How to: Natural Planted tank

[avraptorhal]

Originally Posted by Oldfishlady

Your welcome...I am sure I forgot some information....Just ask questions on what you don't understand or if you need more detail....

Thank you for the wonderful sticky! I've started to set up a Betta tank. I have a 5.5 gal tank w/a glass canopy. I'm considering a Fluval Mini LED clamp on lamp PCL 13 P/N 3935. Does this sound reasonable to you? I have 2 AZOO Mignon filters for this project. I also have a 25 Watt heater for this tank. I have heard that Miracle Grow Potting soil is a good soil for an NPT. Any comments, suggestions questions are gratefully accepted.

[Oldfishlady]

I honestly don't know that much about the LED lights, however, from my research-unless they are rated for plants-I wouldn't use them for a soil based tank. Color temp is what is important to support plant growth and the active plant growth is what keep the water safe for livestock. I don't know how the LED lights convert in term of color temp for plants- What I would recommend is looking for florescent light strip and use a 6500k bulb for a soil based tank.

[OrangeAugust]

Do you recommend having CO2 in a soil-based tank? I'm about to set up my 55 gallon tank and I'm thinking of doing DIY CO2... do you think it's needed?

[Oldfishlady]

I don't inject CO2-IMO/E its not needed in the NPT's-Once mature and you have debris in decomp they will make natural CO2-then you can run into problems if you don't have enough light along with injecting CO2. Plus NPT are intended to be low tech

[OrangeAugust]

Thanks!
One more question. I bought some organic potting soil, and it lists everything in it- basically stuff from forest floors. But then it says "natural fertilizers", and there are little white balls in it... what are the fertilizers made of? It can't be chemicals, can it? I mean, it says "organic" and "natural fertilizers". I hope I can still use it because I already put it in my tank and started covering it with sand...

[FishyFishy89]

if there's little white balls in it then I'm sure it has fertilizers. There shouldn't be any...

[SilverWolf]

Ok, before I attempt this I want to make sure I'm understanding this right!

I put soil in first after picking out the big 'stuff';
Then I put sand on top of that?

How do I keep the two from mixing when I start adding water????

TIA

[Oldfishlady]

Originally Posted by SilverWolf

Ok, before I attempt this I want to make sure I'm understanding this right!

I put soil in first after picking out the big 'stuff';
Then I put sand on top of that?

How do I keep the two from mixing when I start adding water????

TIA

I place my soil-then I wet it slightly-then I place my sand-then I add water carefully so not to disturb the soil/sand layer-then I drain-then plant and refill

Orange-the white balls are most likely perilite or vermiculite(spelling) and will not hurt anything, however, they can get into the water column and be sucked into the filter-with that said, the few tank I used soil that has that in it has never caused any problems-It looks ugly and I have to fish it out every time I plant or pull a plant-since it usually will float.

[SilverWolf]

K, Thanks!

[BettaKing1997]

Thanks so much. I'm thinking about getting a small live plant. This deserves a thumbs up. 👍