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Permalink Reply by Mr Meseeks on September 19, 2012 at 6:10pm

I dont know about the peat but for dirt the most common kind used is miracle grow organic choice potting mix, its a orangish brownish bag, really any organic pottting soil with no fertilizers in it will work but most people use miragle grow, plus its pretty cheap you can buy at it most gardening stores or lowes/homedepot, also if you use dirt you need to cap it with another kind of substrate like gravel or sand to hold the dirt down, cap the dirt with about the same amout of sand/gravel as there is dirt, so for every 1 inch of dirt, 1 inch of cap, you should only have anywhere from half an inch to 2 inches of dirt but no more than that

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Permalink Reply by kay Kay on September 21, 2012 at 5:01am

Ok, thanks Logan, I will pop down to Homebase or BnQ, see what they got

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Permalink Reply by Robert Jango on September 21, 2012 at 6:58am

I use the "black soil" just underneath the leaf clutter in forests. These little round black balls are actually earthworm castings and are the best fertilizer according to farmers. There are some parts of the United States without earthworm populations so availability depends on where you live. I mix this with clay soil which in my area is orange and found about a foot below the surface. A small amount of sand also helps keep the soil loose. 

This sand/organics/clay mix is known as loam and is generally considered the best soil for plants. I believe Organic Miracle Gro is loam. You can dig your own dirt or buy it at a store. For capping the soil I use baked clay pebbles. It is sold as an absorbent for oil slicks (Oil-sorb) in automotive supply stores and is also sold as non-clumping Kitty litter. Make sure the kitty litter contains only clay.

Logan is right about the depth and ratio of cap to dirt.

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Permalink Reply by Michel Hanna on September 21, 2012 at 5:58pm

yea its special gardening dirt you can find at home depot. its realy realy realy realy messy to do. you basicly wash the hell out of your dirt, put it in your bare bottom tank and wait a month for it to settle on the floor, get sand or gravel and top it off so it wouldent go flying all over the place. i wouldent do it for anything bigger then a 20 gal.

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Permalink Reply by seth roach on September 21, 2012 at 10:01pm

its really not that messy and should not take you a month, a few days to settle at the most just don't blast the dirt into the water column. a word of warning though if you do dirt don't skimp on plants because the system has to equal itself out, if you just put dirt in a tank then wait a month to plant your plant and stock the tank you are just keeping algae and bacteria and your plants and fish will have to fight  to survive and will not look as good as you want them to.....if ya get what i mean.

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Permalink Reply by Peter on September 21, 2012 at 8:05pm

Well I have a dirted 55g tAnk which is bigger than 20g so if u want to see just how messy a dirted tank is look at my pics. Remember it's a dirted 55g

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Permalink Reply by Raymond Boulanger on September 21, 2012 at 8:32pm

I have dirted a 44(first tank) and its around an inch and a half with 1 inch gravel cap and it was a bit of a pain. i also have a dirted 55(second tank) and it has a very thin layer of dirt with alot of clay mixed in capped with about 2 inches of sand the dirts not even half and inch. the 55 was a better way to go for sure my plants love it and it no where near as messy and the 44. if i was to do another witch i will once i get the room for another i would go with the second way i did it less dirt. I did use a bit more clay with the less dirt though to in a way make up for it. Also i did not need to do a drain fill drain fill 5 times, no problems for me there. I recommend geting a bucket and like an old noodle strainer and sifting the dirt first and add just enough water to get that mucky mud kinda feel. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND SIFTING FIRST

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Permalink Reply by kay Kay on September 22, 2012 at 1:07am

Thanks everyone. I wont have the patience to wait a month, I can tell you that now! plants coming Monday since they did not come in the post yesterday! I have taken all your comments on board and will begin building up the substrate today. Thanks y'all :)

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy I on September 23, 2012 at 1:09am

well.. i've tried many variations of the 'dirt' method, and Not a single one has worked in my experience. Even if they don't crash and burn/produce more ammonia than any system could ever hope to restrain/cause various bacterial and algal problems/make crazy and unpredictable swings in water chemistry, dirted tanks create need for constant and intensive labor and maintenence to keep problems away that should have never been there in the first place. And in a few months all of the nutrients the dirt may provide will be used up, and you'll have to take apart the entire system and start from scratch anyways.

Aside from all that, if you're going to be using it as a quarantine tank, you should really not have any type of substrate in it at all ( or plants, save ones you can toss and replace), just because all of the diseases and parasites etc. you bring in on new fish will establish in any quarantine tank you may have, especially in things like gravel/substrate, on plants, and in the filter canister. 

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Permalink Reply by Peter on September 23, 2012 at 3:17am

"constant and intensive labor and maintenance" ? what? thats just a plain lie. and the dirts' nutrients take 1yr to 2yrs to deplete depending on how heavy u planted and what types of plants you are using. and wen it does and u do take it apart the only thing u have to replace would be the dirt...and thats, pardon the pun, dirt cheap. another alternative would be just to use root tabs and then it would be like n e other basic substrate u buy at a lfs 

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Permalink Reply by Raymond Boulanger on September 23, 2012 at 9:57am

agreed .......... most labor i do is top off the water..... and trim my fast growing plants ....... other then that my tanks take car of them selves sept for feeding witch i feed heavly somedays .... and even on the feeding in my american flag fish tank all i gotta do is flout some wisteria and they  nipple on that ....... and i should add i got 6 rainbows, 2 bala sharks, 5 neon tetras, and a few large ghost shrimp in the 55 and the flag tank has 13 fish total for a 44 gallon, so it not lightly stocked in my oppinion

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Permalink Reply by Jeremy I on September 23, 2012 at 1:16pm

Let me just add that I do acknowledge that dirt works for some peoples' tanks just fine. The problem is, "dirt" is just such an inconcievably irregular product that it's impossible to tell if it will work unless you actually try it. "dirt" sold in stores is basically a mixture of whatever local products are most commonly available- it may contain peat, topsoil, compost, manure, wood chips, "forest products (again, changes per region), clay, mulch, and countless other ingridients. Even among one company there is no set standard for what goes into it, and even if there is, the composition among those standards will inevitably be different. The ratio will likely change as well- it's not like there's a guy whose job it is to measure out, say, exactly 5 quarts of material A and balance it with a precise 4.7 ratio to product B and C, etc. 

Dirt hasn't worked for me in any of my trials undoubtedly because of my geographic location and what my local material dirt is made out of. Through exactly the same process as other people, i've battled all of what I mentioned before: high ammonia levels, huge swings in water PH, hardness, nitrates, green water, algal blooms of all kinds, bacterial blooms,  and especially an unsustainable number of anerobic bacteria. The only time that the tank "stabilized" somewhat, persay, was when the nutrients of the dirt had all been used up, and plant growth slowed dramatically and many showed signs of nutrient and mineral defficiencies. And, in all of my trials as well as other peoples' from across the country, the nutrients provided by the dirt have run out in under a year. And even if it works, you can hardly say it's an enjoyable process to get a tank looking nice and every time you look at it, think "oh boy, I can't wait to take all the substrate and plants out so I can start all over again with everything here!! Especially waiting for the new dirt to go through its initial cycle so my fish don't die when I add them back in." So by all means try it, but you'll likely want to switch to a different, better plant substrate in the future, so why not save the time and effort by buying it now?

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