# Want to set up a NPT and need advice



## Dsurion (Nov 15, 2013)

I am somewhat new to the aquarium hobby and I am looking for some advice. I had talked about getting an aquarium for a while so my wife got me one for my birthday this past spring. Instead of figuring out exactly what I wanted to do and put together my aquarium properly from the start I was a little too eager and just started without planning anything. I did not plan on real plants until I saw them at the store and I grabbed a few. I have been looking at changing things up so my plants will do a little better than they have been. I came across this forum and this looked like what I would like. I will start by showing you what I currently have then what I would like to do and see if it sounds plausible. I apologize in advance for the length of the post but I want to be as detailed as possible.

My current tank:

Picture is attached below.

The tank: It is a SeaClear 30 gal, 36”x12”x16”. Since I was not planning on real plants the gravel is just the generic bag of rocks you get from any pet store, not any kind of plant substrate. In the tank on the right hand side is a fake hollowed out log tunnel, to the left of it in the center is a hollow rock ornament. Behind the rock, if you look past the rainbow shark, you can slightly see the end of a bamboo cave. Lastly on the left leaning against the back of the tank is a piece of driftwood, roughly shaped like an upside-down ‘V’, which makes a little tunnel against the back.
The Fish: I currently have four tiger barbs (two regular and two green), I had a fifth but lost it recently, he looked like he got really skinny, almost shrinking, then died. On the same day I lost him I also lost a bristlenose pleco who seemed to have been doing fine. I also have three cherry barbs and the Rainbow shark I mentioned earlier. I also have two nerite snails.

The plants: On the far right and left I have amazon swords, then have been doing fine, grew pretty big and nice and green, they sprout new leaves every once in a while but never a new plant. On the right up front there is some dwarf hair grass that has never really taken root and spread, I got one batch that didn’t die off but never spread out or grew any additional roots. I got a second batch from Petsmart but its roots were all tangled up and practically nonexistent, I just had to pin the grass down and hope the roots spread down. On the bamboo cave and the driftwood I attached narrow-leaf java fern that has never really spread a ton but has done ok. In front of the driftwood are some cardinal plants that didn’t really have a root structure to them and are not really thriving. Front left is an anubias nana, the roots have spread a bit and sprouted a few new leaves, just the other day I saw a bud on there so I should have a flower soon, so it must be doing ok. I also get a bit of blue-green algae build up on the rocks, the glass and some of the plants that I have to clean of frequently. I also have some sort of black algae, seems a little hairy, that forms on a lot of the leaves that are most directly hit by the light.

Lighting: I am very under lit, in the hood is one 24” 20w T8 Life-Glo bulb that I leave on for 8 hrs per day. You may be able to see my tank is across the corner of a room and two feet away on the wall to the left of the tank is a south facing window. The sun comes in that window all day so the tank gets some indirect sun light. The sunlight seems to be affecting the tank because blue-green algae forms between the rocks and the glass on the front so I know the tank light is not hitting it.

My future tank, hopefully:

Substrate: based on what I have seen on various portions of this forum I was looking at getting some top soil, likely Miracle-Gro Organic Choice. I was at Home Depot today and saw they have it, not much of a selection since it is November. They had potting mix and garden soil, is the potting mix the correct one? I will “mineralize” it like I have seen, soaking it and draining it off and drying the best I can. As it is November and I live in the north I will probably have to lay it out in the basement and hope the cats don’t think it is a new litter box. I will probably mix the finished product with fluorite, unless there is something better, I know non scented regular litter has been mentioned but didn’t seem like anything was better than any other. I saw in Aaron Talbot’s method he added pottery clay, is this the same as adding the fluorite or litter? I will lay down about 1” of soil and cap it with about 1” of the rocks I currently have in the tank, should I mix he gravel with fluorite or is it good by itself? My water has a relatively good hardness, not sure what it is, but it stays a steady 7.5 pH from the faucet to the tank, even with the driftwood it never changed, so I don’t think I need anything else for the hardness.

Plants: I plan on getting some more since I will need to load it up, was looking at some micro sword, some cryptocoryne wendtii and maybe some more hairgrass if I can get some with good root. I am really up for any suggestions on this since I do not know my plants all that well, just want some ones that will be good for setting up a natural tank.

Lighting: The hood that came with the tank limits me on this but I can add another 20w T8 by putting in an Expand-a-light fixture into it. Together that will give me a total of 40w plus whatever sunlight it gets. I am hoping this is enough, it will be a little over 1w/g. Also since the hood sits directly on top of the tank the sides do not get a ton of light at the top of the tank is this an issue?
Fish: I plan on replacing the green tiger barb and I would like to get another bristlenose pleco but that last one was my fourth or fifth, just can seem to keep one, but may try another when the tank is established. 

