Thanks so much for all your videos and info. For me personally, it's like Diana Walstadt and Father Fish laid down the basics of keeping fish more naturally and mimicking ecosystems, but you really go over it all with a fine tooth comb and bring so much to the table! I love your biology focused videos like this, and the in depth fish history videos. I've never seen anyone cover aquariums so well on youtube. You're easily my favorite aquarium youtuber.
I have been using 2 to 3 inches of soil with 2 inches of sand. Heavy planted and lots of floating plants for years. My plants grow like crazy and I do not do water changes. I have had many tanks like this and never had problems. I currently have 3 set up like this. I have to remove a couple of lbs of vegetable material a month from them as the plants grow so well. The fish are healthy and happy. I use a simple sponge filter. The moment I went to sand a dirt all my problems keeping fish and plants vanished.
Had to count the rummy's out of habit of counting mine every morning like a maniac to make sure nothing died. Am I the only one who counts fish all the time?
As a teen in the 80's I was really into my 40 gallon aquarium. I had a large hang on back filter with about 2 inches of gravel. Initially I thought that once the filter media got dirty enough (after about 2 months) that it needed to be changed (one aquarium shop owner at the time told me this). I liked live plants and wanted to have them in my tank. I quickly found that most of the coolest plants would not survive long in my setup (plants like anacharis grew well though). I then met a good aquarium shop owner that explained the nitrogen cycle to me. So I stopped cleaning my filter so often and let detritus build in the gravel and although that worked really good for several months, it did not last (I think due to the limit of relatively thin gravel substrate which I did not understand at the time). So my aquarium had some extreme up and down cycles no matter how careful I was. Of course, back then there was not much available for substrate compared to today (I did not know then at ages 13-16 that play sand was clean enough for aquarium use). Now with all this data on the internet and the availability of better lights (for plants) and better substrate I plan on getting an aquarium set up again. Just a 20 L but with an inch of aqua soil and a 2 inch sand cap because I have always wanted the natural look of sand in an aquarium. I will run a hang on back filter at low volume for flow and to insure the balance is kept. I will also plant many plants for the jungle look that I also appreciate. Thanks for doing good informative videos.
In January my first dirt/sand planted tank will be one year old. I have learned so much, and I freaked out about some things along the way, but you helped me several times. I agree about fusing different things from different fishkeepers. There were times I was really sure I knew something, but turned out I really didn't have the whole picture (I mean, I still don't, but I think I am getting better! lol). I remember thinking that my tank getting more acidic was a bad thing, because a bunch of my shrimp failed to molt, and I blamed it on the ph and not calcium depletion. I really appreciate your videos explaining all of this. You have helped make my journey less stressful and more enjoyable. I think a big part of learning to keep fish is gaining confidence, and good information helps that happen.
So glad to hear that! Im just learning daily also..but i have the benfit of doing aquarium research at my liesure all day for several years now. If i don't understand a process i love learning why its occuring.... then i run and make a video about it lol
i have boyu 86 liters tanks and 10w light. I have one inch of soil and 2 inch of sand cap. But my plants no longer growing and stagnated.Leaves turned to brown and some plants stems are rotten.Could you pleas advice on this
Thank you Alex! Im new to youtube and doing lots of research before i buy my first tank in over 20 years. I did okay back in the day but after going down the rabbit hole I have found that I know nothing. You have bridged the gap between my favorite aquascapers and hard to understand science. You are my fishy hero!
Great video Alex I'm six months in with an inch of organic compost, and a 3 inch layer of small gravel in my planted tank. It's the first soil deep bed substrate I've ever done and the best success with plants and very low nitrates that I've ever had. No going back from a deep bed for me now !
Have 3 deep substrate planted tanks (FF method). I'm 3 months in and they're doing great! I truly appreciate you giving some of the science behind this. You educate deep science and history in such a relatable way. You are a treasure!!
That is very kind of you to say. I'm glad you find it useful info. I just love learning new aspects of the hobby, and if you do as well...we stay curious in this community hahaha
Thank you. I really appreciate your doing the in depth research and weighing the risks and benefits in using the various methods. Your honestly pursuing informed, experienced, and science-based knowledge really helps everyone else save the time and disappointment from having to try and navigate learning all the variables involved in good aquarium-keeping. I appreciate you 👍
Good video Alex. I definitely agree that nature works on a different time scale to most of us lol. I know from my tanks that deep undisturbed substrates become more fertile with every year that passes. They just keep getting better and better, to the degree that I’m not sure they ever stop evolving and improving. Simply fascinating to observe :)
Gas release from vacuuming frightened me. Then I worried the loaches might disturb pockets. I just dont like the appearance of his substrates. Different aesthetic. Pool sand with soil made such a messy look in my tank. I did have incredible growth, but it isn't my preference. Was never able to grow the maiden hairgrass:( I'm sure I made some mistakes but I had an experienced mentor...
Understand your point, my preference is to have fine gravel or sand without any soil for the two inches back from the front glass, I have had good success with leaving two inches free of soil round the sides and front. The front substrate and front glass can then be periodically cleaned with an old credit card and kept aesthetically acceptable in a living area in the home. If you keep the area plant free, the Corydoras catfish will filter the plant free sand and keep it fairly mulm free. It means they have a free swimming area and we can enjoy them 'winking' at us and watch them draw the sand into their mouths and out their gills. @@wrmlm37
This is the first vid I have run into that explains the different color layers and what they represent. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing these layers develop. I just launched my first two deep substrate planted aquaria. Thanks again for your efforts and knowledge transfer.
