Wanted to start a Planted Aquarium

[Sly13Cat]

I was thinking about starting a planted tank after it's cycled (10 gallon) and I had some questions. What I really wanted to do was make a aquarium bottom of plants (carpet):
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Before Planting:
Do I have to replace my gravel with sand or soil?
If I have to what happens to all the bacteria in my gravel?
How can I preserve the bacteria?
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Choices:
Which one seems best in terms of detritus collection, maintenance and looks (They're in order of my most favorable to least favorable):

1st - Dwarf Hairgrass
2nd - Hemianthus (Cuba)
3rd - Pygmy Chain Sword

What's the basic maintenance of the plant you chose?

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After Planting:

Would Flourish Excel work instead of CO2? (I realize that they are in no way the same thing but Excel seems to do a good job too and I'd rather buy excel than a Diffuser)
Do you have to use Flourish and Flourish Excel together? Which one is more important? (IMO it's Flourish Excel).
What is the basic maintenance of the plant you think is best out of the 3?

I could always make a DIY CO2 Maker With Yeast / Denture Cleaning Tablets (But I would rather Flourish/Excel as it's much easier to handle as in not having to change anything or having to put anything together, just adding the product)

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Thank You For Your Responses,
Sly13Cat

[In.a.Box]

1. you can use soil cap with your gravel.
2. go with the plant you want, not the one other tell you too.
3. for a small 10g a DIY co2 or Excel will work. IMO Excel

[Sly13Cat]

What's a soil cap? How do I go about making one with the fish already in the tank?

[Kevyg]

A soil cap is an enriched soil base with a fine substrate such as sand "capped" ontop of it with at least 1 inch of substrate.
Dwarf hair grass is an awesome plant but keep ontop of pruning it to keep that grassy like look.
As for doing it with fish, that is a big no way, any revamp with soil
Intentions will require removal of fish then start with a bare bottom, add soil (mineralized top soil or miracle grow organic choice planting mix), then add pool filter sand or Black diamond blasting sand or whatever you like ontop of it. The total depth is about 3" for a good medium, much taller and you can get gas pockets, lower and the plants don't have anything to grab onto, with carpet you can probably get away with 1in soil, 1in cap. With no intentions of amazon swords or anything like that.

If you have a cycled tank already then I suggest saving a good bit of the gravel from your tank and putting it into the new setup (ontop of sand where you think it looks good). By doing this you are saving that nitrifying bacteria from your
Previous cycle and that can jump start your tanks cycle.

Hope this helps!

[Sly13Cat]

I'm going for a field look or I guess you could say a "lawn" like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gps2y...eature=related .

So generally what I would do is...

Step 1: Buy some dwarf hairgrass
Step 2: Have 1.5 WPG or 3 WPG lighting depending on the needs of hairgrass.
Step 3: I'd put the fish in their own containers, the gravel in it's own container(s).
Step 4: I'd siphon the water until there's about 10% left.
Step 5: I'd plant it in the gravel or if enough, add a inch or 2 of Alltreat Farms All Purpose Potting Soil if it's safe.
Step 6: I'd plant the hairgrass.
Step 7: Put the gravel on top of it then fill the water up to about 50% and wait until the dirt and gravel settles.
Step 8: Then add the fish once everything has settled.

At that point, I'd buy Flourish Excel and Flourish if I have the money. Then I'd just dose the products as directed.
My only question is if the Hairgrass will collect detritus and if it does how to clean it out of the plants/ gravel.

[Kevyg]

In a nutshell that is correct. You want to make sure there is no chicken poo poo in that mix. The miracle grow organic choice is the easiest way to go, that's what I did, have good luck..... Except when the hose falls and destroys your soil cap and kills one of your angels.......

The hair grass will probably
Collect detritus well because of its long skinny nature. If you wanna siphon it out you can by gently moving the nozzle tip along the hair grass, barely disturbing it, anything that comes up, great, anything else, let the plants use.

[Kathyy]

The HG is planted in rich ADA Aqua Soil and is grown with CO2 and bright light in that video. Your lawn would not look like that for a very long time if ever. There is a recent thread on HG in low tech here and you might through that lush low tech tank thread as well.

I don't think you would be happy with your tank using your current substrate. Hairgrass is extremely finely textured and your gravel's appearance will overwhelm it. My Schultz Aquatic Soil is like raw rice grains and is about right. I had topped the SAS with pea sized gravel when I changed tanks in May and the HG looked horrible. Now the two are mixed it looks very natural. I haven't seen pool filter sand, that might be good mixed with your current gravel or as a soil topper.

Yes HG will trap debris but you can put the siphon tube on top of it and suck it out. If algae strikes you can cut it back down to get healthy new growth. My fish poking around will dislodge plants too, floaters can get to be very annoying.

After planting fill the tank part way. Water will be dirty. I have had great success dumping out that water and refilling the tank. Basically you are washing the top part of the substrate but leaving a lot of the mulm.

I don't know if Excel will help. My first pot of HG grew a little under bright light and virtually no plant food, something like 6 full length T12 bulbs and that stuff from Petsmart, but never carpeted, I didn't know how to do it at the time.

Taking the planting medium off the roots and splitting the HG into very small clumps and planting as closely as possible gets the carpet quickest as each plant can spread. Left in a dense clump the interior plants probably wouldn't be able to spread much. Without tweezers, chopsticks or forceps planting this stuff would be a Herculean task.