The major issue I foresee is I want to change over a tank with fish in it, so any ammonia spike would likely kill them. I do not have another tank to put them in. The only other tank I have is a 5.5 gal with my kids’ goldfish from the fair. I can hold them in bowls or buckets for the day I put in the soil and plants in but if I get a spike a few weeks in it would not be good, but I doubt I can avoid it, any suggestions on this?
If I soak the soil in water from my tank would that help introduce the nitrifying bacteria to the soil and help lower any spikes?
Also since I will put all the same decorations, some of the gravel and the filter which will all have bacteria on them will this also help limit cycling time? Or am I just out of luck on this part? 
Will soaking and drying the soil more times than normal help minimize any spikes by breaking things down further?

I have access to most any stores and there is a good fish store here with a variety of plants and fish so getting anything I need should not be an issue I just don’t want to spend tons of money. Time is also not an issue either, I have not purchased anything yet and since the holidays are coming up I may not set the tank up until afterwards and work on mineralizing in the meantime. Thank you in advance for any advice.


----------



## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

Welcome to APC and the Walstad method! See my comments below in *bold.* Good luck!



Dsurion said:


> I am somewhat new to the aquarium hobby and I am looking for some advice. I had talked about getting an aquarium for a while so my wife got me one for my birthday this past spring. Instead of figuring out exactly what I wanted to do and put together my aquarium properly from the start I was a little too eager and just started without planning anything. I did not plan on real plants until I saw them at the store and I grabbed a few. I have been looking at changing things up so my plants will do a little better than they have been. I came across this forum and this looked like what I would like. I will start by showing you what I currently have then what I would like to do and see if it sounds plausible. I apologize in advance for the length of the post but I want to be as detailed as possible.
> 
> My current tank:
> 
> ...


----------



## Dsurion (Nov 15, 2013)

Michael, thank you for the advice.

I will look for other types of topsoil, the Miracle-Gro was all Home Depot has, not a large selection since it is fall. I looked up Safe-T-Sorb, I can pick some up pretty close to me.

I will put in the Hairgrass, if it grows then good, if not then oh well. Are there any other plants you would recommend for loading up the tank or just get plenty of the ones I already mentioned? What floating plants would you recommend and should I have a floating plant in the tank when I change it over?

Not sure exactly what you mean by biofiltration medium. I have a Marineland Penguin Bio-Wheel 150, do you just mean the cartridges I put in or something else?

Some people have said I may not be able to do a bristlenose pleco and a rainbow shark since the shark will be territorial of the bottom. However, I have never seen him chase the pleco, he chases the barbs plenty though.


----------



## Dsurion (Nov 15, 2013)

I found this peat humus on the Lowes website and it says it is available in the store:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_92435-76450-OP40H_4294707958__?productId=3516522&Ns=p_product_qty_sales_dollar|1&pl=1&currentURL=%3FNs%3Dp_product_qty_sales_dollar%7C1%26page%3D1&facetInfo=

It was mentioned at the end of the "Suitable soils for the Walstad method" thread that humus wouldn't need to be "mineralized" since the purpose of mineralizing it is to turn it into humus. Could I just use this and mix it 50/50 with a CEC like Safe-T-Sorb or Florite and not have to do any mineralizing and limit the chances of an ammonia spike?


----------



## Dsurion (Nov 15, 2013)

I got started on getting my supplies ready for setting up my tank. I got Gardner's Pride Peat Humus from Lowe's and Safe-T-Sorb from Tractor Supply Company.





This morning I put the humus in a 5 gal bucket with water to soak it:



I thought since it was humus it wouldn't have any wood or anything else in it, however, I found both sticks and rocks in it, probably not as much as other soils have though. There also seemed to be some clay in it.



I am going to let it soak for a few days then dry it out, I did not originally plan on soaking it multiple times but if I find more sticks in it I may do it once more, I think I got most of them though. I will keep you posted on my progress.


----------



## Dsurion (Nov 15, 2013)

I picked out a few more small sticks that had floated up and took out some more small rocks I found in the soil. I mixed the soil with my hands a couple of times before I poured off the water from the top. When I poured off the water the light brown stuff floating on the top was poured off with some other suspended dirt. I filled the bucket back up and let it sit again. After about a day of sitting everything settled out and I could see clearly to the dirt through the water. I took the dirt out and laid it out on a garbage bag in the basement to let it dry. About a week later I mixed the dirt and the safe-t-sorb with about a 1 to 1 ratio, maybe slightly more soil.

