# Natural Planted Tank Rnd 2



## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Yes, yes I am a glutton for punishment, and I just cannot be happy with how my tanks look. Nooo, I have to go and overhaul them every year or so, and this years project is breaking down the 10 gal, and redoing it as a natural planted tank, because the fiasco I had a couple years back when I first tried a natural planted tank was not enough punishment.

I did however learn some stuff last time. 

1. Perlite floats and never goes away.
2. Why yes, the sand cap really does need to be at least 1 inch thick, they are serious about that.
3. Wood chunks, when left in the soil, form gas pockets that never stop no matter how much you poke the soil or how many MTS you have burrowing.

Yesterday, and today, I spent a good 5 hours washing dirt, uhh organic potting soil, to rid it of wood chunks, floating debris, and perlite. Perlite, how I hate thee, let me count the ways... I now have very clean dirt, and feel that I should go check myself into the nearest mental hospital because I must have lost it.

Anyway either tomorrow, or the next day, I'll start tearing down the tank and washing the sand since I'm using the sand already in the tank and it needs a cleaning before being reused. 

I'll post some pictures once it's set up.


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## Old Dog 59 (Nov 11, 2018)

Oh you Brave, Brave Person. That is one thing I will never try. There is no way I would be able to fight with the cloud that would take over the tank. I do wish you the very best of luck and really want to see the results.


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Here's a picture of the overhauled 10 gal. I'm ordering 3 more plants to go in it, and when I do water changes tonight I'll snatch a couple of the crypts from my 20 gal, and a different type crypt from the 2.5 gal. Second picture is Hendrix in the 1.5 gal. The plants in it are anubias and anacharis.

Fingers crossed that the Nomaphila Siamensis Dwarf aka hygrophila, Hadi Red Pearl Amazon Sword, and Lobelia Cardinalis, ship well and do good in the tank!


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Here's pictures of my other tanks so you can see my jungle theme.


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## Peacelily (May 24, 2012)

Those last two don't look like jungles to me. Very pretty!


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Peacelily said:


> Those last two don't look like jungles to me. Very pretty!


Thanks!

Those are my 2.5 gal and my 3 gal. I can't let them get too overgrown or my betta's have no room to move around. Those two are a balancing act between letting them get full, but not letting the plants choke the space.


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Well, the new plants came in today, and most arrived in pretty good shape, although they are all small, the biggest being the sword. 

They are all planted, and now I get to wait to see if they decide to grow or melt. Fingers crossed that I do not loose to many!


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## Phish Head (Jul 23, 2019)

Bravo @Rainbo I salute you! 

I really wanted to try a NPT as per Walstad but I read about plenty of people who don't get her results and didn't have time to experiment. (Barr report is an excellent resource on NPT). 

Ultimately I went with ADA Aquasoil "Nature Tank" edition. I didn't cap it. I didn't anticipate how much it would settle, so two inches eventually reduced to approximately an inch and I'm not sure what do accept redo it in 7 months or less. I don't think there's enough soil right now to support the swords, crypts and stems, but they must be happy in the "Nature Tank" Aquasoil because everything is growing. 

Question por favor? When you break down and redo your tanks, do you just uproot your plants and replant? And they're okay with that process?

Thought you might like attached soil - NO PERLITE or other floaties. 

I know regular "potting" soil must be repeatedly washed over about five days to get rid of perlite, pieces of wood, etc. 

Your tanks look awesome and I'm going to be following this thread for updates and Protips. 
Keep the photos coming! 

Also attached is my "NPT" experiment about 90 days in. I don't know if Aquasoil labeled for "Nature Tank" is cheating? ;-) 


One last thing that might interest a NPT enthusiast. See that Pothos on the right? The roots used to be massive I just trimmed them. 
It seems like this plant sucks up all the nitrates because I never get any hint of orange. 
No algea problems of any kind despite leaving the light on longer than it probably should be (I know, I know...) 

So theoretically this tank could go a lot longer than a week without water changes - I think that was one of Walstad's points in her book? 

Apologies for the lengthy post - I'm just fascinated by the idea of a practically "maintenance free" tank based on supposedly ecologically sound principles and curious about how well they do in the real world. 

