# I made the change to an El natural tank.



## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

This is the tank I am talking about.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/el-natural/52167-changing-my-5-5gallon-el-natural.html

I am now on day two and the fish are fine and the water is crystal clear. I udes filter floss for a day and it cleared right up. Now the hard part begins, which is not doseing anything.

I will try and get pics up some time in the next day or so.

Oh also I do not have as many plants as stated before because when I tore into the tank I found that it was infested with algae. I just wanted to get that out in the open.


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## yum (Feb 11, 2008)

nice, bro. you had an algae problem shortly after you converted it or the algae existed before the conversion? i imagine, that if you throw in a ton of plants now, scrape/remove the algae it wouldn't return.

can't wait to see the pics!


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

I had the algae before the change because I stopped "caring" for the tank. The killies liked it best that way.

Thanks for the soil again yum.

I forgot to add the potash to the tank before I put in the soil so I would not run into the potassium problems you have now with this soil. If all else fails I will just add it pice by pice to the plants that need it.

I have the whole house to myself today for a few hours so maybe I can get some pics up today.


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Picture time.


































Looking at these pics it seems I need more plants in there.

The tank was change over to El natural on the 14th.

Let me know what you think good or bad.


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## yum (Feb 11, 2008)

looks like you're going to have quite the salad bowl going. is this going to be a killie tank? i didn't see any critters in there. with that much moss you could probably try some cherry shrimps; lots of places for them to hide and feel comfortable.

what is that big dark mass in the left side of the pic? is that a massive column of moss?


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

It's driftwood in gulped by tiwan moss. If you look close in the in all of the pics but the third pic has the male killie in it.


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Small up date.

I added some dwarf water lettuce, amazon forgbit, and a potho sticking out the top of the filter. Oh am now seeing some new growth on a couple of my crypts. 

I have a plant meeting this weekend, so I should be getting some new plants for the tank.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

Will5,

I think your 5.5 gal tank looks pretty nice. Its the kind that I suspect won't give you any problems. Also, I commend you for getting plants from others. I just held a plant meeting and got all kinds of wonderful new plant species for resetting up my 50 gal. It was fun, and oh, so productive!

One suggestion: As time goes on, you probably could remove some of the top layer of gravel in your tank. The gravel layer looks a little deep and you probably don't need that much gravel.


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Wow thanks for the comment.

So should the garvel be as thin as it is on the left side of the tank? I did not think it was that deep though. I will try and get a better shot of the thickness.


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Here is an update and I am sorry it's so late.

I changed the placement of a couple of plants and added an hydro growing emersed out of the filter. It's only been a couple of day but I hope I can get it to flower. The tank has had an issue with algae(clado) growing like mad on one side of the tank next to the window. So I both closed and pulled the blinds to try and slow/stop it.

Any idea on how to kill it??????? I would have tried to hit it with some excel but I think I read some where that excel can be harmful to an EL natural.

Anyway picture time.


















Rotala indica growing emersed.









Hygro and potho growing emersed out of the top of the filter. The hygro is still adjusting to growing emersed.








The hygro will be planted in soil once it grows enough to to get up and over the tank.

The tank is kind of dark because I added an Indian almond leave to the tank to get them in the mood for spawning again. I just did this yesterday.

As always thanks for looking.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

will5 said:


> The tank has had an issue with algae(clado) growing like mad on one side of the tank next to the window. So I both closed and pulled the blinds to try and slow/stop it.
> 
> Any idea on how to kill it??????? I would have tried to hit it with some excel but I think I read some where that excel can be harmful to an EL natural.


In my opinion, your tank looks better than when you first set it up. Good going!

As to the algae on one side of the tank, I would just scrape it off.

I know that I advocate low-maintenance, but sometimes there's a little cleaning called for.

For example, my 55 gal is doing great, but algae sometimes grows on the front. Today, I scraped it off the glass, removed a little mulm from the bottom, and changed the carbon in the filter. Sometimes a little cleaning upfront will prevent major problems later on. Algae and plants are always in competition. It doesn't hurt to give the plants a little advantage.


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

dwalstad said:


> In my opinion, your tank looks better than when you first set it up. Good going!
> 
> As to the algae on one side of the tank, I would just scrape it off.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the help and the comments. I will try and remove the algae manually.

I must say that I have done a couple of water changes just because I am used to doing them although it's every other week with this tank. I am now going to try and just top off for a month or two and see how that goes. Kicking the high tech habits on this tank is harder than quitting smoking was.


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## will5 (Oct 26, 2005)

Well today was the end of the tank as I had to tear it down due to me moving in two weeks. I just did not have the room for three tanks.


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