HG is easier to manage than stem plants but when it needs attention it is a pain. Mostly I need to keep on top of runners infiltrating other plant groupings, not easy as they are very difficult to see at that stage. It can grow very tall in my tank so I need to cut it down to the substrate every so often. The cut bits easily go through my fish net and stick to the sides of the tank so it is hard to get all of them out of the tank in one go. The most distressing part of growing it is tends to melt when first planted. In May it went completely brown before I saw those hair thin new green shoots come back up. Check my journal, I have lousy photos of how it all worked out in the end.

[Sly13Cat]

I plan on using a inch or 2 of one of the soils under the soil section here: http://theaquariumwiki.com/Walstad_method (Scotts or Miracle-Gro). Then I'll plant the plants, add the gravel as well as Flourish (I've learned about Flourish Excel and don't ever want to use it). I might make a DIY Yeast or Denture Cleaning Tablet CO2 Converter. I'll basically use the Walstad Method to let the aquarium establish it's self then like Kevyg said about the detritus what leaves, leaves and what doesn't doesn't.

A few questions though:

How do you shut off the DIY CO2 Maker at night? If any CO2 escaped would it make me sick?

I currently have 1 Betta and 4 Dal. Mollies in my 10g. Would 1 Betta and a school of Pygmy Cories (6-8) be okay once the tank's established and planted?

My tap water is quite hard (150-180 PPM). Would this affect anything?

Thanks for all the help you've given so far.

[CatB]

Originally Posted by Sly13Cat

A few questions though:

How do you shut off the DIY CO2 Maker at night? If any CO2 escaped would it make me sick?

I currently have 1 Betta and 4 Dal. Mollies in my 10g. Would 1 Betta and a school of Pygmy Cories (6-8) be okay once the tank's established and planted?

My tap water is quite hard (150-180 PPM). Would this affect anything?

you don't shut off the DIY CO2 at night. that's kind-of the worst part of it, you waste ~12 hours of CO2 during lights out.
escaped CO2 wouldn't make you sick, it's the same stuff you breathe out every day. but, if you make your DIY setup properly, none will escape to begin with.

would the cories be with the betta and the mollies, or just the betta? what filter do you have on your tank? with the betta and the mollies and the cories, that would probably be a bit overstocked unless you were really overfiltering. with just the betta and the cories, you should be fine, assuming the betta has a good temperament.

you should be okay with hard water, most plants except the really picky ones grow fine in it. but everybody (even planted tank "experts") fails with a few plants every so often, especially the more demanding ones- don't feel bad if you do.

[Sly13Cat]

The CO2 thing is good to know.

It'll be the betta and the cories. He had a little agressive temperement towards the mollies and at first he would chase the mollies but now he's stopped. He would also chase them mainly during and after food time and right now 2 of them have big pieces missing from their fins but that's mainly because they were literally slapping his face with their tails at food time. He's calmed down quite a bit now. So how many pygmy cories in a school?

The filter is a Aqua-Tech 5-15 HOB Filter.

[Sly13Cat]

Since the end result will be a "Walstad" tank, will I not need the filter after a few months? I'm amazed at this method becasue you only need to do water changes every few months. Would a carpet of D. Hairgrass and 1 Red Ludwiga be enough to silent cycle with 1 Betta and a school of pygmy cories? BTW I still want to know how many pygmies I should put with the Betta in the 10g and if I can add more fish afterwards.

[Sly13Cat]

By the way here are my soil choices at the moment:

Circle H Farms Natural Black Earth (Very Generic Can't Find The Brand Online):
-High in Organic Matter

Circle H Farms Top Soil:
-Screened -Compost Enriched

Alltreat Farms All Purpose Potting Soil:
-A Blend of "Rich Organic Material": Peat Sedge, Compost and Horticultural Grade Peat Moss

Bonus:
Miracle Gro Organic Choice Bone Meal

[Sly13Cat]

I need a answer right now because whichever of these is good (or the best), I'm gonna leave out to dry until tomorrow and I need to know which one of these is good to use so I can get started. So basically I plan on leaving it out to dry overnight and adding it to the aquarium tomorrow so which one(s) can I use and which is the best? Also can I add the bone meal to make it better? The reason I need the info now is because I'm buying the grass tomorrow.

Thank You,
Sly13Cat

[Kevyg]

Based on what I have read, go with what has been proven, some of those COULD be fine, but the wrong suggestion makes for dead fishies.
I would say go with miracle grow organic choice potting soil, and of you wanted to add anything, I suggest sprinkling in a little dolomite as well as some stuff called sul-Po-mag (it's a pinkish crystal sized granule) onto the bare bottom of the tank before you put the soil in.

Personally, I submerged the soil then scooped it out and have it a tiny squeeze, that way when I filled the tank with water there see no dry air pockets for gas to build up in.

[Sly13Cat]

Well I plan on buying Miracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Soil as it has been proven to work. I want to buy KING Play Sand as I've heard many people use it but my question is will KING Play Sand do well with the potting soil for the planted tank. I plan on having a carpet of Dwarf Hairgrass (As you already know) and 1 Red Ludwigia in the middle (I already have the Red Ludwigia and my Betta has taken so well to it I'm not going to remove it).

Thanks