Dirted Tank Setup | No Water Changes, No Dosing, No CO2 

I did, but it was an algae magnet... So now I pay a little extra and use aquasoil. Just uploaded my new nano aquascape if you'd like to check it out :)

@@SpiritAquatics Aquasoil is my favorite but this top soil is quickly catching up. I think top soil is better but only because it is so much cheaper! I got a 2$ bag of 40lbs and on 17.6lb bag of aquasoil is almost 50$ That kills me haha

I did organic potting soil and black blasting sand as a cap. I had the typical diatoms at the beginning, and mild green spot on the glass now. No other problems. No root tabs, and Easy Green once a week with water changes. I'm about 3 months out.

I had my 75 g dirted. Then I moved now I run a underground diy filter so I change it to eco complete.

@@fergusfold6269 that's good to hear. I just never really had great growth with that stuff. Could be just my water parameters mixed with it that didn't work out. Not quite sure.

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Same Thank you so much! ✌🙂🙏

Love your videos

For sure! Thanks you for the support! Much appreciated! ✌🙂

Thank you so much man! ✌🥰

That's awesome thank you so much haha !🙏🙂

You should look up Father Fish. He’s been doing it for at least 79 years. I consider him to be the master at fish keeping.

Link to my most recent update... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--5TDc0MsTAE.html

Yeah It's so much less money spent compared to aquasoil. Yet so much better results in my case.

I’m glad you mentioned topsoil as opposed to potting soil. Most people who’ve been turned off this method seem to use the excessively nutrient dense potting soil.

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Awesome! ✌🙂🙏 Hope you get good results! ✅

Thank you so much Jeannie B! Hope you and your family are all doing well! ✌🥰

@@ThePlantedTankTV Thank you. We are all doing Good here. Hope You and Your family are all doing well, safe and Healthy! 🥰😁

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Thanks brother! Glad to see you're still kickin it around! ✌🙂🙏

🥰 Jungle style is my favorite I think. 🙏

Thank you so much man!

Absolutely! I';m doing great thank you! I hope you are doing good as well! Thank you for all the love! ✌🥰

💪 thank you so much man love is always appreciated around here! Means a ton! ✌🙂

Oh just wait haha ✌🙂🙏🙏🙏 Thank you!

Thank you so much brother! All the best! Stay safe out there! ✌🙂🙏

That's awesome man! Thank you so much for all the love brother! ✌🙂🙏🙏🙏

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Yeah I tried foo the flower horns methods he leaned from Diana walstad and it just never worked for me. But this works awesome! ✌🙂 Thank you for the love! 🙏

Yeah they seem like they are pressed in stead of cast.

Yes they are emerald eye rasboras. Unfortinetly I love 4 of them to jumping out. They are spooked really easily and I don't recommend them for rimless tanks. Thank you so much! ✌🥰 Fish list right now is 2 Glowlight tetras ( 5yrs Old now ) 3 black neon tetras ( 3years old ) and the to emerald eye rasboras. with TONs of cherry shrimpys lol

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That's awesome man! I think it is my favorite carpet plant too! You'll never stop buying tanks now haha ✌🙂🙏

Do you bake your soil ?

Only time will tell but I've got high hopes! ✌🙂🙏🙏🙏

Aw man that sucks. I have a few different companies linked in the description to check out after all this is over with. That sucks to hear.

All plants are listed in the description! Thank you so much for the love and support! ✌🥰

I'm from columbus ohio! Only about 3 hours away my friend! haha ✌🙂🙏

Thank you so much! You definitely gotta give this a shot! ✌🙂🙏

Yes I will 😀

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Thank you. I would add more tabs after about 4-6 months!