This past Monday I decided to change out the tank. I siphoned out most of the water into buckets and put the ornaments, plants, gravel and the filter tube and driftwood into the water to keep them wet and to help keep the bacteria on them alive. I completely emptied the tank and cleaned the sides and bottom. I then added about 1 inch of the soil mixture:



I added the plants, about 1 inch of gravel and the other items back into the tank and slowly added water, pouring the water on a plate I put on the bottom to not disturb the gravel and soil. I never had any cloudiness from the soil so I put the fish in after about an hour of the filter running:



I tested the water on Wednesday, I use the API master test kit, pH was about 7.5, ammonia 0 ppm, nitrites 0 ppm and nitrates were maybe 5 ppm. I have tested at least ammonia every day, it has remained at 0. I have tested the others about every other day, nitrites have stayed 0 and nitrates have been under 20 ppm, hard to tell the difference from 5 to 20, the oranges for this test look very similar. When I tested pH this evening it was elevated to somewhere around 7.8 to 8. I went to Petsmart to have them double check the test, they use Tetra easy strips, and they got about 7.8 as well, with everything else the same as my test. I also got the GH, about 250 ppm, and the KH, about 150 ppm, from their test since mine does not measure it. Their test is not extremely sensitive so those are approximate numbers since the test strip color was in-between two colors on the key.

How concerned should I be about the raise in the pH? I will continue to test the pH daily with the ammonia to make sure it does not go way off. Is there any way to know if it will continue to rise or do I have to just keep testing to determine if it rises more before leveling off? Will it eventually drop back down after whatever has raised it leeches completely out of the soil? I do not want to start adding chemicals if I do not have to, I thought my KH was high enough to buffer it from any change, but I guess I was wrong. I will do a water change tonight to try and lower it slightly since my tap is about 7.5. Any other suggestions? Thank you.


----------



## atc84 (May 18, 2013)

Hi Dsurion,
Been following your thread, you've been doing everything really well. I recommend hornwort and duckweed as floaters. They grow very fast, but duckweed is hard to get rid of. What fish do you have in there right now?

The rise in ph could be from the tap. Have you tested your tap water? other than that it could be from the gravel or soil, but since your soil has peat it should actually be lowering the ph. 

I also think you could use more plants, fast growers mostly. Sorry if i missed it, but do you have a seeded filter?


----------



## Dsurion (Nov 15, 2013)

ATC,

Thanks for the reply.

I tested my tap water the same time I tested the aquarium water tonight to make sure it had not changed, it had not it is 7.5 just as it has always been. I even put the tubes next to each other and there was a marked difference in color so it is not the tap. The gravel and the filter are the same that have been in my tank for months. I kept the inside of the filter filled with water and the gravel in water during the process so it should have kept all of its bacteria. I have thought the same about the peat lowering the pH but the soil is the only thing that has changed in the tank.

The fish I currently have are three tiger barbs, three cherry barbs and a rainbow shark. I also have three nerite snails, just added two of them the other day. I got some malaysian trumpet snails the other day from a LFS for free that they had gotten by accident. They are tiny right now, so I assume they were right about them being trumpet snails since they are so small. The snails will be staying in a cup until they grow a bit bigger, I did not want to risk the rainbow shark eating them. I will add a few more fish after I know the tank is stable.

The plants I have are amazon swords, cryptocoryne wendtii, cryptocoryne undulata, narrow leaf java fern, anubius nana, micro sword and ludwigia. I know most are slow growing; I was somewhat concerned about having enough plants. Are there any other plants you would suggest? I could have gotten duckweed from the store I got the snails at they have a tank over run with it, and I know you can get hornwort from pretty much anywhere.


----------



## atc84 (May 18, 2013)

Well im not sure about your ph problem, you could try water changes to keep it stable...

water sprite, wisteria, anachris are all fast growers that could work well for you.


----------



## Dsurion (Nov 15, 2013)

I went to the LFS to see what they had. They were a little limited, they say shipments get slowed up this time of year, but I found wisteria so I got it and planted it.



Is there any good way to plant stuff without getting the water cloudy or is that something I will just have to wait to settle out every time if I want to put in anything else? I think I remember seeing dwarf water lettuce at a different store; would that be a good floating plant to put in?


----------



## grin (Dec 22, 2013)

Dsurion said:


> I think I remember seeing dwarf water lettuce at a different store; would that be a good floating plant to put in?


Walstad recommends water lettuce in her book. You should definitely have a plant with "aerial advantage" to help combat algae.


