How to: Natural Planted tank

[Oldfishlady]

Originally Posted by blu the betta

i have a natural planted tank but my plants keep losing their leaves. is that natural?

It depends....what kind of plant, how long has it been in the tank, do you know if it was grown at the nursery emersed or submersed.
What kind and how deep the soil and cap. Where is the plant located in relation to the light. Do you have a partition between the light and water.
What are the lights, age of bulbs, kelvin, watts and photoperiod

[Oldfishlady]

Originally Posted by madmonahan

Thank you! So if the snails start to reproduce what do I do with those snails? I'm thinking:
4 trumpet snails,
4 RCS.

I trap and/or hand pick excessive snails from my tanks on a regular basis and destroy them.

Its important to destroy and dispose of them properly-You never want to release anything from your tropical tank into the native environment-since that could cause problems-plus it is illegal.

What I do-I roll them up in newspaper and crush them-then either toss in the trash, burn or compost. I also will crush them and leave a few in the tank for the livestock to feed on.

You can keep them somewhat controlled in the tank by limiting food, however, with the soil based tanks-fish food is a great plant food/fert and I add a pinch of flake food 1-2 times a week just for the plants and why I have excessive amounts of common snails in the first place...lol....

[pingu]

Is it ok to use homemade compost in a npt? my father-in-law has offered for me to use some of his. As far as I know the only thing that goes into it is food waste and garden waste no additives

[FishyFishy89]

Some food many leach toxins into the tank, I'd be weary about using homemade compost in an aquarium.

[pingu]

Originally Posted by FishyFishy89

Some food many leach toxins into the tank, I'd be weary about using homemade compost in an aquarium.

Oh ok, apparently my local chain DIY shop does aquatic substrate so I'll check that out

[FishyFishy89]

Originally Posted by pingu

Oh ok, apparently my local chain DIY shop does aquatic substrate so I'll check that out

That was supposed to be may not many xD
I believe OFL said you can use organic potting soil. That may actually be cheaper than your DIY shop's substrate...

[Oldfishlady]

I wouldn't use straight compost that is under 1 year old-You can mix it with some top soil...about 25/75 mix compost/topsoil-With that said, it may need to be cut even more when used for tanks under 20gals.

Organic potting soil or top soil you can buy in bags will work-What you want to avoid with the bagged dirt-Is any added fertilizer and water absorbing beads you see in some of the potting soils for house plants.

Regardless of the dirt-be sure and sift it or pick through it to remove any of the larger pieces of organic matter.

[pingu]

I know this compost is well over a year old and after doing some reading on the stuff the DIY shop sells it'd be a waste of money they do however do some decent topsoil

So you'd suggest mixing the compost with the topsoil, the tank I plan on using is a 14g tank

[Sagat]

Originally Posted by Oldfishlady

I trap and/or hand pick excessive snails from my tanks on a regular basis and destroy them.

An alternative to manual removal of snails is to start stocking snail predators in the tank. There're various fish that will do that, but I'm a big fan of assassin snails, since they're less likely to develop your standard fish diseases.

I've read that they eat about 1 snail a day, but it's hard to give an exact number on how many you should get since you're shooting for a balanced ecosystem.

I can tell you what happened in my 20L, though. I stocked it with a pond snail that hitchhiked it's way into my tank, about 20 starter MTS and 3 assassins. One assassin went MIA and hasn't been seen since, the other two have doubled in size and are laying eggs and my trumpet snails pretty much are out of sight, out of mind. The pond snail population boomed and now is down to about a half-dozen visible pond snails and there are lots and lots of snail egg cases around the tank.

I eventually ended up taking about 4 - 6 of my largest MTS out to seed a new tank, but that was the only time I ever removed a snail from it.

I'm potentially going to have a half dozen assassin babies, so I may end up having to restock my 20 so that the assassins continue to have food and breed.

I've read reports of assassins opportunistically feeding on shrimp, but I haven't found anything definitive, and generally assassins prefer slower moving food (ie snails) anyway.

Hope that helps!

[Kwomais]

My assassins also do a great job of keeping the snails in check... I still have tonnes, but I have 2 assassins in a 5gal and I have no more pond snails and about half as many baby ramshorns as I had a month ago. I can attest to the assassins eating shrimp, however, the RCS that one of my snails was eating was most definitely dead before the snail started chowing down (part of my expected die off in the first 24hrs of having the shrimp).