If you are doing sand only, i have had some success with using corys to get organic material down into it. I just plop in a seemingly appropriate amount and feed them lots. After a few months, plants will start growing.
Great info. Although I haven't had the courage to cap soil with sand due to fear of compaction, I have used it with fine gravel and crushed lava rock cap (eco complete). The tank with the eco complete cap is doing amazing. Plant growth is awesome, roots are super healthy, and parameters are steady as you'd ever want them to be. I do have fairly hard water, which definitely helps. I set up a 2nd tank with a clay based substrate (oil dri and akadama), and can attest to the KH drop. It took the PH down to 6.5 and has held it there for over 6 months. Plant growth has been decent, since I seeded it with a good amount of Osmocote, but it'll be interesting to see how it matures. One nice benefit of the clay is that moving plants is way less messy than in a soil tank!
Its mostly extremely fine sand like playsand that causes the compaction. Its better to use fine gravel or poolfilter sand or any sand that is generally more coarse so that roots can reach down and get the nutrients they need. Additionally, animals like worms and snails are able to sift through and aerate the sand to prevent that much compacting.
@@valleymykel-mq7gw Thank you for the tip! I decided to give the "Father Fish Method" a try with some HTH Pool filter sand (pools are pretty rare in the Pacific NW where I live, but a local Wilco store had it). It looks fantastic, and I'm hoping it works well.
You’re always a wealth of information, thank you! Been watching your channel for years. I got the honor to meet FF since his store was in driving distance before he moved to Maryland. Both of you are great! Stay safe
Im glad you pointed out how every tiny thing you do can change your tank from someone else's. You could have the 100% exact tank as someone else, but say your substrates are both 5", but one person replansts their exact stem cuttings into their substrate with super thin tweezers down about 3/4s of an inch, and the other takes that exact same trimming and plants them 3 inches deep with their ginger, you will get 2 different results over time. Well said sir!
Thanks that make me feel better as i just set up deep bed with tropica substrate and sand on top.but some people say sand is not good.The so called science man.
Sand is fine... its all a matter of preference basically. Sand alone is not going to grow plants...its the water doing the work until fish waste and other debris turns to soil in the sand bed...then after a year or so it starts a whole new cycle where the bed is "charged" with nutrients and acts as a dividing wall
Very timely video since I was wondering what was up with all the different colors in my layered substrate. Started my first deep sand substrate in a 55, after trusting the process and letting the green water come and go I got a great looking tank.
Right on. Glad to hear! And yes... with patience...theyre great 1 to 2 years in and from then on to around 10 years! But i can understand if someone wants to hurry a tank for kids or whatnot. But i think patience has greater rewards too
lately i've been using just sand, liquid ferts for the first month with a high initial plant load. i add root tabs in time if i notice nutrient deficiencies in plants. i also do high filtration and high stocking. my 20 long full of crypts, swords, and vallisneria is a jungle now after 6 months, i've had some algae battles but it is balancing now. i have corys and assassin snails to stir the surface layer constantly, which helps work the nutrients down deeper as well as into the sponge filters.
I have a deep sand substrate with dirt in the bottom and aquasoil on its top. I also use a massive fluval fx 6. I have a massive planted tank with malawa shrimps and alot of nanofish. I rarely do water changes. My system is in equilibrium with no fish deaths for a looong loong time. Btw, I also inject CO2. I only feed ny tank once in every 2 days. I aint got time for more maintenance. Sometimes I trim the tank, but normally I let it grow every 2 months. I love ny system. Is a fusion between you and father fish and aome other guys. Since I changed my filter to the fluval fx, I noticed a massive growth in all my plants. They grow even faster. Oh and my light is a chihiros wrgb pro. In my tank, water flow is the most important for plant growth, after that lights and nutrition. Water flow is key 😊 Thanks! PS. I rarely use ferts. Only once in a month maybe. I have so many fish I dont need more ferts than that XD PS2. I never had an algae issue.
I am using the Aqueon Aqua soil and fine sand. The surface substrate may be compacted the plants are growing like crazy from one tank I now have 5 aquariums with cuttings from the one, I have done next to no vacuuming in this tank or water changes. My sponge filter motor just crashed I am using an airstone bubblier for the moment. The detritus just sits in the corner of the aquarium. I have fry guppies that shift through it and Nerite snails and bladder snails plus two Hill stream loaches and some shrimp in this tank. I started this tank in December 2023 it's four months in I think since the detritus isn't being absorbed as much I will have to assist in removing it my challenge is the long stem plants which will need to be pulled to catch the baby fish and their parents. I hope not to destroy the balance of the tank. Thanks for sharing your knowledge about the substrate.
I like your process the best Alex. I found out about deep beds the hard way. Father Fish said "Betta fish are better in a confined space because they can't swim." Mine can, so I give them a big tank to cruise around in
I saw that video and was like... uhhhh , WTF? yes some have crazy fins... which get infected and torn easily in high flow or tanks where they can get scared easily...but thats not at all common....and most betta i see are half moon or less in finage. Especially the aliens, plakats and giants/wild species. The even odder part of all that to mez was idea that he skipped the fact that betta mostly live in tiny flooded pools, then claim a territory to defend to the death in some cases.... thats why they like, warm shalllow, still water in tannc tanks as a general rule. Also humans created many lines to strictly be mean fighting fish... but most in the hobby are from the royal lines started in the 1770s or later...for beauty...not the super old fighting lines
@@Fishtory yeah. I think he missed the mark on that one. I have plakats and giants and I could hardly believe what he said, since they max out the space in very large tanks. I think the cruelty is letting a sentient being be cramped its whole life. Imagine us being only being able to go about in something the size of our kitchen. You could live in a mansion and you'd still want to go out.
