# Some El natural setup questions, trying again after a a messy first go.



## SlyDer (Jul 11, 2007)

So im going to try again, my first attempt came as a experiment for the small budget hobbist. I setup a 55 gal with about 2 inches of cycled topsoil with the organics "flushed out" and the soil cycled over about 3 weeks in buckets mixed with washed playsand. I mixxed it about 1 part soil 3 parts sand per tom barrs suggestion to keep the mess down when replanting but still keep a nutrient rich substrate. The soil was capped off by a bag of eco complete instead of larger grain sand/gravel for asthetic reasons.

For lighting i have a 48" shop light made from stainless steel with 2 t8 tubes 6500k. I chose the stainless steel because it actually looked nice after hanging it from from small chain.

I am able to grow hygro difformus, several apongetons, anubias nana, java moss, dwarf sag and a large sag pretty well, my java fern just kinda survives barely and crypt retros and parrots feather died out slowly

I inject co2 with a ladder diffuser and a 3gallon yeast bottle, but with the all natural approach i understand i can stop injection co2

So the big problem here was diatoms, if they made good soup i could end world hunger  
Im fairly sure it is because excess silica leaching into the water, since the addition of co2 and some phos-zorb they have decreased considerably but some bluegreen algae has joined the battle.

I want to start all over and do things 100% walstad all natural, I like what it seems to offer but i need to know a few things before i make the jump. * i wont be able to get a copy of her book till after christmas most likely*

After I put down my soil, i read most people using crushed oyster shells? Whats the purpose of this and just a sprinkeling or a considerable layer?

Also will i be able to cap it off with regular pet store size peagravel or epoxy coated * black * gravel?

My biggest and most important question is lighting, i guesstimate my light at 1.45 wpg since the reflector is poor/fair at best this tank is between two windows not infront of one and gets no direct sunlight. Will my current lighting be sufficient?

Thanks,
-SlyDer


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

sounds good... I think your first attempt was good.. You didn't need to start over. What Barr suggested was basically a natural tank. An outbreak of any algae is ecpected in any new tank including el natural.. Maybe the eco in your first attempt was the issue.. Eco has nutrients in it and tends to release NH4 in the beginning, i believe.

I've had success with regular small gravel or neutral fired clay substrate (schultz's aquasoil)....
You can try the black onyx sand for a dark substrate and it has only micronutrients in it.


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## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

That substrate was pretty deep.

Here's how I do it
http://thegab.org/Articles/WalstadTank.html
http://thegab.org/Articles/WalstadTankDemo.html

I get decent growth of most plants (with sunlight or not) at around 2 wpg. however, I love winter time when my tanks get bunches of direct sunlight from south windows.

So what plants are you planning to use?


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## SlyDer (Jul 11, 2007)

mistergreen said:


> sounds good... I think your first attempt was good.. You didn't need to start over. What Barr suggested was basically a natural tank. An outbreak of any algae is ecpected in any new tank including el natural.. Maybe the eco in your first attempt was the issue.. Eco has nutrients in it and tends to release NH4 in the beginning, i believe.
> 
> I've had success with regular small gravel or neutral fired clay substrate (schultz's aquasoil)....
> You can try the black onyx sand for a dark substrate and it has only micronutrients in it.


Its not new unfortunately, this tank has been going for about 5 months and i havent started over yet. I put my more favorite plants in another tank to let them recover.

has anyone els heard of silica sand leaching into the water? or is this a lighting issue?


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## SlyDer (Jul 11, 2007)

DataGuru said:


> That substrate was pretty deep.
> 
> Here's how I do it
> http://thegab.org/Articles/WalstadTank.html
> ...


Thats a good link thanks, I did some testing my tap ph is 7.0 the ph in my tank is 7.6 and i did top off the tank today. with co2 injection shouldn't it make the water 6 something? sounds like something is leaching. That was with my liquid test kit, my dip strips are really old and inaccurate but the only alkalinity test i have says its about 120ppm i honestly dont know what that means, not that i trust it enough to matter.
Do i need to add anything to my new substrate to adjust hardness/ph? Is just soil with regular petstore gravel ok or too large?

The plants im currently growing or trying to grow are 
2 apongeton walmart bulb plants
lots and lots of hygro difformus
3 anubias nana
java moss
some kind of bacopa * someone told me it was lemon bacopa?
dwarf sag
large sag
java fern
amazon sword


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

SlyDer said:


> Its not new unfortunately, this tank has been going for about 5 months and i havent started over yet. I put my more favorite plants in another tank to let them recover.
> 
> has anyone els heard of silica sand leaching into the water? or is this a lighting issue?