I haven't really had any issues with that. My PH has been pretty stable for the most part.✌🥰

That is why doing huge 80% water changes twice a week for the first two weeks are so important. With aquasoil and dirt there should really never be any need for liquid fertilizers unless you really know what you're doing. That just asking for an absolute mess of algae. Also using aquasoil and dirt together is just never recommended. That is a TON of nutrients. I'm using organic potting mix capped with gravel in a 40g right now with very good growth. Adding aquasoil would just be overkill. Also were your plants newly purchased? They could just be transitioning from Emersed growth to submerged growth which typically causes some melting regardless of how established your set is or isn't. Once you fill your tank fully with water they are going to have to go through that process and you'll be wondering why your plants are melting again. 💚💚

They are great the deeper you can get them. But In smaller tanks it takes up too much room! I haven't had any algae in this tank so far. I always use a lot of floating plants to absorb excess nutrients released by the dirt so I don't ever really have algae issues to be honest. Update on this tank is coming tomorrow. All the plants are already thriving in there. haha It's nut the amount of growth I get using this top soil. ✌🥰

Hi there i have a 50 gallon tank and about to prepare a dirted tank,how deep should the dirt be,im thinking maybe 1inch or 2inch,and im capping it off with 2 inchs sand,is it ok to top the sand with 1inch gravel?🙏🙏🙏🙏🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧

I don't use lids unless I'm using a standard rimmed aquarium. Thank you so much for the kind words and support! ✌🥰

I would just take them out and water change out all the muddiness from stirring up the fluval stratum. Don't be affraid to do a huge water change. Some people like the way the algae looks on the rocks. I do and don't at the same time haha depends on the scape.

@@ThePlantedTankTV thank you so much for the reply. Ill remove two of the rocks amd clean then the 3rd is being used a a kind of Wall and if i move it all my bank will fall down and ruin my scape haha 😂

I've been using this filter on this tank for a long time so it's already cycled. 🙏🙂

I would recommend not using eco-complete. That stuff is really old school and doesn't really compare to the newer methods of today. I'm surprised they even still make it haha.

My filter has been cycled a long time. Also plants absorb a ton of ammonia and nitrite. No need for "Cycling" a planted aquarium unless you start with a small amount of plants.

Just keep up on water changes and make sure the tank is not getting to many nutrients. You could also dim your lights a bit. But this is all a part of planted aquariums!

Nope! Not when you have a ton of floating plants and a cycled filter! Plants do most of the work filmmaking a video on this subject tomorrow. I've answered it seriously like 100 times so stay tuned for tomorrow's video! You dont want to miss it. ✌🙂

@@ThePlantedTankTV it's my first time in your channel 😂🍀💯 and tank you for the clarification

Most of my tanks don't use co2. But I wish I could use it on all of them. Co2 grows plants incredibly fast.

Maybe but for me the real thing is to find the balance without co2 that's the challenge co2 is expensive and a lazy way ...but that's me

No. lol

The filter shouldn’t have much to do with them melting. We’re you dosing liquid fertilizer?? They are frogbit btw.

@@ThePlantedTankTV Whoa didn't expect a reply since this is an older video. My theory is that the frogbit kept getting caught in the flow of the filter and the top leaves kept getting wet.

Just a 50watt heater

@@ThePlantedTankTV thanks for replying fast. I just swapped to the aquaclear filter and it cleared up my green water algea in seconds. Just replaced all my filter media and I'm waiting for dragon stone to come today. I got fluval stratum and the fluval plant 3.0 light and am going to try to set up a carpet plant today

Might wanna change ur pfp bud

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No this is plenty trust me! Have faith in my abilities haha ✌🥰

This only happens to me if I use potting mix. Hasn't expanded on me using top soil yet but I will make a update on this as I can monitor the dirt from the back of the tank.

@@ThePlantedTankTV i used rich organic soil. Its basically the same as potting soil. P.S. i love your videos, love your content and your all aquariums/aquascapes.