Great video Alex! I am thankful that you shared the term, "brownian motion," at the end of the video. I have been trying to learn more of the principles related to how substrate moves and settles. I've made observations and hypotheses about how substrate materials settle over time in relation to one another, but I want to learn more about the physics behind it. If I keep substrate materials layered in a clearly defined way, they usually stay that way. When materials are mixed together or loosely layered, I have rocks and aquatic soil pellets eventually float above my sand layer, especially if there is a current in the water from a filter. I am guessing that movement of particles from the current (and perhaps brownian motion) cause more buoyant materials to float to the top, while heavier ones sink, but I can't help but wonder if there is more to it than that. Maybe the size of the particles/materials matters in determining where it will eventually settle too? I would love to learn more about the laws of physics that govern how substrate materials settle in relation to one another. Thanks for all that you do!
Right on. Im fascinated by this as well! Im pretty sure you and i...and maybe 20 others would watch something that niche and nerdy haha.. but ill definitely add it to my to do list :)
I'm considering a dirt tank but not decided yet. It's a 20L and is sitting there with just a plenum, covered by landscape fabric anchored with gravel, until I make up my mind. As for aesthetics, I've built my first 3 tanks with a "wall" of nice gravel all around the glass edge with whatever substrate I use being layered behind it and capped with a layer of the gravel. That way it has a clean uniform look along the glass. I like gravel caps for ease of vacuuming when it's needed. My latest, most successful tank, has now gone for 9 months with heavy bioload of poopy Platys, but only needed vacuuming twice and water changes 3 times. The water chemistry has been perfect the whole time and I've only scraped algae off the glass 4 times! I used Novak's system of a plenum with the Walmart clay cat litter, layer of iron, one inch of an aqua soil, and half inch of a nice gravel. I seeded the tank with Dr. Tim's bacteria system to get it going with a strong start, and used lava rocks as the central hardscape decor to house them and the kuhli loach. This time I'm thinking of trying a mashup of Novak and FF's systems. I want a lake look of just large rocks, a piece of driftwood, and a variety of grasses/vals for the fish to swim in and out of.
Thanks Alex! If you've got the time and energy, could you do an in-depth video on potential ingredients to the soil lasagna, and how to tweak it for your specific circumstances?
Hi Cheryl. Not yet. I don't even have a tank yet😢 I saw someone made a comment in Novak's video that did one that I was going to ask but I lost it😢. I may try to find it again. I was hoping Alex would chime in if the two systems are compatible.. I'm thinking plenum , gravel, cat litter, iron supplement, cat litter, dirt supplement -substrate, and lastly 2 in sand cap. LMK your thoughts. 🤔
I don't have deep sand substrate, only 4 inches at the highest point. I don't use aquasoil, and chose to 'stir fry' my compost for ~5minutes then layered it with sand. I do try to step up and simplify my filter. I found that a 'minimalist' set of black foam plus k1 MBBR filter works in long run much better than any other filtration apparatuses I've ever tried (bioring, ceramic block, carbon, etc). You only need to squeeze and rub the foam like once or (at most) twice a week with your tank's water, siphon the filtration chamber for any debris left on the bottom, then refill the tank for the water loss (which also accounts as a small water change, probably 10-15%). Deep substrate take years to develops the ecosystem properly, just like what you implied here. That's why we need good biological filter to helps nurture it until it get fully matured. It takes months or even years to achieve the balance, and even then, people tend to disturb it by over-adding chemical ferts. Deep substrate is rich in nutrition, so better focus on adding trace elements instead of macronutrients fertilizer. I've been maintaining my tank for almost two years that way, with barely any fish died (except for that time when my brother unknowingly put an African Leaf Fish and it ate some as snack) 😅 It's a 30 gallons tank with 50+ tetra and platy. A bit tint-ish colored from adding too much botanicals I procured from area near my home. I found that if you have good filtration, you can add some small fruits (~1inch) without fouling the water. It even serves as a good snack for your fish and shrimp when they decompose. Just be prepared to stock some photosynthesis bacteria-PSB in case the water start to get cloudy. It's pretty easy to make, just some starter, water, egg, and sunlight.
Great video, thanks. Most of my tanks are 3 inch dirted substrates now, capped with 1 mm grain size sand. I find that after it settles (a month or two) the nitrates keep going down. I only do water changes now every 6 weeks (and that is not because of nitrate that stays well under 10ppm, usually around 5) just to replenish whatever untested for stuff might get depleted or build up. I have found the same thing with aquasoil and I have one tank running a slow moving plenum, same thing there as well, the nitrates stay almost undetectable once the system is mature.
