Soil for Patio pond

[Kuroyume85]

Hi all,

I'm new here and im planning of making a fresh water patio pond.

I do intend to have Tetras/platys or mollies in the pond with the shrimps but can anyone recommend me a soil to get ?

I did some research and i saw this brand called GEX Soil (red) for shrimps and plants.

Also, Should i get gravel or sand to over the soil as well ?

Last question, should i plant the plants first then put the gravel ? or put gravel den plant the plants ?

I wanted to travel to seletar fish farm to get but i heard that it's gone, any places where i can get both gravel and soil at decent price ?

[imtai]

Hello

Regarding the use of soil or gravel as a substrate. I guess u have to first decide the kind of plants and livestock u would like to have.

So u did mention that you are looking to keep some tetra and Molly with shrimps. I guess gravel/ sand will make it easier for you to maintain over soil. Neocaridina shrimps like your fire red / blue/ yellow will do just fine with an inert substrate like your gravel/sand and so does the fishes.

Soil on the other hand will make maintenance slightly more challenging. First the tank will take longer to cycle if u do not have cycled media. As these nutrients rich substrate leeches ammonia, your filter media will need a while to have sufficient beneficial bacteria to help turn these toxins into less harmful NO3. BUT having a nutrients rich substrate will allow you to grow more demanding plants. Plants grow better due to the nutrients made available to them

also not forgetting to mention the mess that soil will create when u add water or water change. In addition to that, what I jus shared are base on my experience of using soil in a fish tank.i dun have any experience with fish pond.

The big LFS in seletar have shifted this year. You can know find them at their new location @ 8 Chencharu Link, Singapore 769197. You should be able to find most of the accessories u need there.

Cheers
Tai

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[Kuroyume85]

Thanks for the reply Tai.

For the plants.. i do intend to have 1 water lily, driftwood with some moss on it (superglue), maybe fern, duck weed/water lettuce and some common plants i guess.

I have 2 plans though, 1 is full soil with gravel cover it.. den plant those plants that i mentioned or.. i buy the aquatic pots for the water lily and some other plants in it though i would prefer the ground to look like a jungle.

A question, once i completed the soil and planted the plants, when will I be able to put the fishes and prawns in ?

For the new location at 8 chencharu link, Is it easy to park there ?

[Jojowhisky]

Hi there,
Just thought i mention 2 things, hope it helps you.

One
Maybe you wanna consider part section soil, part section gravel.
Going by what you mentioned those common plants and those floating plants, i would think gravel is good for those.
Soil can be reserved for maybe a section of the pond for your water lily.
This could help you save cost for soil as a substrate for the whole pond, quality substrate does not really come cheap, also have to take into consideration the volume of your constructed pond.
To further illustrate the point, if you wanna sow some stem plants or plants that feed heavily on nutrient rich substrate, you got to layer on a good amount of substrate for these plants to root efficiently for maximim growth so this adds on to the consideration of cost to you.
So maybe a small section of substrate for plants that are heavy soil feeders than gravel for the other section of the pond( can be quite stunning i guess if you do it good)

Two
You usually scape the base which is the substrate or gravel to the level you are happy with first.
Than you arrange the plants where you want into the substrate.
After that, you definately need test kits to check the water parameters.
As what tai mentioned, the system needs to be cycled before you add livestock in. In this case, you mentioned you wanna get shrimps.
Shrimps are very sensitive and require the tank to be fully cycled with special attention paid to ph, gh, kh, nitrites, nitrates and (temp if you are getting caridina species in there)
A fully cycled system has established enough bacteria to convert the ammonia to nitrites(stuff that will kill your fish and shrimps) to nitrates(plant nutrition and less harmless to fish), so for this reason you are gonna need test kits. As a general rule of thumb, a fully cycled tank will show 0 nitrites. But there are other things to test for to make sure of it but i wont go into that else this is gonna be a college thesis.

Again like what tai mentioned, i do not own a pond so no experience in this but what im sharing is in the concept of a tank.
I have read that pond setup and maintainence is quite something so hopefully an expert with a pond may further help you.
Good luck with the pond, i gather it is exciting!
Have a good year and happy hoildays
Jo

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