# 60g NPT (west African biotopes)



## Colorblizzle (May 16, 2013)

I have the tank and some of the equipment but not everything. It will he a while before I actually get this tank setup and going but I have questions and lots of them because I don't wanna do anything wrong. I'm working on saving up for Diana walstad a book about the subject but its still gonna be a while. So here goes

I'm planning on using miracle-gro organic choice mix for the substrate about 1" in the front of the tank and tapering to 1 1/2"-2" in the back and I'm going to cap it with about 1" of fluorite. Is this too deep to prevent anaerobic gassing? I just wanna make sure I have it deep enough to plant species with big roots. Also I've heard some people say they not only will use small gravel/fluorite as the cap but they will also mix it with the soil at about a 1:4 ratio. Advantages/disadvantages to this? I'm gonna add some driftwood and rocks for the hard scape but nothing too crazy, mostly plants. For the lighting I'm getting a 36" T5HO fixture and some coralife 6700k bulbs for it. Putting out 78 watts or roughly 1.3WPG. not sure where that lands as far as PAR is concerned. Will this be too much light? Not enough? It's a 4' tank but its acrylic and the opening on the top is 36"x9". I was told no filtration for this style of tank but that circulation is key. I already bought 2 sponge filters for the tank but if its better to NOT use them so be it. As far as circulation is concerned powerheads seem the easiest answe to me but how much is enough? Should I put 1 on either end of the tank? And what's better high/low starting low pointing high...so on and so forth. And lastly. At night there's no photoperiod so if anything should I put the sponge filter in and have it only run at night? It would be on. Timer so when the power is cut to the air pump can I trust a check valve to prevent back siphoning? Or am I over thinking it and powerheads is all I need. Maybe even have one on all the time and a second one only at night, now in just brainstorming tho. Anyways there's all my thoughts. My water has a PH of 7.6 GH of 10 and KH of 7. Stocking as far as fish is concerned will be between 11-19 fish so not sure how stocked it will be yet. Any questions feel free to ask incase I left something out


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## Colorblizzle (May 16, 2013)

This is the top of the tank this is why I can't put a 48" light across it. Will 1.3WPG be enough?


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

Diana's book sells for about $15 or less on Amazon. You might be better off if you bought that and read it before you spent 20 times that amount on setting up your new tank.

Good luck!

Bill


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## Colorblizzle (May 16, 2013)

I've seen it for $25 on amazon that's what I'm doing I just don't have an extra $25 this week. Or next. So are you saying that alot of the equipment I'm listing is completely unneeded?


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## SBS (Feb 26, 2013)

> Also I've heard some people say they not only will use small gravel/fluorite as the cap but they will also mix it with the soil at about a 1:4 ratio. Advantages/disadvantages to this?


The reason for that is because normally if you put a pure soil bottom layer, Diana Walstad suggest no more than 1" of it. If you want a deeper bottom layer, it's better mixing that 1" soil with the substrate you are going to use as a cap, then put another cap.

As for flow, you need a circular flow in a tank. For example, if you use two powerheads, it's possibly best to put them blowing in the same direction, and also in a way so the flow does make all your plants move in the flow without dead areas. It depends on the tank size, what powerheads, where they are positioned, etc...to actually get a good flow. For example, just to give you an idea, but one of the best setups in regards to flow from my reasearch is spraybars along the back of the tank, covering the entire lenght. The flow then hits the front glass and slides down towards the bottom, turns back travelling along the substrate in direction towards the back glass and then up to the spray bars again. That gives coverage of everyspot in the tank.

I don't see a reason why you can't run filters of sponge filters in the tank. They won't harm in any way and will give you redundancy should your plants suffer a major problem for one reason or another.
Also, I wouldn't use a sponge filter on timer, run it 24/7 for best results. 
Regardless, if you are only worried about oxygen at night, normally in a planted tank with low bioload the plants will produce enough for both stock and themselves for the night period. But in a new setup, especially with substrate like miracle grow, you'd need some sort of additional oxygen via surface movement because there could be a mass amount of organics in the soil requiring lots of oxygen to break down. Don't rush putting fish in the tank. Your plants need to start growing first for that and you need the tank densley planted to support them.


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## Colorblizzle (May 16, 2013)

So if I mix the cap and soil I can go deeper? Interesting because I'd prefer it a little deeper. I have sand in my planted 10g and I have a really hard time keeping plants anchored so I want more depth if possible. Is a 1:4 ratio good then? I looked into doing DIY spray at attachments on powerheads Nd I just don't feel like the hassle in not good at DIY. But what if I put 2 powerheads in the back pointing towards the front glass? Looking at getting 2 600GPH powerheads so I would hope that would move enough water (20x tank volume an hour) as far as stocking I plan in giving the plants a good month before adding any fish just don't know when to call it good. How will I know when I've reached my limit? I'm gonna do 2 pairs of cichlids and a trio of syno's but as far as my schooling/dither fish I want as many as my tank can support. Hoping for 12 but ill settle for 6 if I have to


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## SBS (Feb 26, 2013)

The soil will leach ammonia for a good while. You need to see that the plants are really growing, not smothered by algae and that the water stats start reading 0 for ammonia/nitrIte. 
Soil gets colonized by bacteria in about 6+ weeks from what I know, so as long as you've got a nice plant mass to cope with fish bioload by then and the plants are growing, and water stats are good, then start stocking slowly.
The powerhead plan looks good to me. It's either at the back pointing the front, or on the sides pointing towards the other, something like that should work probably.

I am not sure about the sand/soil ratio as I haven't done it. But I am certain Tom Barr wrote it somewhere on low tech/non-CO2 article so try a search. I think it was his idea mixing the soil with sand like that.


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## Colorblizzle (May 16, 2013)

I've read his low-tech approach that's what I'm doing in my 10g it's working ok not great. And my cap is going to be fluorite not sand. So that should give me some good laterite as well


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Colorblizzle, I offer this as a friendly suggestion: if you limit your questions to one or two (on a related topic) per post, other members will find it much easier to give you answers.

"So if I mix the cap and soil I can go deeper?" No. You are exceeding the limits with 2" of soil and 1" of cap in the back of the tank. I rarely use more than 1" of soil/cap mix in my tanks. A soil layer that is too deep is one of the most common mistakes made by beginners to the Walstad method.


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## Colorblizzle (May 16, 2013)

Ok thank you Michael. And the problem with the thick layers is not enough oxygen reaching all of the soil correct?


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Yes.


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