[nautal]

Hi everyone,

I am starting this journal to show the progress of what a happens to a soil-based planted through each stage of development. Hopefully, this will be fun for everyone to see as it progresses and changes over time.
Picture heavy.
I am planning on heavily planted, Iwagumi-style locally inspired tank with shrimp and some small fish.

Day Negative (-1)

Leak testing and weight testing.

I am testing this right now with google photos (nope didnt work), Flickr it is.

Adding clay base to soil

Clay is potters "air dry" red clay 10lb brick from Habby Labby.

As for the soil I dried in the oven, then screened the entire bag of this stuff:

This is the thickness I got:

~1.5in. Sand on top.. Saukcrete Medium commercial Sand (silica-based, pool filter sand) is mostly light tan with some yellow sand flakes and mica mixed in.

Day 1: All filled up
Johnson controls temperature controller/heater running (66-68F)
Its just my personal experience, but I have had all sorts of heaters from very nice to very cheap (5-350W) and it always seems that all of them malfunction one day, so your tank is 80-90F.
Hmmmm, $400-1000 total tank investment, Its worth it to me to know $85 Industrial built controller is reliability making sure all the plants and animals in my tank aren't being boiled.
Just my experience in the past 20yr. most recently last month with a 10w aqueon (80.4F not the "set" 76F). Auto temperature my patooty!

sponge filter

Fluval 3.0 Plant (love the customization and intensity this light produce)

 

[nautal]

Day 1

Day1:


24hr after adding water...

So Dirt leaches tannins you say I dont believe it!

Maybe the Water lettuce will help clear it up..

Does anyone have experience with Azolla (center of bottom pic)?
It grows but seems to tangle roots and shed for me.

 

[nautal]

Day 12 Cloudyness is the word of the week

Day 12
I added a few plants and have been doing every other daily water 2-4 gal changes

Sometimes when it looks bad I will do 90% water changes later..
Looks like the start of a shrimp tank.
I picked up some water lettuce and Jungle Val.
I have heard that these two plants are hearty and wanted some floaters to suck up the nutrients from the soil.
Here is another couple of shots of the dry soil and I have to admit it was nice and black.

As you can see particle size is small because of the screening.
What I had forgotten was that there were alot of partially decayed leafs and small sticks in this soil when wet which would obviously take quite a while to break down.

I also think it would be good to as much plants as possible so I stole a portion of Christmas moss from my 1 gal to "soak up" the nutrients and hopefully expand quickly?

OH how little did I know how much leach of the soil there would be.....


I have been trying all sorts of things to "clarify" the water. In this shot it looks better than in real life. The cloudyness is some kind of bacterial/fungal bloom that no matter what I do I can not remove. If I increase the flow it only increases the cloudyness. If I use activated carbon, it laughs at me and says I don't need your organics HAHAHA.
If I aireate more with more bubbles it swirles around nicely.
If I do a complete water change it takes 1 day to be just as cloudy.
What do you think it is?

 

[SaintStephen]

Hey how did it turn out?

Day 12
I added a few plants and have been doing every other daily water 2-4 gal changes

Sometimes when it looks bad I will do 90% water changes later..
Looks like the start of a shrimp tank.
I picked up some water lettuce and Jungle Val.
I have heard that these two plants are hearty and wanted some floaters to suck up the nutrients from the soil.
Here is another couple of shots of the dry soil and I have to admit it was nice and black.

As you can see particle size is small because of the screening.
What I had forgotten was that there were alot of partially decayed leafs and small sticks in this soil when wet which would obviously take quite a while to break down.

I also think it would be good to as much plants as possible so I stole a portion of Christmas moss from my 1 gal to "soak up" the nutrients and hopefully expand quickly?

OH how little did I know how much leach of the soil there would be..... <a href="http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/images/smilie/icon_smile.gif" border="0" alt="" title="Smile" ></a>


I have been trying all sorts of things to "clarify" the water. In this shot it looks better than in real life. The cloudyness is some kind of bacterial/fungal bloom that no matter what I do I can not remove. If I increase the flow it only increases the cloudyness. If I use activated carbon, it laughs at me and says I don't need your organics HAHAHA.
If I aireate more with more bubbles it swirles around nicely.
If I do a complete water change it takes 1 day to be just as cloudy.
What do you think it is?

 

[Streetwise]

Great start! It will take a little time for things to settle.