So I have always wanted a tank and finally got around to it after buying my first house. After a ton of research and a lot of dustins videos. I decided to give dirt a try. I went all out with it and went with a 90 gallon for my first go. It's running with a fx5 filter and 216 watts of light. I went with miracle grow organic, some red clay, a little bit of organic peat, about a pound and a half of some crushed up sea shells and three or four handfulls of aragonite. Then capped it all off with carrib-sea peace river gravel. I did quite a bit of sifting of the dirt to remove all of the wood pieces and then soaked and drained the dirt several times over a couple of weeks. The amazing part is that I only needed to do two 50% water changes to get the water to the clarity it is now. I planted it with two large swords, some java fern , two micro swords, two cardinal plants,a crinum, two bronze crypts some jungle val and another plant that I can't remember. Thus far I have had no algae blooms and water chemistry has remained stable. I let it run for a few days with no fish to make sure things stayed good and they did. At this point I now have 6 rainbows, 6 cherry barbs, 1 gourami, 5 ottos, and 4 cory cats. Ammonia and nitrites remain at zero, and I have been quite frankly amazed at the success of this tank thus far. I have to give a huge thanks to Dustin for all his videos. If anyone has any other questions or comments feel free to ask.