I'm also curious as to what extent you're planning on sticking to Walstad's method i.e. Siesta photo periods, etc? 

Cheers!









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## Phish Head (Jul 23, 2019)

Nice! Where'd you get a sword that size?! 

Are you planning on ferts? 

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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Thanks! 

Yes, I uprooted all the plants including that huge sword and the crypts. What I do is drain water from the tank into however many buckets of water I need to put the plants in, then I uproot them and put them in the buckets. I've done that a number of times when I've redone tanks and have yet to hurt any of them. The main problem I have is that full grown plants are a bit of a pain to get back into the substrate because their roots are so extensive. I like to never get that sword replanted!

I probably didn't wash the soil as long as I should, I only washed it twice, but I did lose a good 1/2 the "soil" just in those two washings. I basically got rid of anything that floated, and kept the stuff that sank.

I think my last NPT lasted around a year before I just could not take it anymore. The plants loved it but it looked horrible, and was a huge headache. With your tank you may be able to add the aquasoil to your tank using a water bottle as a funnel, that's how I add new sand to my tanks when I don't want to break them down and redo them. I'd experiment with it though and make sure you won't turn your tank into a soil cloud if you decide to try it.

I don't follow the Walstead method, but have read about it a little. I mainly use the instructions found here https://www.bettafish.com/147-planted-betta-tanks/114575-how-natural-planted-tank.html I do keep the lights out on my tanks once a week, and I guess that could count as a siesta period? One of the things mentioned in the thread I linked to is that the tank should not need real water changes once it's up and running, it should only need top offs. I'll see how it goes. I know it's supposed to be a mini ecosystem, and when I last tried it I didn't add any ferts to the tanks, just iron every now and then for the swords. I'll probably either add some shrimp, or cory cats, maybe both, once the plants fill in, they'll help feed the plants. 

Thanks for the hint about the Miracle Grow! I'll have to check out that formula of it, the regular organic one is what I tried the first time and it had so much wood and perlite that it was unreal. I'm talking huge chunks of wood that caused my tank to be an NPT black water tank without my even wanting it to be. I got SunGro Black Gold organic soil this time and it wasn't bad with the wood, but it was loaded with perlite.

Ohh I'll have to get some pothos! My towns water company insists that the nitrites in the water is just fine, my API test shows that they are at least 5PPM.... I'm still fighting with them and fixing to take a water sample to the lab in the next town, since the one in my town is saying that the level is 0.8555. No, it's not my test as it will give me different readings depending on where I get the water from. Sooo, I'll be cross referencing the water test at another lab. Anyway, I'm off on a rabbit trail, that pothos will come in handy since my tanks nitrite and nitrate levels are spiking. (thank you water company -,-)


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Phish Head said:


> Nice! Where'd you get a sword that size?!
> 
> Are you planning on ferts?
> 
> Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk


Thanks! Believe it or not that sword was from PetSmart, but it wasn't even half that size when I bought it. It seems to really like it's home in front of my kitchen window and decided to grow like a weed. I've the same type in my 20 gal and they do not look anything like that one, and are only around 6" tall the only difference in care is the one in the 10 gal gets natural light.

I'll only use ferts if the plants look like they need them, the only exception is iron for the swords.


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Hmm, I never did update this.. 

Everything was going pretty good with the tank till my Amazon Sword decided that the soil was the best thing ever and outgrew the tank. It got so big that it shaded the tank to the point that I lost 3 out of the 4 new plants that I had put in the tank. I tried trimming off leaves but I'd have needed to trim nearly all the leaves to get enough light in the tank. I decided to get rid of it last week. Mistake, BIG mistake. I gently and slowly pulled it out hoping to disturb the soil as little as possible, it didn't work that way. Nope it turned my tank into something that resembled a murky lake, the soil scattered over everything, and I ended up turning off the filter before the mess ruined it's motor. Live and learn, next time I get rid of a large plant I'll just pull it up enough to expose the roots and cut it off there. The roots can decompose. 

