# Our first soil tank! 60 gal.



## Oonagh (May 8, 2006)

*Log for First Soil Tank, 60-gal.*

This is my log for set-up evening and the first three days. If anyone has any comments on what to watch out for, based on what I'm describing, or possible answers (or just hypotheses) to my various questions, please share them! I hope the photo inserting works. I've never done this kind of post before. (If it doesn't, I will post photos separately when my 15 year old gets back home to help me!)

Just have to say. I've been reading about soil tanks for at least four years and dreaming about making a large one, with my daughter. We are SO excited that we are finally doing it. I can't believe it took me this long. I was just scared!

*6/20/10*

Right now the water is 19" from the glass bottom. It's a tall tank (found it used!) - the idea is to leave room for emergent plants. I don't have any yet. I know some of these plants are capable of growing that tall. (Come on, Rotala!)

As of right now, no equipment has been added for water movement or filtration (or heating, because it's June in Pittsburgh). The water movement is supplied by two small fish. If ammonia stays near zero and PH doesn't crash, which doesn't look likely, I will add more fish quite soon. I have a power head I may use for water movement if necessary. Would rather not. Would rather avoid a filter if possible.

*Soil*










Used rich, loamy (but slightly high clay? High organics?) garden soil from my vegetable garden. About 1" thick. Transferred the gravel from my old 20 gal. (rinsed it well in batches), which turned out to be just about enough for a 1" layer. I'm not sure this gravel is as small as I was supposed to use (2-4 ml is recommended). However it's nice gravel and I didn't want to waste it.

*Lighting*

The lighting is from 3 x 75 watt compact flourescents perched too high above the tank (hence the extra wattage). There is no direct sunlight, unfortunately - I wanted direct sunlight but there wasn't a suitable window that would allow for such a big tank. Not sure about the structure my husband made to hang the lights from - it's just too conspicuous. I am thinking of how to change that.

*Plants*









I transplanted, from my old tank:

4 Amazon swords, surprisingly healthy though they had been growing extremely slowly, with no light but ambient (indirect) room light for at least the past year. (The tank had had zero attention except for sporadic fish-feeding for the past couple of years. There was only one fish left. What they had in abundance was nitrates.)

the corms/roots of several cryptocorynes. One had a very small leaf remaining. I really hope the bare roots, which look live, will put up leaves. One of them is now lost under the gravel. One has the 'plant' end sticking out.

5 Anubias nana, amazingly healthy though mostly tiny due to light starvation. One is a decent size to get started, because it was growing at the end of the tank that could see the window. Two are quite small, two are tiny. But I managed to plant/anchor them all so hopefully all or most will grow. That seems like a slow-growing (as I recall) but amazingly determined little plant. It was originally just 2, so it has been reproducing even without a light.

I also planted, purchased yesterday from All Oddball Aquatics:

2 Ludwigia arcuata

1 Rotala (macrandra ["magenta"], v. narrow leaf? The leaves are very narrow and it has a lot of red on it.)

1 Bacopa (probably colorata)

1 Lily, very delicate looking and a dusky red. Lotus v. rubra, I think.

3 Blyxa japonica I bought it as one plant but it was developing as a chain so I was able to cut it into three.

I'm not super happy with the landscaping. I think I will have to move things around but right now I am most interested in success in terms of a healthy low-input soil tank. Besides a lot of these things are going to look quite different once they grow in properly. But I am very happy in general with the tank.










*Fauna*:

8 olive nerites.

1 male royal tetra, last occupant of a long-neglected, very high nitrate, surely very acidic tank, somewhat worse for wear. I thought he would die from a too-quick transition to extremely different, too-alkaline water. He looks absolutely delighted.

1 mystery baby cichlid who hitchhiked into our home with our red-eared slider's feeder guppies. Lightly striped, faintly golden on upper body, one black dot on dorsal fin.

I thought the cichlid would harass the royal tetra, or at best they would ignore one another. For some reason they have become best friends. It's pretty funny (not to mention cute) to watch.

