# OldSalt-Question



## Magdelaine (Apr 9, 2005)

Hi, on a previous post you mentioned a "layered" approach to substrate for a planted tank. I'm really interested in trying this with my new 30 gallon, but I have a problem; my local water seems to be perfect for growing blooms of of that brownish-orange diatom stuff. With my 10 gallon I've tried halving the local water with RO water, and although that has been met with some success at keeping it off of the glass, the gravel! I have the medium brown "natural" colored gravel and it turns the ugliest color of orange.

So my question is that with a layered set up would I still be able to gently vacuum the gravel? It's the only way I can get that stuff off... Or would I be better off getting black gravel (to hide it)? Or is there some fish that really likes to eat it? I don't want to got the completely RO route for several reasons, but I suppose I could consider that if it's my only other option.

Thank you!


----------



## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

Our tap water is ideal for growing all kinds of algae: it's very hard (lots of minerals) and has 40ppm nitrate!

I have three tanks. Two of them are Diana Walstad natural style tanks with soil + gravel substrates and a decent amount of lighting (2 to 2.5 WPG). They both started out with a fair bit of algae but have now settled down. The 10 gallon has almost no algae now, and the little one, which only holds 2.5gal of water because the substrate takes up so much space, has some algae but it's not outrageaous.

The 20 gallon tank though was a huge mess. It had 1.5 WPG, lots of plants, and had green water (not opaque green but green tinted) and lots of yukky black algae. It had lots of yukky brown algae before. When we moved over the weekend I replaced the plain gravel substrate with soil + gravel and immediately the water looks clearer and the tank looks much brighter. I reused the plants (the ones that hadn't died, anyway), just rinsing them off in tap water to get off the worst of the algae. Based on my experience with my two other natural tanks, I'm sure the newly redone 20 gallon will in the long run have much less algae than the way it was. And this is without using RO water or rain water.

As for vacuuming the gravel, I don't have algae growing on my gravel in my older natural tanks. They do sometimes collect mulm on top of the gravel, and then I siphon it off by hovering the gravel vacuum over the gravel, like you would do with sand. It's not necessary to do that, as it won't do any harm, but I think it looks neater without the mess on top of the gravel.


----------



## Magdelaine (Apr 9, 2005)

Very interesting... I think that I will try the soil thing with my 10 gallon as well when I have things switched over to the 30 gallon. I hope it helps (and perhaps having more/greater variety of plants will help too) as it's a real mess.

I would love it if I didn't have to worry about the stuff growing on the gravel...


----------