----------



## Dsurion (Nov 15, 2013)

They did have the dwarf water lettuce her is a top and bottom pic of some of the larger ones, there are other smaller ones in there too:





Hopefully this helps with the blue-green algae I have been starting to get. The hang on back filter pushes them around a bit, I know this type is not ideal for the NPT but that may have to be remedied at a later date. I am still seeing rising pH, doing water changes regularly, going to do a larger one tonight because it looked like it was up around 8 to 8.2. The store also had larger malaysian trumpet snails so I got four and put them right in. I think the snails and the water lettuce are more of a nuisance to them because they gave them all to me for $1.


----------



## Dsurion (Nov 15, 2013)

I just wanted to give an update for those who may be interested. It has been just over three weeks now since I set up my tank. The pH is still high, around 8.0, and I have been doing daily water changes to make sure it does not rise too high. I generally change out 5 gallons (so about 17%), and once a week I do about 10 gallons (about 33%). When I do the water change I wipe down the leaves by hand to get the blue-green algae off, don't want it blocking the light from getting to the leaves, then I try to siphon out as much of the algae as I can. The ammonia has been staying at 0 and the nitrates have been dropping ever since I put in the Dwarf Water Lettuce, it is down between 0 and 5 ppm on a daily basis, daily water changes probably help that too.

Most of the plants seem to be doing relatively well. The Dwarf Water Lettuce has been sprouting off daughter plants and some of the daughters have been sprouting more so it is spreading well. The Amazon Swords have new leaves coming up, the crypts seem to be steady, not losing any leaves and growing a few new ones, the Wisteria has new growth on the top, and the Java Fern has some new growth as well. The largest concern of mine is the micro sword (Lilaeopsis novae-zelandiae), I am slowly loosing leaves and I do not see any new growth. The Ludwigia does not seem to be rooting, it pops out of the substrate sometimes, I was not sure how it was going to work in the first place so no big deal. The blue-green algae growth has slowed over the past few days which I hope is a sign that it will eventually go away as nutrients are taken up by other plants.

Almost forgot, after reading another post about aerating the soil so I decided to start taking a small rod and poking it into the soil when I do the water change to make sure it is not getting anaerobic (I think that is the right term). I have been having quite a few air bubbles coming up every time I do it so I hope this is helping. I did put four Malaysian Trumpet Snails in there and I assume they are all there since they like to hide and I have only seen one in the last week.


----------



## totziens (Jun 28, 2008)

Get yourself a tweezer. That should help reducing the mess of planting. It may mess up a little bit sometimes but it will definitely help.


----------



## Dsurion (Nov 15, 2013)

It has been about two months since I set up my tank. I believe I figured out what my raising pH problem is, or maybe it was not a problem at all. I decided to try and figure out what could be raising the pH so I put some of the unused soil in a cup and filled it with water and I also filled up an empty cup as a control. After a couple of days I tested both, and both had a higher pH than it was right out of the tap. It seems once my tap water has time to settle its actual pH is around 8.0. So the raising pH was just natural for my water, I never really tested my pH much before but when I did I do not remember it being high, however the pH did seem worse higher than it is now during the first month after it put in the soil. After not doing any water changes for two weeks the pH is the same in the tank as it is in both cups, guess I have high pH water.

I also got a proper KH and GH test kit instead of relying on the store's test. My KH is 6 and my GH is 9.

The blue-green algae has been gone for a while, I am now getting a brownish film that develops on the front of the tank and some green spots, but nothing that a little scrubbing every week or so doesn't take care of. Most of the plants seem to be doing well. The swords have been sprouting new leaves, the dwarf water lettuce has taken over the top of the tank, I need to take some out because it is filled up the top and blocking a lot of the light from reaching any lower. The roots of the water lettuce are getting covered in algae though but not badly. The micro sword is slowly spreading, the java fern is growing, anubius nana is actually pushing up as its roots grow, and the wisteria are growing well, I need to cut them down because they are getting too tall. The ludwigia are not taking root and I think I will just toss them, the banana plants grow new leaves but then the leaves die away, not sure why. I tried to get some water sprite yesterday but the LFS said they normally have it but were out.

I did get two more barbs, a regular tiger and a green tiger, as well as a bristle-nose pleco, all seem to be doing well.

I got some black worms yesterday to feed the fish, which they loved. Some of the worms dropped to the bottom untouched and went down into the substrate. Has anyone had any experience with black worms living in their aquarium, I have read people having mixed results with them. Some people have said they put them in but they died causing the tank to stink and fouling up their water, however others have said they have had ones living in their tank for a long time without any problems. I had only five to ten make it to the bottom so not a lot if they all die. I have more and I was just wondering if I just dump the rest in will they be beneficial just as earthworms are beneficial in a garden, or maybe come out every once in a while and be eaten?


----------



## atc84 (May 18, 2013)

Looks good!

Im surprised you are still getting algae 2 months into the system. maybe reducing your lighting? idk, just a thought.


----------