I think the silica thing is a myth. Silica is everywhere... Nothing beats a water change to reset the tank. Do you know your water params like NO3, NH4 etc..?

I think you need more lights.. Maybe move tank in front of the window and get some direct light. My tank does actually pretty good with some direct light. I'm assuming your plants are growing extremely slow. Brown algae usually shows up when the plants aren't doing so well.


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## Homer_Simpson (Apr 2, 2007)

SlyDer said:


> ...reflector is poor/fair at best...


You can get some mylar sheeting from a hydroponics shop. It looks like aluminum foil. You can tape this in the space underneath the tubing. This will help reflect light more efficiently into your tank and give the plants more usable light.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

Homer_Simpson said:


> You can get some mylar sheeting from a hydroponics shop. It looks like aluminum foil. You can tape this in the space underneath the tubing. This will help reflect light more efficiently into your tank and give the plants more usable light.


you can get them at art/hobby stores too.


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## Carissa1 (Aug 25, 2007)

Phosphate remover will starve your plants and leave them weakened and susceptible to more algae problems. If anything you should be adding nutrients and doing water changes to combat the algae problem. Unstable co2 levels also can cause algae issues, as can stopping co2 after the plants are used to getting it. You would want to limit light as much as possible during the adjustment period if you remove co2 because your plants will be temporarily crippled and unable to grow properly until they build up their reserves of Rubisco again (enzyme that enables them to use carbon). 

I wouldn't tear down and start over...not sure of the el natural way of solving this but I do know what will probably work. To get rid of your algae problem start doing 50% water changes weekly or 2x/weekly, remove all algae manually that you can, and reduce lighting or do a blackout for a couple of days (this would also be a good time to remove co2 if you're going to do it). Also start dosing all your macros and micros. After the blackout reintroduce lighting but only in small amounts, like 6 hours/day at first. Give your plants at least two - three weeks or more to adjust to the lack of co2, and keep doing 50% water changes weekly and dosing ferts. After a month or so you may be safe to increase your lighting back up to 8 - 10 hours/day gradually and try the el natural method then.


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## guppyramkrib (Sep 5, 2007)

Hi
I'm not an expert on anything but i do have a few ideas.
Many methods may help and this is my idea.I do think you need 2 watts of light per gallon with a better reflector.My other idea is you need more fast growing plants including floaters to compete with the algae for nutrient's. I never changed water to clear a algae bloom in 20 years of tank keeping.Changing water IMHO only adds more nutrients to feed the algae problem.I had a major and ugly brown diatom bloom after setting up my 40 gallon natural tank with soil capped with playsand and have done no water changes since i set it up and the diatom bloom past on its own in a few weeks.I did add more hardy cheap plants like hornwort and duckweed.It cleared up very fast after adding more plants.I only have 80 watts of cool flour light from a shop light on a 40 gallon long.Is your soil layer capped off or are lots of excessive nutrients coming in to the water column and feeding the algae? This may be the big problem.Imho pea gravel will not cap off the soil layer good enough and will cause more problems.


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## SlyDer (Jul 11, 2007)

guppyramkrib said:


> Hi
> I'm not an expert on anything but i do have a few ideas.
> Many methods may help and this is my idea.I do think you need 2 watts of light per gallon with a better reflector.My other idea is you need more fast growing plants including floaters to compete with the algae for nutrient's. I never changed water to clear a algae bloom in 20 years of tank keeping.Changing water IMHO only adds more nutrients to feed the algae problem.I had a major and ugly brown diatom bloom after setting up my 40 gallon natural tank with soil capped with playsand and have done no water changes since i set it up and the diatom bloom past on its own in a few weeks.I did add more hardy cheap plants like hornwort and duckweed.It cleared up very fast after adding more plants.I only have 80 watts of cool flour light from a shop light on a 40 gallon long.Is your soil layer capped off or are lots of excessive nutrients coming in to the water column and feeding the algae? This may be the big problem.Imho pea gravel will not cap off the soil layer good enough and will cause more problems.


currently it is capped off with eco, if i change it up it will be after christmas in the mean time ill keep it going as is and experiment, so far the blue-green algae is taking a beating im winning this one. ive been dosing 1/2 ounce of hydrogen peroxide every few days and it literally melts before my eyes. Now if i could rid of the diatoms!

I forgot to mention i dose flourish excell aside the shaky co2 injection, and tried dosing extra to rid algae per a sticky thread i ran across and it put a real hurting on my bacopa and crippled my val that is now recoving in my shrimp tank with some of my slow growers.

It boggles me that the shrimp tank is a 30 g with just 15ish rcs and playsand no soil and everything is growing algae free, slow but nice looking. all it gets is very little direct sunlight in the evening when the suns setting and the light the "all glass" brand tank came with.


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