I loved every word of this video. Most of the stuff I now do automatically. I keep my aquariums exactly the way you do recently I had a terrible tank crash. I only put maximum 1 inch formula, soil father fish style with 2 inch sand cap, but I’ve had to put another half inch of sand on top of that. The problem is they are all nano tanks not even 10 gallons so I don’t have enough space to just keep filling up the aquarium to be half substrate. Plants are extremely expensive for me because I’m a permanent property level extreme low income but I would never ever give up no matter what so I’m just making things work. Tonight, I just got the idea that even though it took three years to build up the pots with the bottoms, cut off on my balcony because my daughters and my place is the type of a skyscraper 🏙️ instead what I’m going to do is slowly remove all of those pots which is extremely difficult & get into the fish tubs on the tiny balcony so there is some configuration of tubs, even though the balcony is extremely tiny, so I am extremely limited to see the least like maybe one tub or maybe 2 tubs maybe even 4 small ones but the problem is the smaller they get the shorter they go because they don’t really make “tall tubs” because the size would buckle & crack & break. I’m so excited about this. My life is truly enriched displays the extreme financial & time burden my childhood Hobby & rekindled spirits are pure joy is causing. Should I do a dirted formulated father fish method for my tiny balcony tubs because eventually I want to not have to change any water. How’s the systems stabilise & only do Justin top off’s? This is so exciting. Imagine a couple tubs on a tiny balcony at the top of a skyscraper with some cold water white cloud minnows with goldfish or whatever just some cold water fish with plants bursting out of the tops of the buckets like maybe I can put some potted plants, even just like one pot on top of my buckets and the roots can grow through the bottom into the highly nutritious tubs. How does all this sound Alex? I’m so honoured whenever you respond, I love your knowledge & you’re a passion for life. I share your passions my friend. The fish make me forget my problems too (even if for just a moment, it is a joy I can not begin to describe). Yes I eat fish that are only wildcat in the open ocean sustainably so they have a good life First, but I also have the pet fish. We have carnivorous teeth for a reason to eat both plants & animals. I’m basically almost a Pescatarian. Once every few months I’ll have some chicken & once every several months or basically just once or twice a year, maximum I’ll have some lean red meat. I’m getting back into my organics to like all my Foods Organic.
Right on! That sounds good. If you can afford it... aquasoil is fine on its own for tubs, but if you decide to do water changes (depending on water costs) you can choose many substrate styles... but if it isnt sand capped or pure aquasoil, youll need to do many water changes to keep nitrates down over time...depending on plant load and the light it gets.. id recommend lots of floating plants that grow fast...hornwart, guppy grass, avoid anubias or java fern...or slow growing plants that dont clean the water fast. Sounds exciting though! Best of luck on the remodeling!
I think that seeing people grow plants in simple kitty-litter (Dr Novak) which is just pure-clay (no nutrients at all) has really made me think about how plants grow. Seems to prove that a substrate is simply a medium for plant roots to enable them to process nutrients (ie a home for bacteria). And that is what all these succesful methods have in common - Walstad, Father Fish, Novak. Great video and explanations here. The pure clay (no nutrients) substrate works - that was the most shocking part for me. I have not personally done it, but I have seen enough videos to believe it. Makes you start to think where plant nutrients come from.
Well some plants water feed, all root feed and some do both. But other than that... yeah the nutrients are from fish food, fish poo that was fish food, or lla f debris
I loved the growth! (Plant substrate beneath pool sand) Everything was so happy! We made a co2 unit with a juice bottle, drop counter...but I love a clean looking floor and it made the pool sand a mess...I maybe should have done more with grasses, but then I got a snail invasion...supposed to not multiply in your tank, but I didn't KNOW I wasn't getting the correct species...maybe I'll try in my new 29 tall... The more planted, the better, but they do require constant pruning:) hoping my slider will eat it as a snack:)
Absolutely love your channel. Fully agree with everything you say. I wish I could find something I disagreed with but you are just so good at our hobby as a fellow fish fam. member unlike anyone else I can just never find anything I disagree with regarding your approaches of what you encourage people to do to try to keep our fish as healthy as possible during their lives.
@@Fishtory I love your personality man. You’re such a survivor. You’re so tough & funny. You have a great outlook on life. You always have such hardships but you just manage to deal with i them where most people just can’t. With the kind of suffering that you’ve gone through from little hints & bits & pieces I’ve picked up since I started watching you a few years ago. Not in a creepy stalker way but because of my Autism I have to study people’s faces extra hard so I can tell what’s happening in their personal lives. You have been kind enough to share with total fan’s like everyone else & myself. The thing I’ve seen that hurts you the most in my opinion is when you lost the ability to conceive children. When I saw your face when you were kind enough to share this with people it made me cry even though I’m lucky enough to have 3 Daughters. I just have so much other shit happening that it all comes out. I see my Daughter’s overnight on weekends now. I’ve never, gambled smoked, or drank, & I’ve never been violent. Just always Mr. Mom, raising my Daughters & building the house with Pons, everywhere deep underground, heavily reinforced. We had frogs 🐸, , & stuff, you only fine and nature reserves everywhere. I have the ADHD like you, but I also have Autism. No one ever cared about my OCD . I did not know what Autism was a few years ago but my ex got rid of me because she got a boyfriend a few months before she got rid of me. She got rid of me as soon as my youngest player to 1st grade. I didn’t get a penny from the house or any of that shit. Anyway man, you’re a great guy. Keep up the good work. Trust me, children have any age or variety all grow up & move out & you’re no better off than you were before. just keep doing what you’re doing because you’re really the best I don’t even waste my time following any other channels except father fish because of course he’s good but you’re the best mother to be fair. As long as I ignore his personal I do appreciate his knowledge regarding our hobbies in ways that encourages a small ecosystem.
Great video! On the point of pool filtration sand: Inert capping substrate is more important than it may seem. Many tanks set along the lines of FF method have the issue with increasing water hardness, esp. if they don't follow the method to a T. Something in my deep substrate tanks is increasing hardness and pH (up to 8). In one of those tanks I have a layer of aqua soil and it truly pushes pH down, but the water is even harder than in older tank with no aqua soil. I didn't add any aragonit, crushed coral... but I reused older sand-gravel and soft gravel substrates as part of it. So I suspect old snail shells, overlooked limestone pebbles and I also used cheap crushed lava rock. Not every lava rock is truly inert. Quick test strip show the hardness should be well above 300 ppm, sometimes even 375 ppm (limit), TDS meter would go crazy (1000+ ppm), yet fish don't seem to care.
