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xenxes's TruVu 90g - Compost "Terra Preta" Dutch Jungle (Shrimp Melting Pot)

45K views 198 replies 56 participants last post by  WaterLife 
#1 · (Edited)
1/16/15 low tech start:


2/11/15:


3/6/15:


--- begin CO2 ---

3/18/15:


4/8/15:


4/24/15 (upgrade to 50W LED floods):


4/30/15


6/15/15


8/27/15


9/6/15 (more mowing)


9/27/15 (3 weeks to get back to the top, fully established)


1/28/16 (bought new LED lights, went through 2 sets of cheap LED floods, not cost-efficient in the long run!; scraggly patch on left is me trying to destroy a cynaobacteria bloom)


Equipment:
- 90g custom TruVu (15" tall x 18" deep x 72" long)
- Fluval 405 canister
- Fluval 305 canister
- 3x TSSS 30W LED Flood Lights
- 4x InterDesign Shower Caddies for Riparium Plants
- [strike]Odyssea T5HO[/strike]



Substrate:
- DIY synthetic "Terra Preta"

Flora:
Submerged
- Alternanthera Reineckii
- Alternanthera Sessilis
- Ammannia Senegalensis
- Ludwigia Pantanal / Cuba
- [strike]Ludwigia Curly Tornado[/strike]
- Ludwigia Red Sp.
- Ludwigia Arcuata x Repens
- Ludwigia Pink Ovalis
- Ludwigia Brevipes
- Ludwigia Atlantis
- Rotala H'ra, Colorata, Singapore
[strike]- Rotala Macranda[/strike]
- Rotala Caterpillar
- Rotala Araguaia
[strike]- Rotala Indica True [/strike]
- Rotala Enie
[strike]- Rotala Mexicana Goais/strike]
- Eichhornia Diversifolia
- Persicaria Kawagoeanum
- Limnophila Aromatica
- Limnophila Mini Vietnam
[strike]- Lindernia sp India[/strike]
- Lobelias Cardinalis Mini
- Pogostemon Erectus
- Pogostemon Stellata "Donssan"
- [strike]Tonina Fluviatilis[/strike]
- Bacopa Salzmannii
- Bacopa Monnieri
- Heteranthera Zosterifolia (Star Grass)
- Najas Guadalupensis (Guppy Grass)
- Lysimachia Nummularia 'Aurea' (Golden Creeping Jenny)
[strike]- Staurogyne Low Grow[/strike]
- Staurogyne Repens 49
- Blyxa Japonica
- Hemianthus Callitrichoides (Baby Dwarf Tears)
- Hemianthus Glomeratus (Pearlweed)
- Dwarf Hair Grass
- Micranthemum "Monte Carlo"
- Micranthemum Umbrosum
[strike]- Lilaeopsis Brasiliensis[/strike]
[strike]- Lilaeopsis Chinensis[/strike]
[strike]- Marsilea Minuta[/strike]
[strike]- Anubias Nana[/strike]
- Taiwan Moss
- Christmas Moss
- Peacock Moss
- Fissdens Fontanus

Emerged (riparium)
- Hydrocotyle sp. ''Japan'
- Alternanthera Ficoidea
- Spathiphyllum (Peace Lily)
- Dracaena Sanderiana (Lucky Bamboo)
- Equisetum (Horsetail)
- Chamaedorea Cataractarum (Cat Palm)
- Oplismenus Hirtellus 'Variegatus' (Variegated Basket Grass)
- Asclepias Curassavica (Tropical Milkweed)
- Hemigraphis Repanda (Dragon's Breath)
- Ludwigia Pilosa [temporary]
- Ruellia Brittoniana Katie [?]
- Penthorum Sedoide [?]




Fauna
- 8x Endler x Guppies (temporary)
- 20x Corydoras Pygmaeus
- 10x Otocinclus
- 10x Boraras Brigittae
- 10x Boraras Urophthalmoides
- 10x Boraras Micros
- 10x Boraras Maculatus
- 2x Thai Microcrabs
- 40x PFRs/Bloody Marys/Rilis
- 12x Orange "Sakura Fire"
- 12x "Sea Sky" Blue (Dream Blue / Carbon)
- 12x Yellow "Golden Back"
- 10x OEBTs
- 10x CRS
- 11x Blue Bees (Paracaridina)
- 12x Hybrid Snow White x. Aura Blues
[strike]- 6x Zebra Nerites[/strike]
[strike]- 6x Olive Nerites[/strike]
- Millions of ramshorn snails
- Billions of pond snails
- Thousands of MTS
- ?










--- Original Post ---

I should probably wait until I can set this up to post, but... too excited!

