My new and first NPT

[kingofthefishppl]

I just put together my first NPT. It is a 6 gallon marineland column tank. Two amazon swords one anubius and 5 sprigs of wisteria. I used potting soil with a layer of off white petco sand. I will say with the sand it has a weird air bubble effect on the top of the sand which i hope goes away on its own.

[Aus]

You're going to need a stack more fast-growing stem plants for the NPT to work properly. It's recommended that you should cover 60-70% of the tank floor with plants for the first few months at least, until the tank settles and ages properly.

Anubias is slow-growing, and swords eat nitrogen but not a lot of ammonia. Wisteria's good, though.

You could get a stack of dwarf hairgrass, if your light's good, or some dwarf chain sword to fill in the gaps. I use elodea as a mass 'filler' - it's fine stemmed and leaved so it doesn't clog up view too much. Just don't plant it all up front, as it (and many other stems) get quite tall. Though your tank is tall-ish so maybe it would look quite good.

What's your light?

In a few months you can thin it all out some and replace the stems with other plants. But yeah - you need that floor covered, so the roots get to aerating the soil as it matures and use up all the excess nutrients of 'young' soil.

[kingofthefishppl]

While it doesn't look like it about 50 percetn is covered. i left some open area up front for the hardscape item i have coming in.

I purposely got low light plants because my tank has led lights and i was getting conflicting reports on how things grow with them. it is setting in front of a window so i can and will be using natural light during the day.

[aokashi]

you really do need more stem plants to eat the nutritionfrom the soil. otherwise you are putting yourself at a risk of the nutrients leeching into the water column.

[kingofthefishppl]

Yeah i got some on order at the LFS but i couldn't wait anylonger to move him since his old tank sprung a leak. hoping they get in really soon.

[aokashi]

Aw. test your water regularly. or simply do frequent 50% WCs.... just incase you know...