Brilliant point... and excellent observations! I only started noticing this and sorting it out ( same conclusions as you), recently. Thanks for such a great comment!
This is the reason for sudden fish death like discus where the water gradually increases it's hardness and the fish scratch and dash and die suddenly, bare bottom tanks are so much easier and lively..
I play the long game and let the sand substrate stratify over time. In my blackwater tanks it starts to hit the sweet spot at about 9 months, I think the breakdown of the botanicals helps a lot.
I learn that sand is really effective to make some fast-growing plant slows down its growth rate significantly, so you don't have to do any trimming etc. if I need to fill up some empty spot, just root tabs there and they'll spread there. drawback is nutrient. I've successfully make a rotala blood red singapore green which is not easy from what I know since they are always red at almost all conditions.
I use FF method in all my tanks (4 tanks so far) and I have noticed that even the "easy" plants don't grow as good as I'd expect them to (as compared to my control tank, where there is no sand, only a built up mulm on top of the soil). Some thrive, some don't. I suspect that the sand is too dense, limiting the amount of oxygen to the roots. If I was to re-do the tank, I'd probably do a dirt layer, then a gravel layer, then cap it all with a sand layer. The gravel would probably allow the substrate to be more open and aerated. Just my hypothesis though. I could be completely wrong lol.
@Alexnguyen, I am having similar problems with sand. As this video says ‘sand cannot nourish plants’ on its own. I love sand, it is so cool, so I will not give up. I think the key to the sand capped tank is it favours deep-rooted stem plants. Grasses seem to struggle which is odd because even they do over time extend deep roots into a substrate. At least that is my experience. I am thinking deep-rooted stem plants work well with sand caps. I have noticed that FF in his own tanks tends to have large plants that are root feeders. My experience is that without the capping, my plants tend to grow unrestrained. I think the problem is that sand and gravel are basically rocks and plant roots prefer mud. Trouble is mud and dirt (uncapped) is messy and potentially to much in contact with the water column (nutrient rich water - algae). So I completely understand why FF goes for capping. I do not feel that sand is too dense or lack of oxygen. I think it is the reverse. Mud is much denser and less oxygen. Plants seem to prefer that imo.
@@thesolaraquarium I used to think that mud didn't have much oxygen but one guy who specializes in collecting hillstream fish told me that mud is very well-oxygenated, which is why a bunch of critters live in them after all. Critters don't seek oxygen-depleted zones, quite the opposite.
Big comprehensive explanation of the variables.. these little things make a big difference… always learning lots here.. thanks for the science and history ..
Finally had time to relax and watch Shisho's latest videos! And it's a doozy of literal fishstory!! Fish and history brought to you by Shisho is the best flipping way to pass a lazy Sunday!!
I have this durt and sand set up almost for a year now and it works well, apart from some plants died. Maybe the snails eat them up, not sure 🙂 Are you saying I need to add some fertilizer tablets to the soil from time to time? I thought the residual waste would be enough for the plants. Thanks for a great video, keep up the good work!
So fish food, fish poop and plant debris will provide some carbon and nitrogen or basic minerals like iron or Sulphur but may be missing some trace minerals or nutrients over a year to 2 years depending on your soil quality initially... but unless plants are newly dying or newly yellowing/pinholes/or browning and losing leaves, you shouldn't have to add much very often...I start with root tabs every 3 to 4 inches spaced like a checkerboard or chess board. With weekly dosing liquid fertilizers and then if that isn't enough, daily liquid fertilizers, co2 and root tabs for max growth ( oh and of course strong light if you do all that stuff).
It seems like I'm too deep into watching this video, because I've just picked up this hobby. So I don't really understand it yet, but this is great for those who are already in this community.
I am trying to do more a Walstad method. I have 5 tanks now, and I’ve only been into the hobby a little over 9 months. But I think I’m all over the board… I’m so new to this fish hobby. Lol I go into the Freaking Fish stores and buy everything, Usually stuff I don’t need!! Lol But I just bought Seachem fluorite clay. I was going to put it as a 2nd layer on top sand only where the my rocks are, to fill in surface areas. I wasn’t gonna do the whole tank. This is for a new 20 gallon African dwarf frog tank. Have lots of plants to include. But this tank is 100% empty now. What are your thoughts here?! Thanks for any information. I sure appreciate your channel. Hugs to all.❤️🌱
So if you want to grow plants youll need aquasoil or dirt ...then cap it with sand or clay/silt to prevent it from mucking up the water collumn with ammonia and nitrates over time. Id honestly skip thr flourite unless you just want it to look nice. In that case just add an inch of flourite, so your plants can still grow through the flourite layer and reach either root tabs, months or mulm built up or an aquasoil layer. When plants grow in gravel or flourite, theyre actually getting most their nutrients from the water anyhow
Our water is so hard that if you want to take a drink of tap water you need to equip yourself with a hammer and chisel. It will break your teethe trying to drink it.