*Conditions as of June 21st (first morning, about 12 hours after set-up):*

When I came downstairs very early this morning, the fish were fairly inactive ("sleep mode") near the bottom of the tank. No sign of oxygen lack for fish.

Came downstairs again an hour after my husband left for work and saw he had turned on the aquarium lights. The plants were already covered with oxygen bubbles! Some plants heavily (rotala and lily!), some plants moderately heavily (bacopa and vallisneria), some more lightly, I haven't seen this much oxygen since the days we tried supplementing with DIY CO2. (It's not as much as then, but then we were adding chemical nutrients and there was high power lighting.)

The water looks almost perfectly clear. Not as crystal clear as with a filter but not cloudy enough to tempt me to add filtration at this point. It's just a little bit of a softer look, and maybe more natural.

The fish both look really happy. Looking forward to adding more. I will wait to make sure conditions are stable.

I tested the water and got the following results:

ammonia - undetectable
PH - around 7.8 or even 8 (slightly off my color chart - need a better chart.)
KH - 4
GH - 7

The KH and GH are the same as my tap water.










*6/22/10*

Tank looks same as yesterday. Except the plants are not so covered with bubbles (except for lily, rotala, and stems of swords). That is a little disappointing. Not sure why respiration/photosynthesis were so much higher the first day. Started wondering if the plants needed some water movement in order to get enough CO2 and nutrients to contact them, so I ended up adding the old power head, on low, dangling about 2/3 down the tank for water movement. (Hate the way it looks - wish it were covered by plants already.)

Morning readings:
Ammonia - undetectable
pH - 7.6 - this is a little change, down from 7.8+
KH - 4
GH - 7

I also checked about 3 or 4 hours after the lights had been on, to see if the pH had risen at all due to photosyhthesis. It hadn't. Guess I have enough KH.

Couldn't stand it anymore. Went to buy fish. Even though we still have to level the tank. (After set-up I realized it was about 1/2 inch off, back to front. Ugh! Hope to be able to address that with Dean this evening.

Added the following fauna:

5 diamond testras
1 moonlight gourami (male?) We will get a female when we can find one.
4 Julii cories. (On the theory that the pH is still gradually going down)
4 cherry shrimp (pretty tiny right now)

I'm thinking about how nice it would be if we didn't have the slight cloudiness. Maybe I should give it a week. But might add a sponge over the intake of the power head.

All the fish look happy.

*6/23/10*

Since I happened to go downstairs for something at about 3:00 am, I checked on the fish to make sure they all had enough oxygen. They did. They regarded me sleepily, wondering why I was bothering them at that hour.

There are no longer visible bubbles on the plants. :-(

measured (around 8 when light went on):
ammonia not detectable (yay!)
pH 6.9 - pretty sharp drop from 7.6 yesterday
KH 3 (Actually I think it has been going down steadily, but that's hard to indicate because the test doesn't give half-degrees.)
GH7

Added 1 tsp. baking soda

Two hours later: 
pH still about 6.9
KH 4

I was afraid I had added too much baking soda at once and there would be a sudden pH spike. But that didn't happen! Yay. But why?










Most of the fish look really happy but I think their gills might be working slightly hard. I wish there were bubbles on the plants. Why were they so active to start and have slowed down so much? Some effect of setting up the tank?

I think the power head was a good idea. The biofilm on the surface of the water is gone this morning. It was starting to look a little scummy yesterday. (Thin, but still.)

I fed brine shrimp and blood worms in the late morning. Everyone ate enthusiastically, especially Snacky, the tiny cichlid, which was good to see. He's swimming around (usually with his best friend, Herman the royal tetra) again. Sometimes he likes to try to be with the diamond tetras. When they first entered the tank he swam to the middle of their group and stayed there awhile. I wish we had another of his species. Whatever that is!










Stay posted for the continuing story...


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## Oonagh (May 8, 2006)

updates/corrections:

I noticed I referred once to Vallisneria - actually there isn't any, it's japonica.

All Oddball Aquatics is now A & B Oddball Pets and Aquariums. Such a wonderful place run and staffed by die-hard hobbyists. The Pittsburgh Area Planted Aquarium Society is based there.