After breaking down and giving away most of my old tanks, circumnavigating the globe, moving across country, buying a new house, etc. -- I finally got a new (and not a nano) tank. Will be back in the hobby in t minus 5 weeks!

Drove 180 miles round trip to E. Bay this morning to pick up the tank + 2x Fluval (305 & 405) filters + 4x T5HO fixture + stand for $300 (great deal).

Tank is 6 feet long! Had to fold down front passenger seat and push it in diagonally to fit the length of my Jeep
 
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24
#2 · (Edited)
I plan to do a DIY synthetic Terra Preta substrate (copied discussion to HERE.)

Actual ingredients used in post #7 HERE.

What is Terra Preta?

Terra preta (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈtɛʁɐ ˈpɾetɐ], locally [ˈtɛhɐ ˈpɾetɐ], literally "black earth" or "black land" in Portuguese) is a type of very dark, fertile anthropogenic soil found in the Amazon Basin. Terra preta owes its name to its very high charcoal content, and was made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bone, and manure to the otherwise relatively infertile Amazonian soil. It is very stable and remains in the soil for thousands of years.[1][2] It is also known as "Amazonian dark earth" or "Indian black earth".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

TL;DR version:

Basicaly, Terra Preta is soil with a high charcoal / carbon content. The charcoal acts as a nutrient buffer, saturating the charcoal with nutrients first allows it to slowly leech the same to plants over time. This carbon is self renewing in a sense, because microorganisms dying in the porous surfaces of the charcoal adds additional carbon content. The high carbon content helps stabilize soil, and therefore water parameters in the long run. Because of its buffering capacity, the carbon creates a more forgiving environment to over/under fertilization. Nutrients will still have to be replenished over time (but a long time), so root tabs / osmocote are still helpful.

I have had great success with using charcoal as a buffer in planting orchids and several carnivorous species that are highly sensitive to nitrogen burns. They've thrived and flourished despite sporadic over/under fertilization. I think the same will translate over to a planted tank.

(1) My synthetic concoction will involve primarily:
- Natural Wood Charcoal (bought 100% wood charcoal from Walmart)
- Peat Moss and/or Coconut Peat as pH buffer (bought from big box garden store)
- Manure for Macro Nutrients and Saturating Charcoal (used dog poop instead of purchasing cow manure since I have lots of those, and as a tribute to DogFish)

(2) Optional but probably desirable additional supplements:
- Bone Meal for micro nutrients (used left over chicken bones from dinner, rather than buying fert)
- Compost for more nutrients and binder (used banana peels, egg shells, coffee grinds, tea leaves, crab/lobster shells, yard trimmings)
- Diatomaceous Earth and Montmorillonite / Bentonite Clay for more nutrients and additional buffering (bought online)

(3) Not decided on these yet, probably will not use:
- Additional long fiber spaghnum moss closer to substrate surface to decompose and add CO2
- Activated carbon on substrate surface to reduce initial spiking

Note that this if for a LOW pH tank (5-6).

For high PH tanks, I would remove the peat, use chicken manure and higher volume of calcium carbonate, crushed limestone, crushed coral.

Warning/Disclaimer: I'm experimenting with %s and chemistry of this concoction, try it at home at your (shrimp's) own risk. Do not add straight charcoal (especially activated carbon) into your substrate, the immediate effect is they will simply absorb nutrients and the plants may suffer in the short term if your tank is underfertilized. You need to saturate the charcoal first, such as in a manure and/or urine marinade. Do not use waste from animals on any kind of medication, especially anti-flea poisons, pyrethins can be toxic to fauna at several parts per billion.

*Update: after observing a few different mixes in various tanks, if I could do this all over again I would try something simpler and more effective--

~95% vermicompost, ~5% bentonite/montmorillonite clay, oscomote+ in large portions, mix, then top off with a 0.5-1" layer of activated carbon. No filler. You can also seed mychorrhizal fungi and beneficial nematodes, but a handful of your backyard dirt should probably contain both if they're not already in your vermicompost.

I recommend reading this http://bialix.com/amania/Chapters/Tech/sub-aquasoils_en.html which roughly breaks down the composition of every commercial substrate including ADA's.
 
#3 ·
Had a little time this afternoon, washed the tank out, removed the background.


