What kind of dirt did you use?
Borrowed my husbands phone so I could post a better picture of my tank since my phone doesn't take very good picture.
BetterPic.jpg
What kind of dirt did you use?
Organic potting soil containing Canadian peat.
Your tank looks great, I love dirted planted tanks, I have one myself, although I had to break down my organic potting soil tank and replace the dirt with mineralized dirt because of the side effects of decaying organic matter in the anaerobic environment of deep substrate.
I only ask to caution you about hydrogen sulfide gas, which can be deadly to fish, especially sensitive discus. On my old tank, after a few months I began to smell sulfur whenever I poked or pressed on the substrate gas bubbles would emerge. Keep a close eye on this, the sulfur gas led to stress in my tank and eventually a lot of fish fatalities, and these were much hardier fish than discus.
Yeah, aware of that. Had a DSB on my reef tank for years. I find as long as the water changes are regular, and include a thorough vacuuming of the substrate, it can usually be kept to a minimum as the water changes encourage the flow through of water through the bed. That is also why the gravel layer is so thin since it encourages flow through. That and the rapidly growing roots of the rotala keep it fairly well disturbed. I was however wondering if there are any more attractive rapidly growing plants that can tolerate the higher temps? Not real fond of the rotala. That and if anyone has ever tried using a plenum with a dirt planted tank? I thought about doing that myself but was concerned about the possible effects on the roots of the plants.
This particular tank has been running for about a year. My 75 gallon tank is on year 5 with a dirt bottom without any major problems which is why I decided to do it with the discus tank too. Using the dirt lets me skip fertilizing, which I thought might be more problematic. That and no CO2. Of course I do have to keep up with pruning. Thanks for the warning though as it could be a big surprise for folks not aware of the inherent potential problems with the organic break down.
Nice looking tank and discus Beth .
IMO you really don't need such a thick and organic soil substrate for this selection of easy growing plants . You can get away with thin sand and a root tab. making the environment more friendly for discus without loosing the growth of your plants .
As for strong rooting , temp. tolerant plants you can choose almost all of the Echinodorus and Cryptocorine species of plants as well as Hygrophilla corymbosa and Hygrophila angustifolias , Nymphoides Taiwan etc.etc.
As for plenum system in combo with rich organic soil , that's a bad idea because it will draw organics from substrate to the water column very fast ,raising ammonia levels and hurt the whole eco- system .
Plenums are used mainly with non organic and chemically inert substrates such as PFS -sand or Lava rock or LECA clay based materials.
Last edited by Filip; 07-04-2017 at 07:21 PM.
I was thinking of trying some of the crypt species but read all kinds of info on them basically "melting" after a while. Have you had any experience with that problem? Hygro is banned in our area as some fool let it get into the nearby Croton River where it now battles the Millfoil to see which can be more invasive. I am also finding my Lotus to maybe suite the needs of rapid root growth as it is spreading quite happily. I agree that I probably could have gone a bit shallower with the soil but at the time, I was more interested in not exhausting the benefits of long term nutrient load for the plants. I also tried a bacopa species that was rated for higher temps but it does not really do well I'm finding. Just need to be very careful on what I add as I don't want a jungle. Just an accent.
Im not illiterate...only my phone's auto correct is
Thanks for that. I'm thinking about pulling the rotala and trying crinum natans instead. That and I'll test one of the cryptoryne wendtii and see how well it does. Mind you, now I'll have to quarantine the plants I really had no intentions of adding anything to this tank once it was established but it doesn't quite match what was in my mind yet.
When my tank was planted I had Amazon swords, crypt wendtii, various abubias and pygmy chain swords and they grew like weeds once I got my ferts dialed in
Im not illiterate...only my phone's auto correct is
I've the Amazons, Java Fern, Anubias, one aponogeton, the ever creeping rotala, and my tiger lotus. Just looking to replace the rotala as the need to cut it back once a week is getting a bit annoying and it doesn't provide the upright "fill" I was looking for. Too tangled and dense.