mudboots

Hey everyone,

I'm going to get started on my aquarium this weekend (starting on Friday) and want to make sure I don't get off to a bad start. The aquarium is a 125 gallon (72"x18"x22") and will be my first NPT that I don't want to learn the hard-way on (I have a 20 gallon for that purpose!! - poor frog...). So far, my plan is to use Organic Choice soil to a depth of 1 inch, and then put 2 inches of sand on top of it. I'm hearing from other sources that substrate depth on top of the soil layer should not be that deep, so I'm hoping for a bit of solid guidance. My reasoning was that I originally planned to have 1.5 inches of each, but decided to go a bit shallower on the organics. Obviously that's not sound science coming from a wetland biologist, but it's honesty. I'm still waiting on delivery of Diana Walstad's book, which I eagerly await from what I've heard.

gr8nguyen1

hey mudboots, good luck man. that sounds awesome. the amount of fish and plants you can raise in a 125 g tank is huge. i suggest you take a look at DataGuru's post on step by step instructions for a NPT. its extremely helpful. bc your right with a tank that large you don't want to make too many mistakes. i made a ton of mistakes with my first npt and it was a disaster. im so glad i was able to get advice from others on this website.

DataGuru

I dunno about the sand. I've had good luck with very small gravel.
http://thegab.org/Articles/WalstadTank.html

mudboots

Okay, I have the soil in the tank, but nothing else yet. I mixed some pea gravel with sand and tried it on my 20 gallon and I like the way it looks. (I gutted out and completely overhauled the 20....to the demise of my poor little frog. )

By the way, I tried a bit of sand only and it did mix in with the soil, so, sand on soil is a no-go for NPT.

tazcat70

What was your mixture ratio for the sand/gravel?

Alex123

The common depth for both dirt and substrate is 1.0-1.5 inches. Sand is more dense than gravel so it should be even less depth. I would not put more than .75 inches if not less.

mudboots

Tazcat - I bought .5 cubic feet of each and mixed them evenly. I would not recommend using this much sand in a large tank. The 20 should be fine because in the worst case scenario I can overhaul it, though it looks pretty stable at the moment. When I get back in town I'll take some pics to show how it looks after a few days of settling. For the 125 I'm going to wash out some of the sand and use more gravel, though all guess work so no ratios to post. I will mention that the sand mixed in made it extremely easy to set my plants in firmly so there was no shift when I added the water.

Alex123 - I used almost exactly 1 inch of the organic choice and an inch of the mix, and will do the same on the 125 (using less sand). This of course is pending how the 20 looks when I get back.

Anyone else learning from mistakes - Wait until you get good expert advice (thank you Diana Walstad) before you start experimenting. I learned the hard way at the expense of my son's pet AFC that too thick of a soil layer and too thick of sustrate on top really will cause some horrible problems. I could smell the swamp down the hallway. I'm just glad it was in a small tank and not the big one. However, I've learned that those little "guppies" we call mosquito fish down here can handle just about any extreme you throw at them, so if you absolutely HAVE to play around with ideas, try it on them first and you won't be out anything, especially since you can get them free from any bar-ditch or hole in the ground you step into.

mudboots

Tried posting some pics of the substrate settling using the sand and gravel mix on top of the organic choice but the computer is acting up and I have to get on the road. I'll try again on Monday. But the bottom line is that one drawback of using sand is the amount of micro-particulates that are nearly impossible to completely rinse out, so the water takes longer to clear up. The advantages are ease in planting small rooted plants and the natural look, which is more of a person thing really. I used 0.5 cubic feet of each (play sand and pea gravel) to dress both a 125npt and my son's 20npt, which gave me almost exactly 1 inch on top of the 1 inch of organic choice (slighty deeper in the 20 and slightly shallower in the 125).

mudboots

Here are the pics of the substrate I tried posting over the weekend. I like the natural look, but once the plants kick in I'll never see it, so no matter really. I have not had any plants become dislodged since planting in this mix, though one of my son's fish managed to pull one stem plant up that has not put on roots yet in his 20 gallon. I posted a thread on this in the substrates forum.

davemonkey

Nice teaser pics, now show us a Full Tank Shot!

It doesn't look like the sand mixed too badly with the soil underlayer, as I see a clear defined line between the two. Did you just add the sand slowly to prevent that?

-Dave