Scrub-a-dub-dub, good condition overall, some visible scratches I'll buff out later


custom Truvu, originally for frags? 72"l x 18"d x 15"h, plants will get a lot of light


coming from exclusively nano tanks, the 6' length still astounds me


no idea why the old stand had heavy granite countertops (old repurposed kitchen cabinet?), going to stain the wood darker


beginning to propagate plants, for my reference:
(left container)
- DHG top left
- Persicaria kawagoeanum middle container 1
- Ludwigia Red Pantanal middle container 2
- Ludwigia sp red middle container 3
- Limnophila mini vietnam middle container 4
- HC bottom left

(right container)
- anubias nana (top)
- lobelia small form (top)
- more ludwigia red pantanal (top left) and ludiwiga sp red (top right)
- limnophila mini vietnam (middle)
- staurogyne low grow (middle-lower)
- staurogyne repens 49 (mid-lower)
- bacopa salzmannii (bottom left)
- more ludwigia red pantanal (bottom container 1)
- more staurogyne low grow (bottom container 2)
- more Persicaria kawagoeanum (bottom container 3)
 
#4 ·
Those will be perfect dimensions for a planted tank. I have never seen a 6' 90 gal. Looking forward to see what you do with this. You will need more plants than are what in those 2 containers to fill up that big boy.
 
#6 ·
Very cool tank!

I have a custom acrylic craigslist find that has very similar dimensions!

Mine is 84" long 17.5" deep 16.5" tall. I really like the dimensions. I think long tanks look more impressive per gallon than tall tanks. Just my opinion.

IMO, in most 2 foot or 29" tall tanks, the top 8" is usually just open water, so I think a slightly shorter tank looks great, and is also much easier to clean and setup!

Looking forward to see how this build turns out! :proud:
 
#7 · (Edited)
Thanks, this one might take a while to get started, unlike my old nanos that pop up overnight...

@PhysicsDude55 - woa, 84", got pics? I don't see your journals :(

---

Anyway, since I have to wait, I decided to start marinading my "biochar" for the substrate:


Walmart 100% natural, if you're going to do the same thing make sure you do NOT get the ones coated in gasoline. Crushed with car tires, hammer would have taken forever


Tip: add some water, CLOUDS of black dust


Compost = egg shells + banana peels + coffee grinds + paper towels + yard clippings


Rather than buying manure, just added dog poo. Be careful with this at home, I mean obviously wash your hands after touching poo, but more importantly pyrethins from dog flea and heartworm medication take at least a month+ to break down in soil (and much longer on the water surface), this is lethal to shrimp at just a few parts per billion.


A lot of miscellaneous went in here too, like this crab dinner. Calcium!


cover with more leaf litter


Let it bake (worms or a ground pile would speed this up but I'm a casual/lazy composter)
 
#8 · (Edited)
Think I'll end up paying for my impatience, saw good deals on shrimps and bought some waaay before I can have this tank set up, much less cycled and established


15-20 FPRs


21 TB/CRS mischlings


Setup an interim holding tub, some charoal, coco peat and spaghnum moss, plant filtration (lucky bamboo + peace lilies; wabikusa with excess plants), fluval 305 filter, titanium heater sitting outside


Settled down and grazing on decaying moss
 
#13 · (Edited)
If you want to speed it up, keep it moist, keep it from freezing, add earthworms, turn it once in a while, and keep nitrogen to carbon ratio at 20-30 to 1.

Different things compost at different speeds. If you want to be absolutely safe, i.e. food-grade compost, wait until everything turns to fine spongy black goodness, like really black and soft dirt.

I'm not likely going to wait that long, and will probably use a 1-2" sand cap to keep most of the still decomposing matter out of the water column, right now I'm mainly just marinading the charcoal with nitrogen.
 
#14 ·
I feel like I'm updating the grow tub rather than 90g tank, sorry lol


BAM! this is what the temporary shrimp tub looks like now 1 week later:

I had to crank the heater up to 74F, set it at the "lowest" setting which I thought was 68F, but it might have been off, got a death a few nights ago when it got down to 40F :(

Thanks to Scott (pweifan) who sent me a bazillion plants today to help me back into the hobby (and thanks for labeling everything!).


Therefore, I had to increase to 4 grow tubs!


Tub1:


Tub2:

The ludwigia pantanal all melted the night when it got to 40F, ugh weak.

Tub3:


Tub4:
 
#16 ·
I have no idea. Depends on what you're going to use it for, if for yard fertilizer buffer I imagine the longer it soaks the more nutrients it binds. A couple weeks to a month ought to give it some nutrients, depends on the porosity of the charcoal. I'm doing mine for about 6 weeks since that's how long it'll take for me to get everything ready.

FYI, most just soak their "biochar" (charcoal) in liquid gold. Even after it goes in the ground you can still pee on it. But if it's going into the tank that's another story... probably just insert more root tabs or balls of decaying plant matter into the substrate.
 
#17 ·
Thanks for sending me the link to this thread, I somehow missed it until now. :icon_eek: I'm glad the plants arrived safely. :) It can be a gamble this time of year.

I'm very curious to see how the Terra Preta setup works for you. I'll be setting up my tank in the next month or so with mineralized top soil for the first time. I wonder what are the pros and cons for each type of set up. I'll have to start a journal so we can compare notes. ;)

Where'd you find the Ludwigia sedoides? I couldn't find any (locally) this year.

