DIRT *BETTER* THAN AQUA SOIL?? low tech planted aquarium || MD FISH TANKS 

1 2 FILTER: www.onetwofilter.com/products/one-two-filter JOIN THE BEHIND THE SCENES CLUB: ru-vid.com/show-UC3uQXzXSPspf2LoGdtYGiHwjoin FOLLOW MY INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/md_fishtanks/ For business enquiries: sivadcram@gmail.com All my plants are from Tropica: www.tropica.com All my hardscape is from Aquarium Gardens: www.aquariumgardens.co.uk/ Items i use regularly: Tropica Aquasoil: US: amzn.to/2JSU4qe UK: amzn.to/34GQsjp Tropica Substrate Powder: UK: amzn.to/2JROmVT Tropica Ferts Premium: amzn.to/2CaTakS Tropica Ferts Specialised: amzn.to/2WLgOxV Tropica Nutrition Capsules: UK amzn.to/36xqMau US amzn.to/2JQSfKp Opti White Nano Tank & Light: amzn.to/2pwuy3h You can buy the bowls i use here: Amazon UK: amzn.to/2Vx73CL Amazon.com: amzn.to/2M4FwFO Gooseneck Clip on lamp (similar as product is now discontinued) Amazon UK amzn.to/2LNat13 Amazon. com amzn.to/2IlwLVA Mini Water Pump: Amazon UK amzn.to/2mjHDez Amazon. com amzn.to/2oAmf5y LED FLoodlights: Amazon UK amzn.to/31KQwgQ Amazon. com amzn.to/359rp9J #plantedtank #aquascape #mdfishtanks PATREON: if you want to support future builds or possible help fund a bigger studio to make more videos, then you can here: www.patreon.com/mdfishtanks

I’ve always had incredible success with organic potting soil capped by sand. It’s really the king of low tech substrates in my opinion. It’s cheap, easy to work with, and readily available anywhere. I’ve grown way better plants in that than I ever did in aqua soil or Fluval Stratum.

The reason why you've got algae in your aqua soil tank is because the nutrients are right at the surface (not capped off by sand) so that they don't stay in the substrate.

You should bottle your water up and sell it mate 😂😂you can grow anything without spending a fortune....been great watching your journey in the hobby, your enthusiasm is infectious 👍👍👍

New life goal, to have a room filled with all the tanks lol

Hi MD, if you’re looking at dwarf cichlids an underrated option would be a pair of Kribensis. They’re often overlooked and not commonly kept but they look great once they breed and are really easy to breed. It adds a bit of interest to the hobby & once they do breed they’re brilliant parents and you will have lots of babies in no time. Just a suggestion for something different.... Great video btw!

MD: “Just this cheap light!” Me: *looks over at my $2 exposed bulb lighting* **chuckle**

Thank you for your videos! I'm from Germany and I love them.

Man u made me want to expand my aquarium even more and improve. Thanks for a lot of fun and information, keep it up!

I'm only new to the aquascape world..I went for aqua soil to begin with. I struggled with the ammonia levels to begin with..probably took around 4-5 weeks to get the levels safe and that was with 2 water changes a week. It's looking great now through!

A group of Blood Parrots!! They’re so much fun and have THE best personalities! Watching them all cram into bed of an evening is always lovely 😊

Go with a dwarf African cichlid tank. I think you’ll pull it off nicely.👍

I visited WB garden centre on Wednesday, MD. That big blackmoor goldfish with the amazing fins would look great in the Ranchu tank. Love your channel, you really cheer me up. Wish I could grow a beard like yours.

I've always been a fan of South American cichlids from the Aequidens family because they make really fun pets. They're alert, recognize their humans and have lots of character.

Keep up the good work brother. Lovin your tanks, makes me want to start one of my own.

"I haven't seen my bamboo shrimp" I got mine about 10 months ago, I haven't seen it once since then except one time I removed everything from my tank for a rescape, apparently it grew quite a lot since then...

Loving the voices you give Timmy and Pancho :)

Gotta do a dirted Tank now! Thanks MD!

The aqua soil is usually compressed volcanic soil which is going to be the one higher in nutrients than backyard loam. Either way I do agree they both look great!

So exited for the future! You inspired me to start scraping my tanks

Every episode has a very great background music plus the best aqua scape I ever seen😎😎😎😎. Keep up the good work. Greetings from Honolulu,Hawaii😎😎😎😎

I set up two tanks at the same time, one with fluval stratum, the other with tropica aqua soil.... both are heavily planted, but the aqua soil has massive algae growth.

