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Hey all. I've got a 1 month old 40 gallon breeder tank with small pea gravel as the substrate, and large driftwood and some easy plants (anubias, java fern, amazon sword, valisneria, crypts, moss, microswords, cabomba, ludwigia repens). My initial reasoning was that I wanted a low-maintenance tank that wouldn't get seriously cloudy and dirty evertime I moved one thing. I also have a 5 lb CO2 tank that I just filled and have been injecting a small amount of CO2 (~1 bps) in the past few days.
But now looking at how the tank is progressing and looking at dirted tanks and the Walstad method book I've had for ages... I'm kind of regretting not doing a dirted tank. I'd like to get really health plant growth and a nice densely planted aquarium. I wanted the gravel because I figured it'd work good enough, but I bet the plants would be better with real soil for the roots to feed off.
I've used fert tabs before. But I was thinking about trying getting some organic miracle gro (or whatever people suggest for dirted tanks), letting it dry out in the sun, then putting it in those big ol' pill capsules. Then placing those at the very bottom of the substrate. I would do this slowly over a period of several months. The goal being to create a bottom layer of actual soil for the plants to utilize. I found some "vegetarian capsules" on Amazon that are pretty good sized.
What do you think about this idea? Has anyone done this? Is there a way I could do this to avoid any issues with ammonia, plant burn, poisoning my fish? I want a health rhizosphere so my plants can thrive.
Thanks!
But now looking at how the tank is progressing and looking at dirted tanks and the Walstad method book I've had for ages... I'm kind of regretting not doing a dirted tank. I'd like to get really health plant growth and a nice densely planted aquarium. I wanted the gravel because I figured it'd work good enough, but I bet the plants would be better with real soil for the roots to feed off.
I've used fert tabs before. But I was thinking about trying getting some organic miracle gro (or whatever people suggest for dirted tanks), letting it dry out in the sun, then putting it in those big ol' pill capsules. Then placing those at the very bottom of the substrate. I would do this slowly over a period of several months. The goal being to create a bottom layer of actual soil for the plants to utilize. I found some "vegetarian capsules" on Amazon that are pretty good sized.
What do you think about this idea? Has anyone done this? Is there a way I could do this to avoid any issues with ammonia, plant burn, poisoning my fish? I want a health rhizosphere so my plants can thrive.
Thanks!