# GAH, tried to dirt the tank...and it's cloudy as crap!! Help! :(



## Blue Fish (Jun 11, 2012)

ARRGGHHHH!! (yes, that was a tortured cry of utmost regret...)

So, my plants have been doing fine in their plain gravel with tabs and fertz and fish waste. But, I decided, I want to go big and bold and have them grow and be awesome...and for that, I need DIRT!

Oh my gosh...why did I do this...

Apparently, because I'm a sadist.  

So, I got the organic potting soil, got out the big chunks, put about a 1.5 inch layer in the bottom of the tank and wet down the dirt...then I put another 2 inches of small diameter gravel in the top...and slowly...oh so slowly...started to seep the water into the tank. Well...Now I have a cloudy mess. I've drained the entire tank twice since then, and am refilling right now. Each empty and repeat gets a little less cloudy...but we're still not at clear. 

What in the world, how do people do this?! I watched you tube videos, I read the how-to-stuff...and still I get brown water?? 
Does it settle eventually? 
Should I put a filter in there, or will that make it worse?
Is it safe to put the bettas back in? I really don't want to keep them in cups if I don't have to.  

Gah, help is greatly appreciated! 

I tried this once before with sand, and that was a nightmare as well...I vowed to never try sand again, hence the gravel...


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## peachii (Jan 6, 2013)

Before you drain and fill it the next time, if you want - put a large, huge piece of bubble wrap, saran wrap, anything plastic to cover the bottom this should help stop the clouding. 

Gravel on top of straight dirt, may be letting the dirt through. A sand or other substrate cap on top of the dirt under the gravel may also help to stop the clouding if you have anything like that to pull the gravel, put down and then put the gravel back on top.


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## FishyFishy89 (Jul 3, 2011)

Just keep changing the water
How big is this tank? If around 5 gallons, a filter can help the cloudlyness. 
Here was my 75 the night I finished dirting it.

Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## Blue Fish (Jun 11, 2012)

Ahh, thanks so much! I do have some pool filter sand, I'll try that next time.  

After I posted this and finished that third water change the water actually went in nice and clear...mystery...  I guess I finally just rinsed it away enough to have the problem solved.  

Question though, so when I want to add or remove plants...is it going to recloud badly again? And if so, how long does it take to clear up? Is it safe for betta to be in the cloudy water? 

Thanks so much for the help guys!!


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## n25philly (Dec 5, 2013)

Ok a few potential issues here.

1) how big is the tank? How you should be doing this depends on the size of the tank.

2) You should use organic potting mix, not soil

3) you should have more dirt than cap

4) If done right you should really have much cloudiness, but it happens. Since you've already got this set up you can try to just do water changes until it clears up. You should use something for the water to hit like peachii mentioned

5) agreed, sand if a better choice for this kind of set up.

Also going back to tank size, make sure you have enough soil. I set up a a couple of months ago where I had to redo it because I didn't use enough soil and when I was planting everything they wouldn't fit in in without making a mess or would just not stay in and float up to the top. Then again I didn't measure it and just eyeballed it.


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## Laki (Aug 24, 2011)

I have a large gravel cap on my soil (only because I didn't realise the bag of dirt wasn't big enough to really give me a full 2 inch layer on my 20g). Had to rinse it and drain it a pile of times and ran it with the filter for 3 or 4 days before adding the plants. It was still cloudy when I planted but it cleared up within a few days as bacteria settled. 

My advice, keep calm. This will work for you


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## peachii (Jan 6, 2013)

I have tanks where I've used soil and not potting mix - they are doing WONDERFULLY a year+ down the road. The only difference is the first few weeks might have ammonia spikes - that's it. No harm to fish occured, no harm to plants if anything they are more healthy than the potting mix tanks.

I also have tanks that have 1/2 inch potting soil mixed with floramax/safe-tsorb and then capped with 1 1/2 inches of my substrate cap of choice. The only reason I suggested the tiny bit of sand was because of the gravel. Larger pieces will probably make it through the gravel when she moves plants but that would happen anyway once the roots go down into the soil. 

I read a blog of a guy that makes his own mineralized top soil and he pretty much intentionally broke every rule in the book of what NOT to use in soil according to forum posts. Scoops of his dogs poop, dirt straight from his yard, leaves, and other things. Mixed it, let it cook outside in the heat and then used it for over 2 years in the "test" tank. Grew the most beautiful plants with absolutely no harm to his fish or plants in the tank. You can use whatever you want to use so long as you do it properly and do your water changes in the first few months to control the tannins and possible ammonia spikes. When he tore the tank down, he used that soil in another tank that is still going strong to this day.

I've had tanks cloud up but it's always been from the dirt being a bit to wet when I started filling the tanks, if the tanks is pretty much empty with just damp dirt I usually get little to no clouding when filling it. The first tank we did, we wet the dirt completely and when we filled it, it was a huge mess for a couple days. Learned our lesson right quick to make sure the tank is drained completely of water as much as possible before filling the entire thing.


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## FishyFishy89 (Jul 3, 2011)

I've pulled up some plants since dirting my tank and haven't had too much a problem with the tank clouding back up. Then again, I have 2 different caps.


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## Tree (Sep 29, 2013)

This happened to me too the fist time I made my NPT. The whole water turned black! I found out that when you soak the dirt in water it will not stay at the bottom. So I used dry dirt and filtered out the chunks of wood and plant food. and put the dry soil in than capped it with gravel. Then slowly added in the water using my gravel vacuum by pressing it against the tank. There was some dirt that rose up and it was cloudy but not as bad as the first time where I could not see ANYTHING in the tank. yes it was that black. XD Not sure if my method was the correct one, but my fish and plants are fine and I had to do many water changes for the ammonia not to spike.


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## Blue Fish (Jun 11, 2012)

To answer n25philly: 
The tank is a 20g long, I’ve got four 20 longs divided two ways and a 40 breeder sorority. I like my guys to have 10g’s each because they’re just BIG...  Plus I can get a better plant-scape with larger spaces.   
I’ve got a mix of both organic soil and potting mix, mostly potting mix, the soil was some leftover from repotting my actual non-aquatic potted plants. All the large mulch pieces and chunks were sifted and picked out before the dirt was put into the tank. 
The dirt is about an inch thick, the cap is another inch and a half to two inches. 
The water was going in very, very slowly through a pond pump with the tubing (my version of a python because the pythons don’t work with my bathroom sink faucets) set up so that it hits the side of the tank before it hits the gravel. 

Peachii, I think that’s exactly where I went wrong…the dirt was quite wet when I added the gravel cap and then the water…I thought this was a good thing…turns out it was just the opposite!  
Interesting about the guy creating his own topsoil…I mean, it makes sense, ponds and other bodies of water in the wild are full of all sorts of natural "ick" and it doesn't cause a problem, but I’d be too worried to try it, lol!  

Fishy, thanks for the information.  I don’t move plants too often anyway, so hopefully this will be a non-issue. 


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## umarnasir335 (Jan 9, 2014)

The dirt and cloudiness is gonna be there no matter how meticulous you are. 

The KEY now is to do at least 3 25% water changes per WEEK for the next few weeks so you don't get the worst algae bloom you've ever witnessed.

The water should clear up in less than a week that way.


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