Doing a tank with anoles, endlers and lots of plants would be amazing! I had an aquaterrarinm set up like that years ago. Anoles ate the endlers and the endlers bred like crazy.

Loving the videos pal keep it up . I have been keeping cichlids 15 years and in my opinion i would go with mbuna exclusive tank and overstock it. I have a 240 litre woth 24 mbuna in it at the moment with 2 externals and 60kg of texas holey rock . 2 Anubias plants between rocks also .

Hey I’m impressed by the garden soil growths, IV done it myself and now I see between my tow tank a big difference with how fast the plants are growing !! I think you really should do a cichlids tank there is so much fish to choose and so much colour ! Wish I could sent you some pictures of my cichlids tank !!! If you have a email !

YAY NEW VID! Why am I also so fascinated and in envy

I lurrrrrved that black goldfish at the shop. Pls get it MD. I'm not really emotionally connected to the others but that beauty will definitely lock me in. But no pressure. Just do it! Also keep up the mispronunciation of the different plants in your tank. Much appreciated.❤

The tanks and fish are looking great MD! I would like to see a cichlid tank, I know you will rock it.

Love your videos! You have inspired me to start making videos myself :)

Great information, just what I needed to watch. Ty MD

Since you're big into aquascaping and African Cichlids are typically kept in hardscape only aquascapes, I reckon a dwarf cichlid/ American cichlid tank would be awesome. You can have a heavily planted nature type aquascape with various Ram and Apisto variations

So beautiful vedio ..dirt tank looks fantastic...plants well settled and so healthy...all tanks are so beautiful..

Haven't had any algae problems yet either...touch wood......low light has worked for me and I started with a pretty heavy plant based tank. That may have helped as well. Keen to see those bamboo shrimp!

Love the videos MD! I have a cichlid tank and I think it would be cool. They do create a bunch of babies 👶 though!! Keep em coming brother!

I run 2 electric blue acara cichlids with some smaller dither fish in a 200 litre planted tank and I think the blue contrasts the green leaves quite well. Overall friendly and hardy fish

Always a learning adventure here and yes that black goldfish would be amazing...I love your swift water tank, they look like there coming in and out with the waves...fun stuff...!

I love all of your tanks!!!!

yesssss cichlids!!!! love you're videos md

I really enjoy your videos and part of the reason I subbed up is because of the variety of fish and animals you keep. If you want to introduce some reptiles into the mix I say go for it. I’d be interested in checking them out and learning a thing or two. 🌱

I really think you should go with pecock cichlids since you don’t really want to keep saltwater fish but you like the coloration, these guys would be perfect since the are very colorful don’t get that big but a little. And are easy to care for! And just saying love how much you listen to us in the comments! 👍

I could definitely see you keeping Appisogrammas!!! Keep up the amazing work MD, I’m only 18 yet you inspire me through your fish tanks I plan to do a dirt tank soon because I just live the way yours looks :)). Also for my 10g what light would you recommend that grows plants real well that is affordable?

those little corner filters work great.

Go for the Tanganyikan cichlids if you intend to keep cichlids. Get 3 different species in there. You'll love it !

Loved the vid! What kind of light did you use?

Aside from perhaps CPDs, Ram cichlids are one of my favourite fish. They have so many different colourforms and are such fun to watch all with the advantage of not tearing up the tank :P

Love your videos. I wonder what affect the lighter vs darker substrate has on plant and algae growth based on light reflection from the substrate.

I just planted an aquarium with dirt from my backyard. So far so good.

I think the sand capping reduces the amount of nutrients leaching into the water, the aqua soil has a direct contact with the water so nutrients leach straight into the water column, the sand cap limits what the soil releases

MD you’ve inspired me to make my first planted tank for my goldfish. Maybe it’ll have enough space for me to get my own rancho crew

Loving your stuff. Keep it up

You mentioned lizards, have you thought about a chameleon? A 'green walled' open setup where it could interact with various aqua-terrariums would look awesome, and provide some good space to climb around on - DIY green wall extension of the aquariums! - would look awesome and help tie the tanks together?

could you maybe do a ph test on your garden soil? i like this idea but i think the clay mess i call soil here in yorkshire might not have the same results. great channel btw big fan

I would love to see betta fish in the soil vs aqua soil tanks I think u would make it look great!

