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Hi everyone,
I’ve been lurking here for a while, enjoying the posts in a lot of the forums, not just here in El Natural. I’ve finally decided to convert my 29g gravel substrate tank to a dirted tank. I have EPA and have been reading it, although most of the scientific stuff goes right over my head. I understand the concepts and how everything in the tank interacts with each other, but chemistry/physical science was never in my wheelhouse in school. My tank has been established for about 10 years and I successfully grow plants in the gravel substrate, I’m guessing mostly due to the 10+ years of gunk that sits just below the surface. 😊 I do dose with liquid fertilizers and root tabs but have never achieved the lush growth that I want. I have a cannister filter and a couple power heads that keep the water moving and it’s heated to 77°F. Currently it’s injected with CO2 with a probe and monitor set to keep pH at 7.0. Lighting is a Fluval Fresh&Plant LED controlled by wifi. My current fish load is one Blue Gourami, 11 cardinal tetras, five Trumpet snails and two Ottos. I was about to give up on this tank because of an algae problem that I could never get rid of. I recently did a redo on the plants and removed the ones with the worst algae. I figured that this would be a good point to convert to a dirted tank. In anticipation of this change I’ve also ordered some Crypt Lucens, Bacopa Caroliniana, Scarlet Temple, Dwarf Chain Sword, Moneywort, Ammannia Gracilis, Staurogyne Repens and Dwarf Sagittaria. These will join Anubias Nana (tied to small piece of driftwood), Water Sprite, Water Lettuce, Amazon Sword, Hornwort and Crypt Wendtti already in the tank. Basically I’ll be throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
The organic soil I’ve chosen is Miracle-Gro Raised Bed Soil. According to the label it’s made up of peat, processed forest products and/or compost, poultry litter, alfalfa meal, bone meal, kelp meal and earthworm castings. Total nitrogen is 0.09%
• 0.008% ammoniacal nitrogen
• 0.028% other water soluble nitrogen
• 0.054% water insoluble nitrogen (from poultry litter, alfalfa meal and kelp meal)
Available phosphate is 0.08%
Soluble potash is 0.09%
Calcium is 0.02%
I don’t have the time or space to mineralize this soil and this was the least fertilized that I could find.
I’m going to mix the soil with plain cat litter (non-clumping, nothing added) and cap it with CaribSea Super Naturals Peace River gravel. It measures 1.0-2.0mm and looks pretty nice.
Before I make the switch I decided to do a little testing to see what all these ingredients do to my tap water. Currently I have a glass with just water; a glass with water, soil and gravel; a glass with water, soil, litter and gravel; and a glass with water, soil, litter and pinch of crushed oyster shell. For the last two I mixed the soil/litter at 50/50. Soil and gravel layers are both 1 inch deep. I want to see what happens to my pH, KH and GH in each combination of ingredients. I’m still waiting for my test kit to arrive so I’ll post those results later. Once I have my “recipe” sorted out it’s off to the races! My plan is to use my canister filter (for the bacteria) and some of the old gravel in a mesh bag to jumpstart the bacteria growth and help with cycling. I also plan to increase my fish load as it seems these tanks do better with more fish contributing nutrients, yes?
I have some questions regarding the initial setup…
When measuring the soil depth, do you measure “dry” or after some water has been added and it has settled a little?
Do you add the plants before or after adding the gravel cap? It seems to me that with stem plants they should go in before the cap and the swords should go in after so as not to bury the crown, yes?
Is there any benefit to using the old tank water?
Is there any benefit to continue the CO2 injection until plants start showing growth?
Any red flags that you more experienced members see in my choice of soil mix or plan in general?
Thanks in advance for any help! I’m excited to see how this goes!
Scott
I’ve been lurking here for a while, enjoying the posts in a lot of the forums, not just here in El Natural. I’ve finally decided to convert my 29g gravel substrate tank to a dirted tank. I have EPA and have been reading it, although most of the scientific stuff goes right over my head. I understand the concepts and how everything in the tank interacts with each other, but chemistry/physical science was never in my wheelhouse in school. My tank has been established for about 10 years and I successfully grow plants in the gravel substrate, I’m guessing mostly due to the 10+ years of gunk that sits just below the surface. 😊 I do dose with liquid fertilizers and root tabs but have never achieved the lush growth that I want. I have a cannister filter and a couple power heads that keep the water moving and it’s heated to 77°F. Currently it’s injected with CO2 with a probe and monitor set to keep pH at 7.0. Lighting is a Fluval Fresh&Plant LED controlled by wifi. My current fish load is one Blue Gourami, 11 cardinal tetras, five Trumpet snails and two Ottos. I was about to give up on this tank because of an algae problem that I could never get rid of. I recently did a redo on the plants and removed the ones with the worst algae. I figured that this would be a good point to convert to a dirted tank. In anticipation of this change I’ve also ordered some Crypt Lucens, Bacopa Caroliniana, Scarlet Temple, Dwarf Chain Sword, Moneywort, Ammannia Gracilis, Staurogyne Repens and Dwarf Sagittaria. These will join Anubias Nana (tied to small piece of driftwood), Water Sprite, Water Lettuce, Amazon Sword, Hornwort and Crypt Wendtti already in the tank. Basically I’ll be throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
The organic soil I’ve chosen is Miracle-Gro Raised Bed Soil. According to the label it’s made up of peat, processed forest products and/or compost, poultry litter, alfalfa meal, bone meal, kelp meal and earthworm castings. Total nitrogen is 0.09%
• 0.008% ammoniacal nitrogen
• 0.028% other water soluble nitrogen
• 0.054% water insoluble nitrogen (from poultry litter, alfalfa meal and kelp meal)
Available phosphate is 0.08%
Soluble potash is 0.09%
Calcium is 0.02%
I don’t have the time or space to mineralize this soil and this was the least fertilized that I could find.
I’m going to mix the soil with plain cat litter (non-clumping, nothing added) and cap it with CaribSea Super Naturals Peace River gravel. It measures 1.0-2.0mm and looks pretty nice.
Before I make the switch I decided to do a little testing to see what all these ingredients do to my tap water. Currently I have a glass with just water; a glass with water, soil and gravel; a glass with water, soil, litter and gravel; and a glass with water, soil, litter and pinch of crushed oyster shell. For the last two I mixed the soil/litter at 50/50. Soil and gravel layers are both 1 inch deep. I want to see what happens to my pH, KH and GH in each combination of ingredients. I’m still waiting for my test kit to arrive so I’ll post those results later. Once I have my “recipe” sorted out it’s off to the races! My plan is to use my canister filter (for the bacteria) and some of the old gravel in a mesh bag to jumpstart the bacteria growth and help with cycling. I also plan to increase my fish load as it seems these tanks do better with more fish contributing nutrients, yes?
I have some questions regarding the initial setup…
When measuring the soil depth, do you measure “dry” or after some water has been added and it has settled a little?
Do you add the plants before or after adding the gravel cap? It seems to me that with stem plants they should go in before the cap and the swords should go in after so as not to bury the crown, yes?
Is there any benefit to using the old tank water?
Is there any benefit to continue the CO2 injection until plants start showing growth?
Any red flags that you more experienced members see in my choice of soil mix or plan in general?
Thanks in advance for any help! I’m excited to see how this goes!
Scott