So I have a question for you. What if you use an undergravel filter with a weed barrier covering play the soil mixture down and then the sand layer on top of it. That would make it completely aerobic and non anaerobic. What would be better. I know that in septic systems that have an aeration tool in it the waist breaks down quicker
So it will break it down quicker and create more nitrates... plants under water will consume ammonia or nitrates, so it works fine...but you wont store up ammonia in the oxygen depleated layer creating a layer of "root tabs" essentially...but also you wont risk an ammonia leech into the water if it gets churned up. So i think either way works well
One of my tanks has aqua soil under gravel and a cap of sand on top of it. I started that tank befote knlwing about FF so I had to add the sand after setting the tank up and having fish in it. After some months it's working really well and plants are growing really fast. Befote having sand my tank had algae blooms all the time and now I haven't changed the water since that time. The only issue I see is that when You wqnt to movie some plays it's hard to do it because their roots get in the gravel, pulling up some of it when You take the plant out.
Planning to have a deep substrate. First layer at the bottom would be pumice stones, 2nd organic soil, 3 lava rocks with sand then at the top would be aquasoil. What you think?
In one of my tanks I have to use deep sand. I have a soft shell turtle (an Indian Flapshell) and he likes to burry himself in the sand with with only his eyes and nose sticking out. I can't have plants with him though, and because he's so messy, I have to run a Fluval FX6 filled to the max with different filters, and running at the max in order to keep his water and sand reasonably clean. One thing to note is that the sand isn't capped. He'd just mix it all up when he digs and buries himself. Further, he might confuse anything larger than sand with food, and swallowing gravel will kill turtles. Sand with a larger grain than fine river sand will abrade him and cause sores and problems with his shell. Even play sand is too coarse. One of the things he eats is fish, and I usually have some feeder fish in his tank. Some of them have not only managed to avoid being eaten, but have also lived in the tank's water for a very long time. The only plant I have in his tank is (horrors!) duckweed. He eats a little of that, as he wold in the wild, and it gives the fish a place to hang out if they don't want to be in the light of his basking stone or the tank light. I am using extremely fine river sand in his tank, and only that sand. My other thank is a whole other story. I only recently discovered father fish, and my fish tank is kind of a cross between what he's doing and what Fish Shop Matt and MD Fish Tanks is doing. Matt and MD don't put the wild biologicals in that Father Fish does. I do put them in and I use Father Fish's products in that aquarium. I just don't put in quite as thick a layer of substrate as he does. I agree with Alex that there is no right or wrong way, though I might add, except for what kills your fish. I also have a thin layer of ADA Aqua Soil, Amazon version 2 substrate in the second tank, then some of Father Fish's product which he harvests from ponds, capped with a thin layer of sand. My plants grow like crazy, and the filter on that tank is not at all overworked. I don't have to do tons of water changes, and my fish are healthy, and reproducing even though I'd just as soon they not. I don't have room for the extras, and we don't have a locally owned pet store where I live, so there's nothing to do with them except add them to the turtle tank. That really hurts when it's a CPD or a fish that would bring in a decent sum of money in a fish store. I have only one rather rare species, and it's not all that in demand. It's my cryptic corys which I just can't bring myself to feed to the turtle. The cardinal tetras, rummy nose tetras, clown loaches, hillstream loaches, cherry barbs, hatchet fish, whiptail plecos, otocynclus, blue shrimp, micro crabs, and bamboo shrimp just aren't that special. You can find those at any PetSmart. Only the cryptic cory is a bit hard to come by, and they're really not all that hard to get if you're willing to wait. Nitrous Oxide?!!! I'm gonna stick my head in my fish tank and laugh myself silly, since Nitrous Oxide is also known as Laughing Gas. I wonder... how much of what do our fish tanks off-gas, and is that possibly a problem? For the most part, it can't be much, but if you're adding CO2 to a fish tank, any of that which isn't used will go directly into the room, and could give you CO2 poisoning if the room is not well ventilated. It would be a huge and expensive thing if we had to start adding hood fans which vent to the outdoors to our tanks. It would be interesting to do a study to see how much of what is coming from a tank. I don't know where you'd get the instruments from to determine that though, and I bet it would be very expensive to do it with any precision. If any of my aquariums are off-gassing anything bad (other than turtle farts) I'll just live (and die) with it. But I'll still wonder out of curiosity. Good video again! Lots of good information packed in it, and also many things which get us curious about what happens in our fish tanks. Keep up the great work! You have a core of people here who love your deep dives, including me.
Haha sounds like a lot of work to keep a turtle. But they're pretty rad. Also, yes... i was literally thinking about an experiment to harness a small amount of nitrous oxide and purify it somehow...youll hear about it, if i figure it out lol
@@Fishtory I'll beat a path to your door if you get it figured out! Then I'll supply local dentists with it and undercut the big guys. Yet another way to pay for your and my aquarium addiction! Kame-san is a bit to keep up with, but there are ways to mitigate it, including the really heavy duty filter. Under most conditions it would be serious overkill for a 20 gal. tank, but it's just right for this purpose. Kame is a Indian flapshell turtle, which is a species of softshell. He is also a fairly big boy and all that plays into his messiness. There are turtles out there which are much cleaner, including the red eared slider, the map turtles,, musk turtles, and a hand full of other hardshell aquatic turtles. Softshells are more or less another name for a rice paddy plough. They dig a lot, and turn the substrate over all the time, so it's best to only put in one thing, and that's really fine grained river sand. The closer it is to flour in consistency the better. Hardshells don't much care what the substrate is, just as long as it is bigger than what they can get in their mouth. They aren't smart enough to know what to eat and what not to eat. They'll happily chow down on ADA Aqua soil pellets, and die. They won't spit it out like a fish will. They'll just swallow it whole, and it will clog them up. Then, they die. The same is pretty much true of any turtle. Really find sand is okay though, because if they do accidentally ingest any of that, it will pass on through. They also don't see fine sand as food, so they only get it in there mouth on accident. I know. Long winded. I guess I'm like you in that respect. I like people who are long winded though. I learn a lot from them. Well, most of them. There are a few old buzzards around who can go on for hours about absolutely nothing. You'll find me snoring through that stuff.
