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Permalink Reply by Gary Carter on June 28, 2013 at 10:32pm

Looks good. I did a 10 gallon test tank then moved up to a 20 gallon test tank with a better substrate recipe. I use Miracle Grow organic mix with pure laterite mixed into it for iron. I do dose DIY CO2 lightly. I found you really have to find a good balance if you are going to dose CO2 if you don't want to smoke out your fish.

I am going to dirt a 90 gallon tank next now that the 20 is running smooth. To combat the little algae I did get, spot and string, I used a couple otto cats, nerite snails, and Amano shrimp. They keep the algae in check. I don't dose anything else and my plants are going nuts. I do a weekly 50% water change for trace elements.

When I do the 90 gallon I am going to place flourish tabs in my dirt. I run my lights on the 20 gallon (2 T5's) 11 hours a day.

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Permalink Reply by Michael on July 19, 2013 at 8:40pm

Looks good! check out this link to my youtube channel and check out the last few minutes of this video I made of setting up my 55g dirted tank. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LBXlYp5skg

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Permalink Reply by Tim on August 8, 2013 at 6:13pm

i dirted my 125 gal with run of the mill organic dirt from Home Depot. Ive never used root tabs of any kind but i dose with SeaChem flourish (20ml 3 days per week) and i have pressurised Co2. I light for 10 hours per day (Co2 for the same) I do occasionally get a little algae. I adjust my light for a few days and it goes away. my tank has been up for 8 months and i have to prune once per week. I do a 20% water change every 2 1/2 to 3 months.

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Permalink Reply by Peter on August 9, 2013 at 2:45am

  1. Yes dirted 55g.

2.dirted tank with dirt

3.no dosing thats what my dirt was for

4.see answer 3

5. watts per gallon is just plain wrong. i have 36lumens/square inch(highlight), they run 10hrs a day. 2 10,000 bulbs 2 6500k red bulbs

6.every time i try and move plants dirt gets everywere but other than that its balanced.

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Permalink Reply by Kyle A Jones on August 9, 2013 at 3:00am

Hey Peter, thanks for the reply. How long has your tank been established? 

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Permalink Reply by Peter on August 9, 2013 at 2:41pm

Its been up and running 2 yrs dirt still has nutrients left

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Permalink Reply by alex9j4m on August 13, 2013 at 12:09am

http://fishtanktv.com/profiles/blogs/180-gallon-planted-tank

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Permalink Reply by seth roach on August 13, 2013 at 7:43pm

Here is my biggest tank a 55, I also have a 33 flatback and a 20 as well as a few 10s that are basically just constant guppy orgies but anyways....

- Yep its dirted. 

- I used a soil mixture i use for my land plants which can range all over but usually contains top soil, vermiculite, some sort of composted material (usually *composted* peat moss)  and often random trimmings of the day chopped to tiny bits...i also threw in some old clay/silt i had scavanged from a local creek that i had processed for using in a pottery glaze (no creepy crawlers or weird organisms). but yeah basically just a potting mix with a little bit of clay.

- I dose flourish comprehensive and the api CO2 product. I also have used root tabs ive used the flourish ones and the api ones (several months apart) but the last few times ive been using a product called pondtabbs i believe, there pretty close to the same contents but don't include the huge aquarium company mark-up.....

-I have two sets of those T-8 fixtures you buy for a garage or shop with 6500K bulbs, sometimes i switch one out with a 2,700K. They are on for 10 hours everyday I think.

-Problems?? hmm well as you can see my tank is pretty damn green, for me this really isn't much of a problem, I could/have kept it much clearer however I find especially when adding new fish a green tank is much healthier and less finicky, also it seems to keep the black beard algae away which am not nearly as fond of. Doing less dosing of ferts would also make for a much less green. But I have quite a collection of land plants too which I water with tank water; so the extra ferts and organisms in the water-column makes for an extra healthy system all together and i never let it get too crazy (lots of scrubbing and water-changing)...also for the gardeners out there using plant trimming form your tank chopped up in your soil works excellent for aeration (and their chaulked full of those ferts).....Other than green water i really haven't had any huge issues just the regular small things that you'd expect of a new tank. Its been a long process of learning how a tank will act, they mostly all act different. I could probably stand to be a little more routine with my dosing but im not much a routine guy soo....

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Permalink Reply by seth roach on August 13, 2013 at 7:47pm

oh yeah and dont put najas grass in your tank unless you really want it there. I pull about a half 5g bucket full once every week of two because it looks like this.....i love it though. haha

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Permalink Reply by Chuck P on August 14, 2013 at 6:34am

I used organic soil in my dirted 75 and added a real nice piece of mopani driftwood.  The mopani was boiled, soaked rinsed, about 12 times over the course of a month.  

5 months later and I'm still getting tannin stained water 5 days after a water change.  I don't really mind it but am curious if the source is the mopani or material in the organic soil (capped with gravel).  For those of you with dirted tanks, do you get much tannin release?

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Permalink Reply by Paul's Planted Aquarium on August 16, 2013 at 2:38am

I dirted 2 ten gallon tanks recently, they both got about 3/4" base of generic organic potting soil, 1" Safe T Sorb which is a clay, then I capped it all with a little more than an inch of black sand (Black Diamond sand blasting media). So for under low light everything I have planted in both tanks is growing slowly, but are very healthy (Great roots)..

They are doing so well that I decided to add the Safe T Sorb to the substrate in my established dirted 55g, I drained the tank down to about 2" of water (with fish still in it) removed all the plants & hardscape from one half of the tank, scooped out about an inch of the gravel cap, added the Safe T Sorb, re-capped, re-scaped, and re-planted it. I did this about a week ago and so far the plants are lovin it, much accelerated growth, better coloring in the leaves! I'm going to do the other half of the tank in a week or so!

I use very little fertilizer (Britewell FlorinMulti) occasionally, although I do dose with Flourish Exel every day along with DIY CO2..

You can see vids. of all my tanks in the Video section.

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