# Doing my swap to dirt tank



## Cory1990 (Jun 14, 2012)

Ok so before I do that I have a few questions.
I'm very sick of adding root tabs every month because I have a all sand substrate in a planted tank with lots of plants and with new plants popping up I'm kinda sick of having to jab spikes into the sand everywhere.


Here's the plan

So first before anything happens ill clean the tank out and run a rubber hose along the bottom like this /\/\/\/\ with suction cups to hold it in place so I can add fertilizer to the substrate that way. Brilliant or not? I think it should possibly maybe work.

2. I want only dirt (my preference) will that workout alright?? Or am I going to run into a crap load of problems? 

3. What problems should I exspect to run into if I don't cap it off? I just want it to look as natural as possible and a planted tank with river rock/gravle doesn't look very natural IMO 

Also since its only a 10g I decided my small filter only rated for a 10-15g was not going to be enough so I went and got a Rena smart filter 30, should this be enough to clean up whatever dirt may be kicked up?

My fish stock in the planted tank is 10 neon tetras and 5 plattys.

So let me know what you guys/gals think


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## BettaGuy (May 6, 2012)

I think the idea with the tube is a creative idea, but you wont be able to control were the fertz go. I wouldn't do it as you might get fertz were you don't want them, or you might not get fertz somewhere were you do want them. Because of that I would stay with the root tab route. ABout the other stuff someone with a dirt tank might be able to offer advice.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

get a book. There has been stuff written on how to do this successfully. It can work well or go horribly wrong.


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## Cory1990 (Jun 14, 2012)

What do you mean horribly wrong?


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Like full of live insects, algae, bad smells, dead fish sort of wrong. By now you know that I am a natural pessimist. Where are you going to get the dirt?

There are some old threads on this. I think TOS experimented some with a no filter, dirt tanks and mentioned a book.


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## Cory1990 (Jun 14, 2012)

Oh alright thanks for some info emc7

I was planning on grabbing a bag of organic dirt from a floral shop, so it won't have ammonia,bugs (hopefully not bugs) but I've read up on it a bit everyone just says not to panic if its cloudy for a week or so because the dirt is settling. And I already set up my new filter to cycle so hopefully everything works


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## Fuzz (Jan 27, 2012)

dirt is cheap and easy...pretty much a poor mans ecocomplete. 

I don't recommend doing 100% dirt...for one, you will have a massive amount of nutrients in your water. for two, it isn't very dense, so you'll have crap floating around your tank all the time. do about 1"-1.5" of MG organic choice POTTING MIX(orange bag), not the fertilizer. I used this stuff and it worked great. Cap it off with some regular gravel, pool filter sand, or whatever you like. 

Even if you soak the dirt in water and change the water every day for a few weeks, your dirt will create a gas that will bubble up from the substrate, which is kind of annoying and can kill your fish(this gas is high in methane). if you soak the dirt for a month or two in a few buckets and change the water out every day or two and stir it up real good, etc, do it for like a month. this will cut down the bubbling. I didn't soak my dirt, i didn't lose any fish, but it's possible to lose fish...

planting isn't different than normal, but you have to really be careful if you pull plants out of your tank for pruning or re-scaping. the roots of your plants will go down into the dirt(a good thing) and the roots will pull up dirt when you pull them out. I jammed my fingers down into the dirt and moved them around the plant to loosen the roots from the dirt before pulling them and it worked well. even if you do this, you might have a little bit of dirt come up, which isn't going to hurt anything but it can be unsightly if you're using a light colored cap. 

Do some research before you do this and it works great. I recently got a hold of EcoComplete for really cheap, so I swapped over. I don't have to worry about being careful anymore. I would definitely do dirt again in the future on a bigger tank to save on cost, but I'm liking the ecocomplete a lot

check out some of DustinsFishTanks videos on youtube. his older ones have a lot of good information. he sells his plants on aquaticjungles.com. he's been using the dirt for a long time and swears by it. he doesn't use co2(anymore), but he has recently put up a greenhouse in his back yard and has been filling it with fish tanks. Can't beat natural sunlight...anyways, if you have more questions, i'm willing to try helping you out


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## BettaGuy (May 6, 2012)

I wouldn't cap with sand. It has a smaller grain size, thus it will mix with the earth quite easily. If you do choose to cap do gravel.