I pulled the Amazon up a few days ago, and had gotten in a new batch of plants that day. So once the mess settled down somewhat I did a partial water change vacuuming up as much of the soil as I could, and planted the plants as best as I could. I also ordered new sand because the sand cap was pretty much destroyed where the sword was. The sand came yesterday and I washed it today. I vacuumed the tank again, put the sand down, vacuumed some more and planted a few more plants. I still need to put in the dwarf hair grass, but my back is killing me a bit to much to tackle it tonight. Hopefully these new plants will do well. I've got a Fluval Planted + light now along with natural light from the window, so without the sword in there shading nearly all the substrate they have more then enough light.

I'll post pictures tomorrow after I get the hair grass in.


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

I never did get those pictures posted, sorry about that! Here's some from when I first got the new plants in, and a couple that I took today. 

The first picture was taken around 10 or 11 days ago, the other 2 were taken today. I'm going to have to move some of the water sprite or it's going to smoother the red cabomba. 

I had to take out the large piece of driftwood that I had some of the anubia and java fern tied to. Hendrix, despite my best efforts to prevent him from doing so, insisted on shredding his fins on it. The boy loves nothing more then to worm his way in and out of the base of his plants and I guess he liked to worm against the wood. You can see the damage he's done to his fins in the last picture of him


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## Rana (Apr 27, 2013)

Silly boy, ripping up his fins!

The tank looks great, I love the variety of plants you have. Very jealous of your Anubias in particular, mine don't look anywhere _near_ as lush. 

How much dirt did you end up needing to get a layer that thick? I'm still trying to decide if I want to try a dirted tank in my other 10g when I finally plant it, or stick to just the sand I already have on hand...


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Rana said:


> Silly boy, ripping up his fins!
> 
> The tank looks great, I love the variety of plants you have. Very jealous of your Anubias in particular, mine don't look anywhere _near_ as lush.
> 
> How much dirt did you end up needing to get a layer that thick? I'm still trying to decide if I want to try a dirted tank in my other 10g when I finally plant it, or stick to just the sand I already have on hand...


Thanks!

If I remember right it was 16 Quarts, BUT I'm not positive. If I had to do it again I'd do a bigger bag and use a colander to sift it. Even though I thought I had gotten most of the pieces of wood out and I lost over half what I started with when I washed it, it still has a lot of small pieces of wood in it and I'm pretty sure that's what's causing the gas pockets to form despite my having malaysian trumpet snails in the tank.


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## Rana (Apr 27, 2013)

Rainbo said:


> Thanks!
> 
> If I remember right it was 16 Quarts, BUT I'm not positive. If I had to do it again I'd do a bigger bag and use a colander to sift it. Even though I thought I had gotten most of the pieces of wood out and I lost over half what I started with when I washed it, it still has a lot of small pieces of wood in it and I'm pretty sure that's what's causing the gas pockets to form despite my having malaysian trumpet snails in the tank.


Thanks for the info, even a rough estimate is helpful. 

I'll have to definitely keep an eye out for wood if/when I decide to go dirt. I don't mind sifting & rinsing ahead of time but I can totally understand surprise wood pieces being a royal pain once it's already set up. Hopefully yours will settle soon! All that wood has to decay away _eventually_, right?


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

Rana said:


> Thanks for the info, even a rough estimate is helpful.
> 
> I'll have to definitely keep an eye out for wood if/when I decide to go dirt. I don't mind sifting & rinsing ahead of time but I can totally understand surprise wood pieces being a royal pain once it's already set up. Hopefully yours will settle soon! All that wood has to decay away _eventually_, right?


You're welcome!

Since these pieces are really small I'm thinking they should. They seem to be maybe 1/2 inch, at the most, long, and they are on the thin side, most aren't too hard either, which is probably how I missed them when I washed the dirt. It's already starting to settle down and I'm getting less bubbles when I poked the substrate.


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## Rainbo (Nov 23, 2015)

One week later and most of the plants are growing like weeds. I'll probably have to trim them next week.


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## Phish Head (Jul 23, 2019)

Awesome tank - Nice color substrate what is it? 

Also, @Rainbo I saw I have a msg from you about a cycling link - appreciate it. For whatever reason I can't access the msg at least not from my phone. I'll try again from the PC  

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