8nguyen1 (May 18, 2009)

hey mudboots, good luck man. that sounds awesome. the amount of fish and plants you can raise in a 125 g tank is huge. i suggest you take a look at DataGuru's post on step by step instructions for a NPT. its extremely helpful. bc your right with a tank that large you don't want to make too many mistakes. i made a ton of mistakes with my first npt and it was a disaster. im so glad i was able to get advice from others on this website.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

I dunno about the sand. I've had good luck with very small gravel.
http://thegab.org/Articles/WalstadTank.html


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Okay, I have the soil in the tank, but nothing else yet. I mixed some pea gravel with sand and tried it on my 20 gallon and I like the way it looks. (I gutted out and completely overhauled the 20....to the demise of my poor little frog.  )

By the way, I tried a bit of sand only and it did mix in with the soil, so, sand on soil is a no-go for NPT.


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## tazcat70 (Jun 9, 2009)

What was your mixture ratio for the sand/gravel?


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## Alex123 (Jul 3, 2008)

The common depth for both dirt and substrate is 1.0-1.5 inches. Sand is more dense than gravel so it should be even less depth. I would not put more than .75 inches if not less.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Tazcat - I bought .5 cubic feet of each and mixed them evenly. I would not recommend using this much sand in a large tank. The 20 should be fine because in the worst case scenario I can overhaul it, though it looks pretty stable at the moment. When I get back in town I'll take some pics to show how it looks after a few days of settling. For the 125 I'm going to wash out some of the sand and use more gravel, though all guess work so no ratios to post. I will mention that the sand mixed in made it extremely easy to set my plants in firmly so there was no shift when I added the water.

Alex123 - I used almost exactly 1 inch of the organic choice and an inch of the mix, and will do the same on the 125 (using less sand). This of course is pending how the 20 looks when I get back.

Anyone else learning from mistakes - Wait until you get good expert advice (thank you Diana Walstad) before you start experimenting. I learned the hard way at the expense of my son's pet AFC that too thick of a soil layer and too thick of sustrate on top really will cause some horrible problems. I could smell the swamp down the hallway. I'm just glad it was in a small tank and not the big one. However, I've learned that those little "guppies" we call mosquito fish down here can handle just about any extreme you throw at them, so if you absolutely HAVE to play around with ideas, try it on them first and you won't be out anything, especially since you can get them free from any bar-ditch or hole in the ground you step into.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

*Re: Substrate Setting up 125g El Natural*

Tried posting some pics of the substrate settling using the sand and gravel mix on top of the organic choice but the computer is acting up and I have to get on the road. I'll try again on Monday. But the bottom line is that one drawback of using sand is the amount of micro-particulates that are nearly impossible to completely rinse out, so the water takes longer to clear up. The advantages are ease in planting small rooted plants and the natural look, which is more of a person thing really. I used 0.5 cubic feet of each (play sand and pea gravel) to dress both a 125npt and my son's 20npt, which gave me almost exactly 1 inch on top of the 1 inch of organic choice (slighty deeper in the 20 and slightly shallower in the 125).


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Here are the pics of the substrate I tried posting over the weekend. I like the natural look, but once the plants kick in I'll never see it, so no matter really. I have not had any plants become dislodged since planting in this mix, though one of my son's fish managed to pull one stem plant up that has not put on roots yet in his 20 gallon. I posted a thread on this in the substrates forum.


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## davemonkey (Mar 29, 2008)

Nice teaser pics, now show us a Full Tank Shot! 

It doesn't look like the sand mixed too badly with the soil underlayer, as I see a clear defined line between the two. Did you just add the sand slowly to prevent that?

-Dave


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

Thanks to the heavy and wreckless planting job I just undertook and the treatment of ich (thank you Walmart for the infected upsidedown catfish; at least he's pretty) the water is a little too cloudy for pics, but I'll get some soon.

On the layering, I wet down the organic just to get it to "stick" and then brought in my sand/gravel mix one handfull at a time, carefully placing it and gently smoothing it. This was really quick in the 20, and not nearly as bad in the 125 as I feared. Then I planted slowly, making holes with my finger and pressing the substrate back together to keep from squishing the organic up through the mix. Of course, I only had 1/3 of the plants at that time, so I made a big mess of things once the rest came in. Tweezers work great until you've had enough and just want it to be done!!!


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## humbletex (Mar 15, 2009)

Your sand/soil mix looks pretty good. I tired this in a 32 gal but I goofed and the sand and soil mixed. I ended up having to add more sand so I have a pretty thick substrate. Once my tank clears up (another story) I may or may not redo the whole thing.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

If you decide not to redo it, realizing that your substrate is probably too thick, I might be able to get you some deep and dense rooted plants in the Eleocharis genus. Some of the taller species are usually a bit much in anything less that a 55, but in your 32 Tall they'd probably be okay, and the shorter species would make great mid-foreground plants and still get roots deep enough to prevent H2SO gas from becoming a problem.

It'll take some time though, as I actually will have to go get them since my own are just getting started. But I have a great source of 3 species in this genus all in one spot just two hours from where I live, as well as some so-so sources locally, so we'll see.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

As promised a LONG time ago, here are some pics of the progress. Please excuse the sloppiness of the panoramics; since the tank still has another month to go before it's finished (I'm patiently waiting for the plants to grow as opposed to starting off fully stocked) I'm haven't been real concerned with appearence.

The first shot is day one. IMHO this is the best it's looked so far. It was given to me for free by my aunt and uncle who no longer wished to maintain it.









After much deliberation, I still had not decided if I wanted to go with some nice driftwood pieces or plant it fully with only small pieces in various locations. This next shot is after a week of water and about a fifth of the plants. It's pretty off balance at this point, but the system is going, and that's what was important at that moment.









Next is when everything went very, very bad. First I had to deal with ich, then I found out that some of the inhabitants had bacterial hemm. sept.; all infected died eventually. But in the meantime I drained the water down to 60% because 75 gallons is easier to treat than 125. The color of the water is the antibiotics. Otherwise the water was very nice at this point. I also decided not to do driftwood and just go with plants, but I left these three pieces in there for the bristlenose and for future inhabitants to use as cover or spawning. The plants are coming back from the dead at this point as well and I have about 4 fifths of what I have presently, but they're all babies at this point so you can't see most of them.









All of my digging around and planting plants have paid off; bring out the soup spoons and dig in. At least the Marsilea and E.tenellus are now growing well; the rest I can't even see.









In what must be the shortest recovery time ever the pea soup is clearing up. I had NOTHING plugged into an outlet except the lights; it just started clearing up on its own. The red lotus has come back from the dead, and though you can't tell in the pic, the background plants have started to grow (tiger hygro and various swords et cetera). At this point I am able to picture what it will look like once it's all grown in, which hopefully won't be more than a month. The background will have red highlights with interjections of light green and the midground will be mostly dark green. I still have not decided what fish I want, so in the meantime there are some Gambusias and a few platties and mollies that davemonkey and humbletex gave me to keep the system going.









Since the last pic I have made a few changes, such as removing the mystery Ludwigia on the left-center area and adding two amazon swords in the background that were in my son's 20 npt. I traded him with cuttings from the tiger that had been growing so nicely, but being a patient man I am cool with waiting for more growth. To stimulate this, play with wine-making skills, and to have a fun experiement with my kids, I am going to set up a DIY CO2 reactor via an easy wine recipe (4 cups sugar, 1 can juice concentrate, 1 pkg active dry yeast, 3.5 quarts water). I'll post some updated pics at the end of August.

For a list of species, since it's a big list, you can check out my profile under the main aquarium block. I amy have left a couple names off, but it gives a general idea.


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