Last night we leveled the tank. I was really dreading that, thinking of putting water in buckets etc. It took ten minutes and we didn't have to remove a drop of water. Engineer husband and car jack. Woot!

Dean also stuffed a little filter material into the inlet of the power head, to keep cherry shrimp from getting sucked in. This morning as a result - perfect water clarity.

The pH had gone back up to 7 when I tested this morning. Not bad - I'd like to keep it a little lower though. KH 4+. Ammonia maybe present but well under .5 ppm. (That was before lights on this morning. Is ammonia taken up faster during photosynthesis? Not sure.)

All the fish look happy.


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## totziens (Jun 28, 2008)

Do you plant the Anubias in the substrate? I can't see any driftwood or rocks where Anubias is attached. So, I suspect that. Anubias should be tied to a rock or driftwood, not planted in the substrate. Hope it helps.


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## Oonagh (May 8, 2006)

Hi Totziens,

Thanks for your reply. You're right, I don't have the Anubias tied to anything right now. But I think it's okay because I have the rhizome above the gravel, with only the roots anchored in the gravel. I have grown it like this in the past and it did find.

Oonagh


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## totziens (Jun 28, 2008)

Anubias with rhizome above the gravel should be fine then. Just making sure


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## Oonagh (May 8, 2006)

Thanks, I appreciate it.


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## totziens (Jun 28, 2008)

Have you ever considered adding some hardscape in your tank? I think adding some rocks/driftwood may improve the outlook of this tank since you're able to keep the plants pretty well. I understand that driftwood is expensive. They're also expensive in my country where Malaysian driftwood are originated from 

I just happened to think about something is missing in your tank - hardscape. As for my case, I have all the hardscape but no tank ...hahaha (I am still in the midst of looking for an appropriate tank for my office)


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## Oonagh (May 8, 2006)

Totziens, I'm sure you are right! The whole scape is too level. Since I took those photos I've rearranged a few plants and made the scape a bit better. But I think I'm going to try to find a piece of driftwood. I might be able to find some around Lake Erie this summer. No rush - I'm still interested in getting the tank stabilized. I bought a new ammonia measuring kit because the one I had was old. This one is more precise, and I have been measuring .25 pp. Is that okay? I thought it should be zero. I have a little green water since moving plants around and getting a small amount of soil into the water column. But it's not too bad and I was told I'd probably get an algae bloom because I used fresh garden soil. The fish seem healthy. 

So anyway, I will work on the scape gradually, over time - need taller plants also, but yes, they are growing. I appreciate your suggestion, you have me thinking ahead more. (I know I could have planned the scape better in advance! Next time.) 

Malaysia - cool! That sounds very exotic to me. Have you done any native tanks? 

My local planted aquarium club is going on a field trip a week from Sunday, to find native plants (and potentially fish). I'm planning on making some kind of Western Pennsylvania native tank, in the old 20g that I broke down to make my new NPT, with what we bring home. Hard to plan ahead on this one! And I probably won't find any usable wood, but maybe at least some rocks.


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## mudboots (Jun 24, 2009)

I absolutely love your choice of cory cats. On the scape being level, don't worry too much about it in the long run. With the Amazon swords in there, they will eventually get so big that they'll add a lot of dimension, assuming of course the foreground fills in as well. But you'd definitely do well (definitely I guess in my opinion that is) to have a focal point in there to add a little "something".

Tank looks very healthy and happy.


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## Oonagh (May 8, 2006)

Thanks, Mudboots. We adore those julii cories! We have some big cory fans in this house. 

The plants are already growing, adding some dimension. The way I have rearranged a little, the red lily has become more of a focal point, it's growing like mad and seems like it might have a leaf emerged by tomorrow. 

I'm just a little worried about the ammonia. I detoxified with some Prime and I guess I can keep doing that as long as I need. I think I was feeding the fish a little overzealously... but everyone still is looking good. 

And yeah, I'm still going to look around for a nice piece of driftwood.


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