Nice to see a video on tank substrates as I just setup a 20gal and have a 29gal to setup this week lol. Atm I'm going with a fairly thin layer of organic soil then about an inch to two of sand, though for these since ik some plants can struggle to dig through sand and, quite frankly, I was getting bored of my plain sand caps from last year, these two are being setup with a mix of sand and gravel on top and I'm going with if it reorganizes itself to separate out into different respective layers then however it chooses to, that's the new look I'm going with. Smaller gravel does give it a bit better look imo so first one setup (the 20gal) is white sand and standard size gravel that I rinsed and reused from the 29gal, the 29gal is going with sunset color sand that's kinda light brown/orange-ish and fine gravel that's pretty small and blends into the fine sand a bit better. Hopefully this will solve my issues with getting vallisneria to root and thrive with a nutrient layer and more uneven substrate to hopefully give rooting plants some easier path options around the larger substrate pieces so they don't have to wait as long on the feast I hid for them. Also hoping to get back into fish breeding with these new setups and try a couple new species now that I've experimented a bit and think this is currently my best option for only a smaller amount of algae and more viable plant options then water column feeders and wood/decor clingers like my java ferns- of which I have both the standard and windlove(?) that has stayed small for me for the past three years so I see the latter as a nice nano tank option
Nice. And yes i think the val is either a sunstrate grain size issue...since the roots are pretty slender. But be aware that duckweed and val put out chemicals to kill one another... so try not to have a bunch of duckweed if you want lots of val 😉
Every tank is different, the setup you choose is related to the tank size. Light, type of fish you want plus how many. Heated or non heated. The list goes on
I so appreciate you showing us the different substrates youve tried yet another video i needed 😅❤ much love speaking of caps my corys and sand sifters keep eposing my new crypt roots those dastardly jerks 😅❤
I watched this movie once, and then again and again.. you are right. most people do not understand what father fish wants to tell us. Unfortunately, your movie does not make it easier for them, it introduces even more confusion. By the way, I like your aquarium with the "mud" over the layer of sand ......
Thanks Alex, Ive been feeling pretty low, as I had a massive die off because of acidic water caused by a large piece of mopani wood, along with not enough water changes. Been trying father fish, and I thought I was doing so well until I went away for a week. Onward we go….
Ahh it happens to all hobbyst at some point. Sorry to hear that. Try to live and learn... ive killed like hundreds of fish and shrimp over my lifespan... i just hope im making up for it with what ive learned from each accident or mistake 🙃
Very cool to get a more recent look at some of your tanks and see how things have changed, and others like the layers in your substrates have stayed so much the same. What you said about nature taking eons really is apt, like a river stone that's tumbled off a mountain all sharp and jagged and takes a ton of years to become that pretty rounded pebble we pick up while hiking. 🙏✌️
Fantastic video very knowledgable, but I got to the end not really knowing what to do. I've just put a layer of sand from pets at home. I've not got any soil, but have a few plants in the sand. Should I use layers of sand and soil or not, I still don't know.
Check out my other Substrate videos. There's plus and minuses. I don't like telling folks a right or wrong way...if both ways work fine. But look at my "lasagna" method videos for my personal favorite nature tank base style
I use house plants and good old regular gravel. I secure the plants outside my aquarium and let the roots dangle in. I have beautiful, healthy plants and fish. I do water changes, and that water goes in my garden. Nothing goes to waste around my place.
I will follow your advice. I still have questions about the lighting. Do you have a post on this subject? What type of lighting do you recommend? how many hours per day? Should you avoid sunlight?
Starting out it's best to avoid windows... but once you understand your tank, you can play with that. But I suggest starting with 8 hours of medium to strong light a day for a month or two, if algae isn't a problem then increase lighting a half hour every 2 weeks up to 12 or 13 hours ...with 13 being for people with lots of stem plants or floating plants. I recommend fluval planted plus 3.0 Hands down the best light for new and seasoned planted tank owners
Great channel man. I've been watching quite a few videos of yours, father fish, etc and your intro perfectly captured what I'm going through. I'm wanting to redo my 29gal tank for good plant growth and leaning towards something like the Fourite Black or Fluval Bio stratum 2" deep with a 1" layer of Caribsea torpedo beach sand on top. I already have the sand and had originally bought it to put on top of the AquaNatural gold pearl gravel substrate I've been using already but when I started researching substrates, I fell down this wild rabbit hole. Would you recommend Stratum or Flourite Black or another product for the 2" base layer? Or could I maybe save some money and mix half and half stratum and flourite black and then top with sand?