I'm in the middle of doing a paludarium..... I have minnows in the water and green anoles lizards are going into the top. I found of all lizards these are small enough to house 2 comfortably and have plenty of top movement to watch and fish are fish, always awesome to watch regardless haha

For the cichlid tank Id recommend yellow lab cichlids. They can be mixed with other African cichlids. If you wanted dwarf cichlids German blue, gold and electric blue rams are beautiful but they are not that Hardy, well established tanks with 26c-28c water is recommended for them. Apistogramas or bolivian rams could be other options and are quite hardy. (some apistos are really cool) you could probably put some apistos in the angel tank. For angels my favourites are the koi, gold and platinum ones. ;)

OSCARS!!! Oscars are my favorite fish and your tank is just big enough for a pair if you do a relatively bare tank. They have a great personality and would be a great addition to the channel!

I would love to see a cichlid scape, I know this is an old video, and I saw your newest videos where the ram freshwater reef tank didn’t work out, but I LOVE African cichlids, and I LOVE your channel. So I personally would really love to see how you’d do an African cichlid tank.

You can also freeze some cubes of organic potting soil and use that as fertilizer for your substrate/gravel.

what light is that you are using at 1:30

Apistogramma cacatuoides!! Dwarf Cockatoo Cichlids, they're well cool! You should totally get a wee cockatoo crew, the males have some of the most amazing dorsal fins /fins in general, they look like some sort of old school 80's punk rocker with a wild mohawk! the females also have a really lovely golden yellow colour with black highlights. Apparently they breed easy, could be cool to see the progress of a wee school of baby cichlids. (think of the CONTEEEEEEEEEEENT) Also really like small caves and such would love to see what you would build for them. I've got a male and a female but I dont think they're that into each other, but you've defo got the room for a squad of them!

Great video! Keep it up

That goldfish looked awesome, like a flame brilliant orange and black. If y'a get it name it dragon or something cool like that. And a cichlid scape would be banging!

Hi MD, love your channel, what are the model filters that you are running on Dirt/Aqua Soil tanks, thank you

I just absolutely love the tank with the missing shrimps.

I love your videos! Not trying to criticize your experiment becuase I love these types of videos, but I think for this to be a fair test you would need to cap the aquasoil also. Or you could just run the dirt tank without a sand cap. I believe the algae in the aquasoil tank comes from the aquasoil being directly exposed to the aquarium water, if the dirt was directly exposed to the aquarium water i feel like there would be either the same amount of algae or maybe even more in the dirt aquarium. Definitely looking forward to seeing what these tanks do long term!!🙌👌

The river tank is the best! For the new big tank...Maybe focus in on a particular cichlid flock for a breeding tank? Cichlids as a mixed group are pretty and active...but I think show much more interesting behavior in a species specific tank. Kribensis for example have interesting parenting behavior...but the ones I like most are dwarf Cichlids, so that huge tank might be sort of wasted unless you did the big mixed flock. I think, someday, that tank would be great as an amazon darkwater biotope pauladarium with dart frogs. Ha!,challenge set...

Cichlid tank sounds awesome! Have you ever though about doing a bonsai tree scape with monte carlo? I'm looking into doing it when I upgrade my 50 to a 90l, wondered what your thoughts were.

I wonder of the sand cap is keeping the nutrients bellow the water column, while the aquasoil is just releasing them into it this feeding the algae? I also want to do a dirted tank, so I like seeing the difference. Thanks for sharing!

Left side is reflecting off the bottom. (White sand) Right side is absorbing the light making the tank warmer.

Maybe it is a good idea to use powder food for the bamboo shrimp, for them to filter out of the water. And I would like to know how Captain Redbeard and the puffers are doing. Love your chanel❤️!

the best dwarf cichlids are south american and woudnt really suit the rocky scape (imo). plus they can be funny to mix species. i would recommend a malawi style set up for your cichlid idea. colourful, busy, and easy. pancho could put on another inch or two and still be fine in the current set up. great progress on the new studio man. well done. you gotta clad that rainbow river stand though man. all the other stands have fronts or doors and it stands out as looking like a framework. thanks for making the vids. hope you enjoy the feedback. great work dude. oh and yeah, deffo get that black moor with the orange bits. peace!

