El Natural @ Singapore

[rwalker]

From time to time, I received PMs enquiring how I setup my tank using potting soil. Being a lazy fallow and do not want to repeat myself, I decided to document how I did it. It all started about a year ago when I chanced upon a book named “Ecology of the Planted Aquarium” by Diana Walstad. It is a great book and I was hooked and decided to give it a try. Using soil as based fert was kind of a taboo then and I guess it still is today


Here are the steps:
1.I get myself a bag Florabella potting soil from NTUC.




2.Put 1 to 1.5 inches of soil into the tank.
Note: You do not need to wash or boil the soil. You can expose the soil under the sun for a couple of days to “remove” the ammonia. I did not do this though. Instead, I introduce some fish mulm from an old tank.



3.Cover the soil with 1 inch of gravel. Fill the tank with water until it is about and inch above the gravel. Start planting. Plant heavily at the beginning with a variety of fast and slow grower. This will keep algae at bay and save you a lot of headache later.



4.Use a tube to siphon off the water and floater.

5.Now fill the tank with water till the brim.

6.Fit the tank with a filter. I use an internal filter with most of the filter medium remove. It is used more to circulate the water rather than for bio filtration purpose.

7.The water is pretty clear from day one. I introduce a ram horn snail to test water



8.On day two, I introduce a platy to test water. On day 5, I introduce 5 tetras to the tank. All survive. Below are some pictures of the tank from day 9, week7 and 4th month.





9.The tank has been running for about 10 months now. Fishes and plants are healthy.

10.Here is my second tank setup using the same method about 7 months ago.
Second tank



Tank Spec:
Dimension: 2ft x 1 x 1
Substrate: Potting soil, pea gravel
CO2 injection: Nil
Filter: A small internal submersed filter
Fan/Chiller: Nil
Lights: 36W PL lights, on 10 hours a day. Morning 5 hours, evening 5 hours.
Water parameters: Don’t know, did not really measure.


Maintenance routines:
. Water top up twice a week
. Remove dead leaves and throw away some overgrown plant once a week.
. Occasionally doze a few drop of Seachem Flourish
. Clean the filter once every two week.
. 40% water change once every 2-4 months

Algae Issue? Not much except brown and green spot algae boomed once some time back after the blyxa shed leaves like nobody and I was kind of lazy to pick them up then. It let off too much ammonia I guess.

[corywink]

These tanks are great, and I love low maintenance, but these tanks seem more geared towards the plants. I'm worried about the infrequent water changes, would you trust that routine with your prized apistos?

[David Moses Heng]

Hurray!!! Loke, you have finally posted your journal I have been waiting for it since i visited your place tha last time

I agree with you that planted tank using potting soil rocks and it definetly cost saving. I will be starting a 4 feet using potting soil for altums.

Can't wait to pop by your place again.

[fireblade]

oh!!
time to redo my tank!!
the soil I have is the same as yours and I used it to plant african violets. I also used it to plant my HC..

[bryan]

If you want to reuse the gravel at a later stage, put in a piece of plastic mesh(not too fine, make sure the roots can go through) in between the soil and gravel layer. When removing the gravel just scoop until you hit the mesh.