INGREDIENTS FOR A DEEP SUBSTRATE 

Sent your way by LRB Aquatics. Subbed to your channel. Great info

I've watched many of your videos in the beginning of finding you..i always try to make sure I comment and 👍 to support you. This is one of my favorite videos. I remember several months ago when I just found you. A saw a lot of the other RU-vidrs having a lot of discussions about dirted tanks, the correct substrates, and the correct ways of doing this just because of this "mud' you were creating.. I appreciated you taking your time out to explain to us all the components and how they work together. I have a hard time sometimes overthinking things. The way to solve that is to study.. and I've studied your methods and techniques for several months. I've joined in with your group and discussions. Your methods are kind, caring and natural. My love for aquariums came from a young child learning how to fish with my grandfather. He always told me to notice what I saw in front of me whenever we were in nature and when we were in water. He allowed me to keep fish whether it was the bait we had leftover or something that we had caught that was small and survived... I'm just rambling but this is what you do for me. You've inspired me to find that same love I had when I was a little girl! It's just a beautiful thing and I really appreciate you! ♥️🙏🌿🐟🌱

Thank you so much for your videos Father Fish. You’re just the best.

Epsom salts provides magnesium, an essential macro-nutruient for plants. Thanks again Dad.

Sent by LRB Aquatics. Great Video, I love seeing when others mix and match to create their own substrate! You’ve got some awesome info here.

Love this! Dirted tanks are so underrated.

Thank you!

Thanks for the informative content

Love this video man! Just more inspiration! ✌🙂

Here from LRB Aquatics. Lucas has spoken highly of this mixture. I have an excellent source of worm casting in Ohio, Gardens Alive. Looking forward to the setup!

Awesome. This is what I was looking for.

i love all of these stuff

Great info and patience in explaining the process in detail, kudos!!! Just did my planted tank last Sunday, Ammonia is around 4ppm when I tested today, heavily planted with ample light. Waiting to see how the parameters change over the next week; before introducing the fish.

New sub. Lucas from LRB Aquatics mentioned you are doing old school natural tanks. I'm always interested in natural fish keeping and old school secrets. 👍💕👍

Great information

My love for gardening and stumbling across your videos has i spired me to get back into the hobby and do it better by working with nature. Im in Australia and am lucky to have palagonite available so i will add that when the time comes to mix my substrate.

Ty so much for sharing your recipe Father Fish! Got my list of ingredients and waiting on payday 😂

good, Saturday morning father fish hope, alls well. thank, you for you're video and info]👍

Just discovered your site and am well pleased. Might I ask how you maintain your snails or more to the point their shell integrity thanks

You have a very unique mix. I also mix my own dirt. I used worm castings mixed with peat, or organic humus compost. For amendments, I use some langbenite + red clay powder on the bottom. Diatomaceous earth, azomite, glacial rock dust, greensand. You should look into azomite and greensand if your already using ironite

Thanks

Thanks!

I'm also here thru LRB. I was able to understand and write all the ingredients except for "The Black Cal"? Black Calcium? I'd like to try this . You're channel is awesome! Thank you for sharing!

You have yourself a new sub sir 👍

Hi! Just found your channel, and I’m really enjoying your knowledge and experience. Thank you for sharing! Is epsom salt still okay to add with catfish in the tank? From what I’ve read they’re rather salt sensitive,

Oh thank i for the reply i apppercate that

I would recommend mixing the dry ingredients before adding the water. Interesting video

Wow so many ingredients! Will this work ok on smaller tanks as well? I tried a simpler version of this in a 5 Gallon and it was a disaster. Hey any chance you can make a shopping list for the description? I think that would be cool.

Do you have a video on how to make root tabs? I have blasting sand in a tank. Completely inert. Is there a way to make this mixture into tabs I could put under my sand or add to the tank without it completely clouding the tank?

Love your videos! You have completly changed the way I care for my tanks and I'm telling everypone about your channel. I'm from Australia and only have Osmocote general purpose. Is that ok? I also can't seem to find an alternative source of the iron oxide :/

Here from LRB! ❤️🐠🐡

Referred by LRB..interesting content.

About to build a 350 gallon tank. I'm going to go with your advice and do the soil and sand on top Substrate like you suggest. I feel like it will be good for my fire eels since they like to dig and burrow. As far as the soil setup goes the osmacoat can't harm the fish? And what sand do you suggest would a pool sand work? You also mentioned not letting the soil get into the water column. If my eels dig and bury themselves I would be concerned that they could introduce the soil into the water once they come up Just subscribed to your channel thanks father fish!

Hi father fish! I wanted to ask, won't adding Epsom salt to the soil increase its salinity? I'm asking because alot of aquatic plants can't handle any salinity in the soil or the water column and was wondering if this could be a problem? Thanks for the great video!