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## Fuzz (Jan 27, 2012)

BettaGuy said:


> I wouldn't cap with sand. It has a smaller grain size, thus it will mix with the earth quite easily. If you do choose to cap do gravel.


I had dirt + pool filter sand in my tank for over 4 months and replanted the whole tank about 3 or 4 times and the surface layer was 100% beige. It may mix if you stir up the tank by pulling up plants a lot, but if you leave it alone, it won't matter...or you can get black silica sand(sand blasting media) and you won't ever know that there is dirt under there...but the super small grains of silica is going to compact on your plants roots and cause issues later on down the line. 

PFS has a much bigger size than silica sand and doesn't easily compact like other sands. It has been used in planted tanks for a really long time...And I know that I'm not the only person that has had a dirted tank with a PFS cap.

Im not trying to be an ass or anything here, but this is like the 4th time you've posted about the dirt mixing with the sand, but I don't think you have tried it or heard of anyone having such issues. I don't think i have any more pictures laying around on my phone or online to prove that it works just fine, but I have personally used it and haven't had any "mixing" issues...

Even if does mix a lot, which it doesn't(unless you're really sloppy/impatient), it will add a weathered look of the tank. You might lose the "sandy beach" look after a year, but hey...5 dollars for a 50 lb bag of PFS, which is plenty for 2 inches in a 55 gallon tank and another 5 dollars for some more of the dirt I mentioned above which will get you another 2 inches. If the "mixing" really bothers you, you can rebuild the whole tank 8 times for the same cost of buying enough ecocomplete(20 bucks per 20lb bag, 4-5 bags for a 55 gal) to fill the same 55 gallon tank.

You can have an opinion and you can imagine or guess that it will mix together and become a problem, but really...if you haven't done it and experienced the problem, then please don't try to talk people out of it. if you haven't heard of people having it mix, dont make it sound like it will mix all by itself overnight. 

In short, YES it will mix together....but ONLY if you aren't careful about it. Go slow and take your time. Get your hands in there and loosen up the roots from the dirt before you pull the plants out. Even better yet, PLAN out your aquascape and you won't have to remove plants. Some tanks don't get touched(aside from pruning) for years.

Again, didn't mean to sound like a jerk...I've done it and it works great without any problems. If it really bothered me and it got mixed together and became a huge mess/problem, I wouldn't sit on here and talk it up so much...just sayin'


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## BettaGuy (May 6, 2012)

Well you are right, I have never tried it but yes I have heard of people having an issue with it in their planted aquarium. It worked for you because you were really careful, well I wouldn't be careful and probably replant a bunch of times until I get the look I want. So it wouldn't work for me which is why I said I wouldn't do it. I agree that I tried to sound smart in previous posts about dirt with a sand cap, so i'll stop.


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## Fuzz (Jan 27, 2012)

its alright, no hard feelings or anything...i just didn't understand why you've been talking it down. its super cheap compared to any other plant substrate. ecocomplete and florite are both $20+ for just a 20 pound bag. 

Back on the OP...Dirt still benefits from root tabs and whatnot, too...I don't know how much you're paying for those MG tabs, but I get mine from the same place I get my dry fertilizers. I pay 18 bucks for a pack of 25 tabs, which is plenty for a 55 gallon tank. They say on the site that they last 6+ months. If you do the math, that's about $3 a month.


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## Cory1990 (Jun 14, 2012)

My problem with the root tabs is that my tank is very planted and I have silica sand for substrate so every month I'm buying some tabs it sucks but it works that's the reason I want to go to some sort of soil or dirt. I'm still trying to figure out my best way of doing this because I don't like gravle nor do I want sand again. But I'm thinking of maybe buying black silica sand. Do you think that would work fuzz


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## Fuzz (Jan 27, 2012)

it'll work, but its more fine of a grain compared to other kinds of sands that it will compact and can cause issues with roots. If Pool Filter Sand came in black, I'd totally go for it...but it doesn't.

It might take a while for it to really compact, but I guess if you really keep an eye on it and move the plants around every few months, you could get away with it. Since there's gonna be dirt underneath it, you can go with anything for a cap...like crushed coral, gravel, sand, rocks, or anything that tickles your fancy.


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