Good luck with this tank. It looks like it's going to be a beauty!
 
#18 ·
I think charcoal is just a good buffer, mitigates over/under fertilization. Plants will probably not magically do better, but should be more resilient to neglect. Should be beneficial to add an underlayer before your top soil or just mix it in.

Mosaic plant's tropical. I caught a local pond store right before they moved it indoors and closed down for the season. So it remains in the 74F heated tub. I'll send you some when it warms up :)
 
#20 · (Edited)
Yes, but probably not enough because of its speed of decay. The half-life of carbon-14 is like ~5700 years, and makes up maybe 30% of regular charcoal. Any organic matter decomposition releases CO2, I think leaf litter and peat moss would do a much better job, but still probably not enough to keep up with a high light / tech tank.
 
#21 ·
So a few updates, finally moved (still unpacking)! While moving, I dropped the big shrimp bucket while coming off the UHaul truck and shrimp went flying / swimming down the street! :( managed to salvage some, but lost quite a few.


Tank is now setup in place directly across the front door. I sanded down the stand frame and stained with a weathered grey to match the room, still need to do drawers and doors this weekend. (Oh, I also crawled underneath this ~100 year old house to put up 4 floor jacks underneath the tank in maybe 1 ft of crawl space, talk about being claustrophobic)


I messed up my planned terra preta composition, ended up using only 2 bags of compost (still smelled like fish and dog poo), and mostly coconut peat, because the compost is still marinating, I dumped in a lot of activated carbon as a buffer to soak up the excess.


Planted some of the plants, no particular order but I tried to get some symmetry.


Going to let it grow emergent for about a week before I flood.
 
#23 · (Edited)
A little bit of a set back... flooded it too early (and not carefully), so the coco peat went everywhere and would not sink (also all the compost and sh*t), took out the plants and shoved a layer of top soil from the backyard to hold everything down


On the bright side, I did get rid of the old Odyssea light fixture and replaced it with 3x LED 30W flood lights for $20 each (TSSS brand), ends up cheaper than buying T5HO 60" replacement bulbs, runs cooler/less energy and will last longer. Also finished the cabinets.


Riparium growth will be in the back, I need to get those shower caddies with suction cups (plants are just lying sideways now with roots in the water). Muddy, but no longer stinky ;)
 
#24 · (Edited)
I'm just starting to add riparium plants as well. Some advice I see regularly about the shower caddies is to remove the suction cups and fashion hangers for them. Apparently the suction cups don't hold well.

I'll be putting two in my tank in a couple weeks and I'll let you know how I end up hanging them.

By the way, the new place looks nice!
 
#26 ·
I got 4x InterDesign Shower Caddies with extra large suction cups (Amazon and Target has them), $6-7 each, they seem to stay in place.


Left side riparium 2x containers, filled with cocopeat + moss


Right side riparium 2x containers (and bundle of plants + water hyacinth temporarily to soak up water column nutrients)


Substrate, layer of backyard Sacramento mud / clay over coco peat & compost to hold it down, the stuff is staining the water white, I'm worried about pH so throwing in more long fiber peat


Exterior is starting to come together, interior needs a lot of work (and settling) to be presentable
 
#28 ·
Happy belated new years! Time for a weekly update.


The riparium containers are still hanging on with the suction cups so I don't see a need to do more work now. I threw in a whole ziplock bag of ketapang leaves so the water went black for 3 days before clearing up a little again, the white dust (clay content from yard soil did settle). However the pH is tending towards neutral unfortunately. I should have used less yard soil, or just forego the TBs idea. In the interim I threw in a ton more sphagnum moss.


This water hyacinth quadrupled in size in about a week and made 3 babies


Lucky bamboo's shooting out crazy roots. These are temporary nitrate suckers, the nitrite and nitrate levels are still off the charts from bubbling compost (well, obviously not well composted poop). I don't think I want to do another bamboo forest scape.


Dug up my old buddha from the 20g, not sure what to do with it. I need larger pieces of driftwood for a presentable scape.


The HC is rooting and getting established


Not sure what's going on with the DHG.

Obviously need to wait longer before throwing in fauna. Snails have overtaken the tank for now. Never seen ramshorn and pond snails so huge!
 
#30 ·
Haha thanks for thinking that :) I could just as easily use a sump pump and do a water change, but I'm trying to learn patience (and CA has no water so I'm conserving ;)). In the mean time I revived my old 9g EHEIM and threw in a couple leftover shrimp to keep myself entertained. And I dug a 1200g pond over the holidays (definitely lost weight this Xmas). The addiction is kicking back in full force!
 
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