Hello Father Fish , I have a question - If I have a 120 liters tank set up with a layer of 2cm of mud and a 2cm layer of fine gravel(2-4 mm grit) over it , is it ok to leave it like that or do I have to remove the gravel and add sand over the mud in order to obtain a stable tank ? thank you !

Very interesting.Amd Thank you! Can you provide how many grams of each....that would be much easier.Thank You

Which iron oxide is this? Fe3O4 or Fe2O3 ? Black or Red? It looks like it is black but I can't tell colors apart all that well.

What is we can only find liquid iron... how much & will this work?

WOW... WE HAVE BEEN PLANNING TO DO SOME ORGANIC SOIL AND CAP IT WITH GRAVEL... I THOUGHT THAT WAS ALREADY GOING ALL OUT FOR THE PLANTS... THIS VIDEO SUGGESTS OTHERWISE LOL... WE STARTED WITH SAND AND ROOT TABS, SO BABY STEPS I GUESS

Amazing information. Is the black kow their manure or topsoil? Would you make any adjustments to the recipe for different types of water parameters, such as very hard or soft?

Again here from lrb

Ok, so you'd prefer worm casings, but used... Blood meal? Snail food? What do I substitute for the snail food? Noticed it wasn't in the pond/sealed pot video. Trying to put this stuff together for this weekend. Have most ingredients already.

Hi Father Fish. I would like to upgrade my 20g to a 40g. My substrate is gravel on the bottom, and fluval aqua soil on top-- I took over my boyfriend's kid's tank when he went off to college. I wanted a planted tank, and didn't want to cycle (I was also extra extra new to the hobby). Could you advise how I can take most of my current substrate and integrate it with your steps here? I am looking to transfer that good bacteria, but also have a more sustainable aquarium. Thanks!

New subscriber ✌️🐟 ☮️🌿... Where is your store? Unless that's a awesome pet store garage you have, I can hear parakeets?

How messy will it be if we have 2 crawfish in the tank? Not worth it or it will clear and settle down? Its a 30 long and i want to go with a river/stream set-up for them. Any ideas on flow across the tank? Don't want to do a canister filter, really want to go as natural as possible. Love the information I've gottin from ya so far. Keep it comin!

Does anyone (A reseller or a hobbyist) sell the additives mix in Europe? Buying all the ingredients separately is too expensive

Could you be so kind as to tell us the purpose of diatomaceous earth..can it be substituted with anything else like very fine sand, or eliminated all together? Peat moss, will it not leech tannins?can i use cocopeat instead? If i do not have osmocote, can i use NPK granules instead used in gardening? Say 20-20-20 I am sorry about so many questions.. I'm intending to start a 100 gallon tall-ish (30 inch) tank..and trying to make do with what i got..

Excellent! Back to basics. Could you tell me which is the product that you mention after the iron oxide? The one that provides calcium. Thanks for the info!!

Thanks for this video this was very informative. Looking forward to future videos! Would be interesting to see you thoughts on lighting for plants 🙂

I want to setup a 20g tank and buying all these seperate will give me a lot left over once I am done. Is there anything more commercial that can be bought? Like tetra active and tetra Complete substrate?

Would it work if I used all sand and added root tabs every three months?

Are all of these ingredients included in your diet supplement that you sell on your website?

Hi Father fish, I’m looking to plant and sand my already established tank which has a medium sized river stone gravel substrate about 2 inches thick. Would it be okay to just sand on top of this sense the existing substrate already had a lot of nutrients? - thank you again and I love the videos!

That's a lot of ingredients to collect. Would just a commercially available substrate like Miracle Grow do the job or will it not work for the long term? Place two inches of sand over the MG.

hi buddy chewy sent me by

Father Fish please tell me i have a dirted tank the bottom layer being mixed with Garden soil and Vermicompost, above that river sand and over that sand substrate(not very fine) now the thing is i want to change the position of the plants...how many times can i do so as it will pop out some of the bottom soil up...disturbing the substrate...of course there are 15-20 plants which i pluck slowly and gradually...how many times can i do this process twice or thrice so that substrate is not disturbed...

Hello father fish, can I buy a dirt mixture for a 10 gallon tank and the amount also needed of sand and also plants to start of my new 10 gallon tank. I currently have a gravel 20 gallon high tank and have never had a dirt sand tank

What sand do you prefer to use as a cap for this?

I'm a bit curious about hte epsom salts and diatomaceous earth. Wouldn't salt in the water column be bad for freshwater? Im not sure what makes epsom salts different from other salts. As for diatomaceous earth, isn't that stuff meant to be sharp on a microscopic level to bust up small pest creatures? I know that its used in houseplant hobbies for controlling fungus gnats. Would that not be a worry for the small helpful creatures you want in your substrate? Things like blackworms and the like? You only mentioned it's calcium content, would it not be just as easy to use crushed coral or something similar? I guess that might be hard to get in larger volumes.