Yes actually! I really like to keep my hardscape and reuse it for future scapes so a big white splotch of super looks really ugly to me. It's not hard to remove it from wood but on rocks it's almost impossible to get it all off. Thank you so much for the support! ✌🥰

Your fine if you use aqua soil but if it was dirt you’d have a never ending mess and have to completely restart from scratch….

@@ThePlantedTankTV what do you mean by aqua soil. I if used fluvial stratum. Is that considered aqua soil?

It's a 10galon so it'll take a bit to redo. No fish yet

3/4 of an inch of soil is perfectly fine!

Im currently using 1/2 an inch of soil and 1.5 inches of sand on top with good results! You just gotta be careful and not make a mess moving plants around and pulling plants out! I think your fine! Theres no specific amount of either that you have to have.

I actually disagree with a lot of things he talks about. He kind of dwells too much on old stuff. A lot has changed and we've all learned a lot over time.

@@ThePlantedTankTV Oh I see. Because I was able to successfully build a dirt tank because of his method, and my fishes didn't die. I don't really know what has changed in fish keeping because I just started. But, I am having no problem as of the moment. Thank you for your reply.

Yeah his tanks are cool just not up to my standards ✌🥰

You would boil all of the nutrients out of it so I wouldn't recommend that.

@@ThePlantedTankTV if i dont have oven, what can u recommend as substitute, i mean without even frying in a pan... is it okay to use the washed soil in tap water instead?

No. As long as it doesn’t have a chance to come up you’ll be fine. The only thing it’ll hurt is shrimp and snails

Don't inject CO² into cherry shrimp 😋

I would just use it as normal. They dont seem to mind it at all in my case. 🙏🙂

PH 6, GH 5

I how can it become pure clay if it's not pure clay when you put it in? Potting mixes have a ton of peat moss in them which diana walstad doesnt not recommend because it keeps the soil too acid in order to decompose and the stuff she recommends isnt available in my area. Believe me I have tried. This top soil is only 18% clay says right on the bag of what its make up is. It's just straight up dirt. And btw clay is fantastic for plant roots. Aquasoil does the same this. It get hard and compact after about a year. And my plants still thrived in that. Aquasoil is a clay based substrate and it grows plants perfectly fine. Didn't do any water changes in my last dirt setup and it did very well and fine were never unhappy either. Not saying water changes arent good. But they arent always necessary. Nature is going to do its thing. 🙂👍

@@ThePlantedTankTV The same way any local artificial reservoir or farm pond becomes clay..all that soft organics in it dissolve underwater..leached out. What's left is impermeable clay. Funny,but I've read Walstad writings that potting soils were fine,any high quality brand would do. She said that. I'm sure in dirted tanks where the clay gets mixed in the gravel,it seems fine..but its just taking up root room. There is a lot of fantasy beliefs in dirt tanks. Aquarium plants are not terrestrial plants..they are more hydroponic like. Only the leaves do more nutrient absorbing then the roots. Dirted tanks quickly are leached out..you don't see aquascapers using that method at all. Its all about dosing.

@@StanTheObserver-lo8rx the dosing I believe is very important. But I can tell you from experience my heavy root feeders really benefit from using dirt. Most potting soils use pete moss and walstad doesnt. Even aquasoils dont last long but the key I believe is to keep nutrients at the roots as much as possible. Roots tabs and dosing care very important. But dosing a dirted tank while it's still leaching is useless altogether. I see what you are saying for sure. I still firmly believe aquasoil is the best method by far but when it comes to setting up a planted aquarium on a budget. Nothing is beating a topsoil planted tank. Its insanely cheap. A bag of sand plus enough dirt to last several small aquarium setups cost less than one of the cheapest aquasoil bags. Which for anything more than a 10 gallon is going to be upwards of 40$ I can set up several tanks of 10 gallons for less than 15$. Nothing is beating that and that is my only reason for doing this. I'd use aquasoil if i could. I talk a lot about dosing and root tabs in my videos. It's simply the answer to lush growth other than using co2. Love the conversation man! ✌🙂