If you’re looking into getting reptile you should definitely do some research into bioactive vivariums, I think it would be right up your alley! It’s basically using the right substrate,plants and clean up crew to create a functional ecosystem within the vivarium vertically eliminating the need to clean up poo etc. You can really create some beautiful naturalistic habitats for your reptiles using this method. A great channel to see how this is done is the biodude

Get some basketmouth cichlids! I've never seen a big youtuber keep them but they're so unique and underrated

Influx of algae 😂 I liked the video straight after you said that

A couple things to consider when comparing the two. One is the dirt is broken up more and releases its nutrients into the water quickly but may not last as long as the aqua soil and the other thing to remember also is you used white sand on that so light is reflecting off of that sand and hitting more of the plants than the black aqua soil probably. But dirt works great, aqua soil is basically man-made dirt. also you have to consider where you get your dirt and make sure it’s not a yard where they’ve been spraying pesticides and herbicide‘s a lot and dirt is going to be different quality all the time, some areas might be very rich and perfect and some might be very washed out and have almost no nutrients. I know a lot of people use miracle grow organic potting soil and that would be at least a little more consistent.

Shelldweller Paradise!!!! Towers and caves created with rock with a deep sand bed and multiple types of bottom dwelling shell dweller colonies with fast swimming cool schooling fish above!

Malawi Mbuna for chiclids tank, lots of rocks and hard lights, so the hair algeas grows on the rocks, they love it. Keep in mind that they dig like... excavators 🤪The gravel needs to be chosen with care!

Hi M.D. here's 3 ideas for tank setups 1 African flooded Savannah (like the okovango delta)2 a marine setup 3 an Asian flooded tropical forest.

When I looked at the link for the nano tanks you are using from allpondsolutions it appears to have braces on the corners, do you just take these of with your tanks?

So funny, the last few videos I was wondering how long it was going to take you to mention that black goldfish..hehe. I think it would make an excellent addition to the crew, it was so pretty!!

Hey MD how do you think that filter in the ranchu tank would do with axolotls since they are super messy as well?

Not a fan of cichlids however I LOVE dwarf cichlids! I have a 75 gallon with the species of Apistogramma in it. Cacatuoides, Viejita, and Hongsloi. And I also have another species on order which will be the Agassizi! In total it 7 Apistogrammas! I love them. It's heavily planted with it of rock caves so they each have their territory. Works great. So that's what I vote for!!! Apistogrammas!!!

DISCUS! 💙💙 Those would be awesome... ☺️

Looking good and top quality video once again md after seeing all your lovey tanks I had to do a little make over of my fancy goldfish tank and that black gold fish from the fish shop my wife is going to be well gel as she wanted me to get that one lol it’s a stunner

I think you should get some shell dwelling cichlids from lake Tanginika, that would be awesome, love your channel. you have an awesome setup and you are very entertaining to watch, take care dude.

Maybe do shell dwellers. I think you'd enjoy them work their parental care and what not

Hi what plants would you advise for a discus tank with C02 bearing in mind the high temperatures. G

Absolutly an ciclid mbuna rock only tank, also good for your channel with new people watching😉

OMG ! 😁The turtle voice . Anyway love the tanks and looking forward to your next one. Don't forget your boy's Pirate/Spiderman tank.😁 I can vouch for a Veiled Chameleon. I love my TREEcko

Malawi cichlids!! Peacock Aulonocara are my favourite! 😍

Glad I'm not the only one who can't begin to pronounce the proper names of these aqua plants 😁

Agreed i have also dirt in my tank!! And the plants multiply so fast!!!

I like your idea to go for cichlids. I am thinking to setup a new tank with cichlids as well. Have to find a spot to place it though. I do not have a cool fishroom like you, my (currently 3) aquariums are in the livingroom of my appartment.

I think that 270 liter tank needs a Senegal bichir in it. All these little fish are cute, but you need one monster. And when you start expanding your reptile collection, can't go wrong with an Eastern indigo snake. One of the most beautiful snakes in the hobby.

Yes, please.. MD, mbuna cichlids would look really nice.

Hi MD, please give pancho more plants for to hide in the aquasektion (like the old tank), i think this would look better and pancho are happyer. Greetings from Austria

Getting inspired from your tank ... amazing ... did you use any fert in dirted tank ?

WOW Amazing 🧝‍♀️🎊💖Thanks 🎬

I wonder if the difference between the tanks could have something to do with the light/dark substrates. Maybe the light sand in the dirted tank artificially creates more light by reflecting it back up?

Ur tanks are awesome My beloved #MD