Hi Papy Fish, it's me ! Is lime citrate magnesium, another magnesium salt ? What's the difference between it and Epsom salt ?

Where can I find that organic snail food at ?

Do you think charcoal is a good idea to put in the mix ?

grandfather fish im not sure if i have asked you this (this is my 4th time watching the video) can this technique be applied in saltwater (MACROALGAES) planted tank?

Is this all in the soil additive you sell on your website?

If I can’t find black kow manure What other stuff can replace black kow?

I have a 100 gallon how much should I use. I bought just about everything that you are showing now

Dear Father Fish, thank you for taking time out of your day to provide this information for us new hobbyists! I am from Sweden, we do not have many of the exact things you use in the mixture unfortunately. I would like to ask you if one can use generally available “Aqua Soil” topped off with deep inert sand to achieve the same kind of effect we see in your aquariums? Or should I simply try to find substitutes for the ingredients as they are two completely different things?

new and trying to learn how to do a natural tank. so my question is if this is done right i wouldn't want to disturb this substrate by vacuuming it correct.

Can I just use black cow only. Let it sit in water bucket for two weeks. Then sand on top. I'm only doing alittle to the back of the tank.55 gallons. I have a tank already set up. I want to keep sand on 9ne side only and gravel on the other side.

can we have the list of ingredients of aquatic soil please...thank you so much

Do you mineralize the substrate?

I can't have l plants in my Oscar tank. What if I just put four inches of pure sand in the bottom of the tank?

Will it work if I miss 2 ingredients like?

Were can i find dynammix earth

can we use coral sand ? Merci

Father Fish, I really cannot find many of the ingredients that you have mentioned. Especially now that we are under a lockdown here. Would it be just alright to use Epsom salt, Osmocote, Baking Soda, Diatomaceous Earth and Agricultural Lime?

If you would sell this, I would probably buy it.

Do you sell this mix at the shop?

Hello father Fish. Is it possible you can share the ingredients for your substrate in writen form. Thanks in advance.

What isorganic male food and wher can i find it

This is a lot of stuff just for a base layer but Great video!

From Australia, what is Black Cow? Cow manure?

I just need a recipe for a 29 gallon aquarium No how to break it down

Im trying to gather up the ingredients but the organic snail food seems to be throwing me off. i get alot of snail killer stuff coming up... seems like the opposite of what im looking for! perhaps some brands your using would help us find the right stuff and have all the success you have had!

Sir, Hello from India,, I will be soon setting up a planted talk... and pls donot mind me asking so many questions in last few days.. The approach you taken is quite different than what others suggest or advice and I am really hooked to the idea, as you have aquariums that are even 10 years old.. I had set up an aquarium some months back with my own formulae.. nothing to boast about. had put up a CO2 cylinder too and plants grew like wild but after some months they started dieing at the same speed.... had a heart break coz i thought i found a way to do it right.. Sir, pls donot mind me asking so many questions and I am trying hard to get all the ingredients as per your suggestion. Right now I face the problem of POTTING SOIL. Sir, potting soil ingredients are manure, cocopeat, verrmiculite, perlite etc... But you already putting in manure and cocopeat in good quantity.. I guess its fine to use simple top garden soil taken from some place where no fertilizers had been used for a long time. The problem here is when i do the simple soil test (putting some in a jar with lots of water, shaking the solution and seeing the sedimenting time and thickness of layers) on top garden soil available near my place.. its mostly about 70% sand, some soil about (20%) and very little clay. I do find some 5kg bags available online that says black forrest soil.. but they donot mention the sand/soil/clay percentage.. I did get some clay from some place where bore was being dug... and it was 90% clay.. But after testing i found it increases the tds of water after some days.. In one of your videos I think i heard something about being high calcium content clay. Pls help... as you know its not easy to redo once i go wrong... Also Sir, pls comment on use of seaweed fertilizer which is gaining a lot of popularity.

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What is the reason for letting the wetted dirt stay in the bucket overnight? Also, I setup my first dirted tank early this week too. It's a 29G and has 8 plants in it and I've been leaving the light on 24/hr day. I got a huge ammonia spike and with all the lighting I not have a lot of hair algae growing. Why is this happening to my tank but not yours? I only have one guppy in it and I barely feed it every other day so I know the ammonia spike must be from the Miracle Grow Potting Mix. I know you added a lot of fish right away. I confused about how they do fine if there's a spike. Summary: Why leave dirt overnight? Why did I get unexpected ammonia spike and how to avoid it and the algae while establishing the plants?

wth.....this isssssssssssss..more complicated than cookingggggggggg

no chemicals ))))))))))))).....

whatre your thoughts on a pinch of copper sulfate or sulfur powder thrown in the mix for the plants

i didnt catch the 4:00

Thanks

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