WHAT TO EXPECT AFTER SETTING UP A DIRTED TANK 

Excellent Patty. GREAT advice and technique.

Great video! All my tanks are dirted and capped with sand. My personal experience which has been bullet proof so far and I’m talking no algae, no spikes in Nitrates, Nitrites, or ammonia is as follows. 1) more plants the better, I’m talking Dutch style aquascape. 2) I’ll do %20 water changes daily for the first week or two. And like you said just pay close attention to parameters. 3) keeping TDS 200-300 ppm and keeping PH below 7.5 4) clean up crew is vital, Siamese algae eaters, and Amano shrimp are a must. 5) I always start my light further from the tank, like 12” away. If it’s to close you will get algae over night! All my tanks look like over grown jungles which I prefer. All my tanks are no tech besides a light.

Hi Patty. Really good job. Keep it going. You are doing great!

Amazing channel. I love how you go through these steps and/or issues step by step and are thorough. Very much appreciated and by far only channel on par with the legend Father Fish’s videos in terms of what you share. Please keep it up

Another great video Patty, thank you for sharing 🎉

Great video Patty, and good advice around floating plants 🙂

Once these tanks work out their kinks they are incredible. They will reward your patience. They are by far my most beautiful tanks but you HAVE to really cottle it in the beginning. After that....pure gold.

Patty! Thank you so much! More, please 😜

I never used to put any leaf litter or botanicals in my new dirted setups, and would end up with the normal algae situation as time went along. Since Ive started adding quite a bit of leaf litter (oak leaves, small twigs, acorn caps) my tanks no longer go through the algae phase like they used to. I believe this is because dead leaves are very high in carbon, and are helping balance out any nitrogen from the soil, or fish waste. Also provides a slow release food source for the microorganisms, and becomes the basis for a food web.

Great informative video again Patty 👍💯

Thank you this helped out !!

Frogbit and anacaris will help keep the algae from starting up. Put a couple of platys in the tank and they will eat the algae nonstop. I add a few fish the day after the tank is set up too, I just don't feed them for a few days. The tank will catch up with the bioload and you can add a few more every week.

Great content! I like to add plants to the top of newly set up aquariums, like a big clump of crab grass or strawberries plants and vines. I do this to combat spikes until the tanks can sustain themselves, I remove the grass once my aquatic plants take off so they arent starved.

I keep teetering back-and-forth as to whether or not I should set up a dirt tank, every time I watch one of your videos Patty about dirt tanks. It makes me want to start one.😅 I might just do that, be a good experience and now that I’m starting to ease my way into live plants, I think it would be a lot of fun. Thank you so much my friend and happy holidays to you and your family and have a wonderful weekend.🙂👍🏻⭐️🎄

Great job... I really need to get tests kits when I change tanks over to dirted. I haven't used test kits in years and years . I have always just let the fish tell me but your way is safer Grrrr algae ... It's weird how some tanks have algae issues and others minimal. Blue green 👃 Merry Christmas buddy Full view as always!!!

Great video Detroit 😊

Really great video on what to expect when dirted tanks are settling in. Makes sense with the algae, but I had no idea you'd have to burp the substrate 😂. That angel at 6:55 is stunning 😍! Merry Christmas to you and your family 🎄🙂👍

Great video. Happy holidays

Great info Patty The only problem I’ve had is trapped wind 😂 No seriously the first one i didn’t properly soak the mud thoroughly enough Great video buddy

great info

Great video buddy !

very nice.

Good video. New subscriber here from Aquafinity. 👍

I start all my aquariums with RO water , i grow pearlweed and hydrocotyle tripartita japan in grow out tanks , I encourage green hair algae to grow in them because this is a fast growing algae. Whenever I set up a new aquarium and I see algae growing on the plants , I then use the pearlweed with all the green hair algae on it and float it on the aquarium that’s getting algae, the pearlweed and hair algae grow fast and gets rid of the algae on the plants below having the algae problem. The floating pearlweed also temporary gives shade to the areas with more algae, cuts off direct light. Pearlweed and green hair algae grow so fast when it’s at the surface of the water right beneath the leds,

I mineralised my soil by soaking, then air drying several times. This allows enzymes to remove the organics from the soil. I found that there was very ammonia released compared to soil that had not had this treatment.

When you fish pads in the summer, you can see the lake burp like that all the time.

You need more plants in that new tank! Then you never have to worry about nitrates or nitrites👍never done a water change in any of my tanks🙏

Hey Patty! I am very interested in seeing how this goes with a fish that needs so much food.

The pufferfish just sleeps

How deep are you planting your plants. Are you pushing the roots into the dirt or just under the sand. We're getting ready to start a dirted tank. Great video thanks

Hahaha ive had a gas bubble once or twice myself. What benefits do you get from dirted to just like sand?

Great job! Mine has killed 4 fish so I am not so lucky. What do you do with your ph. I know that FF says don't worry about it but mine is really high and everything else is normal. At this point I have no fish in it because I don't want them to be killed. Any advice would be great.

How long do you have the lights on for?

the puffer looking fish what is that?

Do you notice a difference with a bigger tank compared to a smaller tank when setting up a dirted tank?