Dylan's 5g Planted Dirt Tank

[DylanisHawttt]

I was watching videos on Youtube one day and I stumbled upon Dustinsfishtanks's videos. I don't know if anyone knows/thought about it but I started to realize the benefits of "dirting" a tank. Basically what "dirting" a tank means using 3/4" - 1" of potting soil, I used Miracle Grow Potting Mix, and then "capping" it with a layer of substrate that is either sand or fine gravel. The only downside to dirting a tank is the first week when you have to do 50% water changes because of excess nutrients in the tank and the amount of Nitrogen.

My recent 5g had a little betta in it with a little tree trunk ornament and a log tunnel with fake plants coming out of it. My betta started to look a little sickly and even when I did huge water changes he still looked bad. He didn't have dropsy, ich, or velvet so I'm guessing it was just his time to go. He was about 2 and a half years old and I was given him by a friend's sister who didn't want the "hassle" of dealing with a fish. So I took the tank off her hands and he's been living the sweet life ever since! But he passed away recently (July 1, 2011) and I planned to attempt my first dirt tank. The cycle was already filtered and it's currently in my 10g giving it some extra filtration so I'm not worried about losing my cycle or a mini-cycle. If anyone else would like to join the dirtier side of fish keeping feel free to join me! Here's how you can go about dirting a tank; these are the steps I followed: http://www.fishtanktv.com/forum/topi...-how-to-set-up


I know how much you guys love pictures, so here we go!

Step 1: Laying out the potting soil and getting it to a consistent mud (I realize this is before I added the water. I didn't think to take a pic after I added water ).

[DylanisHawttt]

Step 2: Capping the dirt with a fine substrate (I decided to add a little bit of sand and then the finest gravel I have).


Step 3: Time to plant the absolute crap out of this tank (I let the Swords sit in my 10g while I finished capping)


Step 4: Fill the tank up with a little water and then plant it and continue filling with water!

[DylanisHawttt]

Step 5: The final product! Only thing to do after this is daily water changes. I'm going to be giving this tank to my 12 year old sister while I'm away at school.


Thanks for taking a look guys!

[cer]

I've never heard of just using dirt in a fish tank. It looks great

[DylanisHawttt]

Everyone on fishtanktv.com has at least one dirted tank. Seeing how amazing their tanks looked inspired me to even attempt dirt. Here's a video of Dustin's dirted 55g.



I forgot how to embed videos, if anyone can remind me I'd appreciate it!

[smaug]

Your swords are planted too deeply and you may have lots of stem rot.Just lift them up a bit till the crowns are above gravel.There roots will find there way down.

[DylanisHawttt]

I thought they were but I wasn't quite too sure. I pulled them up. Thanks smaug!

[smaug]

You are welcome.

[DylanisHawttt]

I know it's a pretty plain tank atm but I'm going to be dirting my 10g which I'm going to be taking to college with me in the fall and I want to grow these swords as big as I can before I leave. I'd love to stick some other stem plants in there but I don't know what all would do with 3wpg. They didn't have any decent Java Fern the other day at Petsmart so I just got me some swords I can hopefully grow out for my 10g.

[JCheco]

By betta tank is dirted and has been for a long time, I also just converted my 60 gallon to dirt as well both are capped with playsand and I think it works really well. Here's the betta tank