Can one dirt a currently active tank, or do we need to start with a new tank?

The discussion title says it all really. I have a 30 gallon, planted tank, but the plants are struggling and i want to DIRT IT! My problem is that it's loaded with fish. Is it possible to break down an "active" tank and dirt it, and then throw the fish back in ASAP? Can the fish contend with the nutrient spike that occurs after the dirting? Any suggestions and/or advice would be killer. Thanks everyone.

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Permalink Reply by Clayton on March 18, 2013 at 8:37pm

Hey y'all, I just dirted my cichlids 180gal tank this past Friday. Only knew of dirtying for about a wk, I was stoked about it and just did it. Had the fish in a 50gal plastic tub from lowes...

Here's what went down.

Moved fish to tub Friday, put 1.5 40lb miracle gro(organic) topsoil. 2.5 bags of flourish, then capped/topped it with my old gravel and added 1.5 bags of cichlids sand.

Fillies tank like 5 times, water was cloudy, I think from cichlids sand. The dirt is sealed by about 1.5" of gravel. I planted after dirt before gravel...

Ammonia level was high, put ammo chips in my fluval Fx5, and bought PRIMe(also removes ammonia). Sunday morning I put my African cichlds(17), tigerbarbs(5), little spotted catfish(4) , 2 bala sharks. All seem fine.

Didn't condition the dirt. Have decent amount of plants, run C02 with 1 diffuser on ea side.

Holla.

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Permalink Reply by Aaron Lovethefish on March 18, 2013 at 10:43pm

Epic, thanks for the post. Sounds awesome, Clayton!

What is the "flourish" is that more N additive or enriched N substrate?

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Permalink Reply by LED on March 25, 2013 at 5:17pm

wait... how much dirt (total lbs) ?? and how thick was that dirt layer?

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Permalink Reply by Clayton on March 25, 2013 at 8:00pm

Hey There Lad,

I bought three 40lb bags of MGrow topsoil(organic) and put one full bag in the right half and a half bag on left side of my 180g. So 60lbs total.

The flourish goes under gravel if u want, look online at it is is really high in nutrients.

The dirt was about an inch across, I read not to go much more than that.

Good luck dude, here's a couple pics. Water is a little cloudy still. Should straighten out soon.

Peace

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Permalink Reply by LED on March 25, 2013 at 8:09pm

How many pants did you put in it? And what are the details of the lights over it

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Permalink Reply by Clayton on March 25, 2013 at 9:42pm

Yeah about that, I'm not good with the names but I added clovers and some other things a week after dirting.

Ill try a few more pics, it didn't work earlier.

I have 4 compact fluorescent, 420nm/10000k, they are half blue, half white.

Heard they are not best but they are doing good. Just ordered two T5 650nm rosettes(red bulbs). I just ordered a co2 indicator.

Just read ur post about plant deficiencies. I have to figure out my frets, thinking about getting dry ferts. U know anything about them?

Peace

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