Few points which are running in my mind since some time, and would be really helpful to get your viewpoints on the same. My tank is a heavily planted tank with a deep substrate (soil capped by sand) tank and I am trying to understand its behavior over time. Now penning down the points: 1) Is a heavily planted tank really a "natural" tank ? We do not see heavy "underwater/immersive" plant growth in most of the ecosystems. Where do we find such a natural setup where there is heavy growth of under water plants ? 2) A heavily planted tank mimics a pond in its behavior (with Phytoplankton doing the same role in a pond as under water plants in the tank) ? 3) The natural substrates are mostly inert substrates in nature. What we see is mostly totally composted bio matter slowly accumulating and covering the bottom of the lake/pond/slow moving water areas. The only place where I see sand in the substrate is fast flowing waters like a river, where you can actually put your hand down, and you will get sand in your hand, without much of the biomatter. I have not yet come across a place where I can find sand covering some kind of soil. So , I am wondering , if there can be only two types of natural setups ? Blackwater setup, where tank is having slow composting items, with non immersive plant growth, with an inert substrate. This low pH, acidic setup will be most suitable to most of the tropical fishes except the fishes which like fast, fresh flowing water. And the other will be , fast moving river water kind of setup. This setup will be suitable for most of the fishes which inhabit areas like waterfalls , fast flowing water etc. Thank you !!
Yeah you have an interesting point... most the large rivers ...congo, nile, amazon, orinoco... their main channels are devoid of most plants. But those same rivers flood like clockwork...then plants and areas of even terrestrial growth, are soaked for 4 to 8 months and this is when we see the fish spawn and hiding amongst plants etc. Also rivers and lakes have so much volume that they dont need to worry about nitrates from the fish generally. The larger issue is having enough phosphates for the plants...especially across south america. Of course there are exceptions like the pantanal and spots in the upper orinoco delta that are so dense with aquatic plants that you cant really even support large fish, only nano fish. So id say the heavily planted tank isnt natural.... but mostly due to the diversity of plants from all over. I think youd really dig biotope tanks done well. Some have no plants, some are mock Laminar flow in one direction, even. Like a hill stream. But other than amazon flood tanks, you dont see flood plain tanks done often...and it is VERY natural ...but also very temporary each yeat.
@@Fishtory yeah, now i am trying out a acidic stagnant blackwater biotope setup as well :) I am thinking, maybe it is even easier. But I could be completely wrong, as this will be my first try in this direction. Probably, less or no algae issues, external plants being easier to manage, a different chemistry (probably safer and stable too?) , and maybe even cheaper (a simple grow light for external plants, no filter or probably just a sponge filter should work). Let's see.. And thank you for your response, your videos are very informative, and the depth you capture is really nice.
@@alexnguyen3022 yeah, but those areas are mostly like a swamp, with plants growing "out of water" and all sort of leaves, biomatter falling and slowly rotting. These areas are steaming with life. The water is murky enough that the light hardly reaches the lower part. Do you experience a clear shore water with fully underwater immersive plants (case of usual planted tanks) ? If yes, please do let me know the location, as i would be happy to understand it further.
Great video, thanks Question. I've tried half a dozen Dirted tanks using organic potting soil & called with playsand. Thanks 4 the Tip of not fixing roots all the way down into dirt but instead plant into the sand layer only. My problem is after 2-3 weeks I notice black areas in substrate in front of glass I can visually see. I see surface of substrate areas that turn black. I move a rock and under that is now black & noonher white sand. I noticed many rooted plants aren't growing & are wilting away. I pulled one out and noticed all roots are black & smells like rotten eggs. How does one prevent this in next tank? How does Father fish get 4-6" deep substrate and not have roots turn black upon planting? A y suggestions would be great.
Well i use larger grain sand and only an inch or two.... his method is " different". Perhaps hard vs soft water plays a role but also buy pants already well rooted under water if possible.
I'm not interested in plants. I used to do hi-tech planted tanks with CO2 and the whole nine yards. I had to trim, prune, and re-scape plants continuously. It was too much work and too much mess. I want to focus on FISH. I've been watching your videos as well as a few other YT channels that advocate "nature/ecosystem/Walstad method" tanks. Every video begins with a discussion of substrate, but inevitably turns into a video about plants and plant care and how to grow the fanciest, most challenging plants. I'm not even slightly interested in plants, except inasmuch as they are able to reduce the need for water changes. Is there a way to set up substrate/plants in such a way as to eliminate the need for water changes, but without plant care becoming the overwhelming focus of the hobby and requiring more labor and attention than the water changes that I'm trying to eliminate? If so, please make a video that explains clearly how to do so, and please keep the discussion about plants to a minimum. In other words, I don't care about fancy, difficult-to-grow plants. Just tell me how to set up the substrate and which plants are the easiest/most effective for reducing the need for water changes.
Great question. Swapping out laborious water changes for laborious plant maintenance is not that appealing and definitely something to think about. All I can think of at the moment in mine is figuring out the fish/pothos (terrestial pant) ratio - so it won't matter having slow growing epiphytes (my tanks are currently bare bottomed) because the reliance on and trimming will mostly be focused on one plant - the pothos. Also feeding the fish on alernate days. I personally prefer to get to a monthly water change at most, if any. A problem may be ph stability by then. And the thought of keeping the ph raised to match the tap and reduce fluctuations, which is not conducive to significant nitrate absorption due to the plant's preference for lower ph. I'd rather not have to add ph reducing chemicals then having to remineralize the water. Generally speaking, issues with deep substrate don't seem to get discussed by advocates. I just posted asking questions on a Father Fish video but it disappeared or didn't show up.
I think dr Novak advocates his plenums, you do not need a tank full of plants to help convert those nitrates, his plenum and bcbs will take care of that with the anoxic bacteria that alex was talking about in the beginning. In a slow moving plenum or a well established deep substrate, they can take months to establish this particular bacteria which could be why it is not common knowledge.
Everyone overthinks this topic. Just choose a substrate and don’t overfeed. 😂bacteria and Micro organisms will do the rest in a well established tank. Iv been three years without a water change in a 55 gallon with a sand and gravel mix no root tabs no fertilizers. It’s fully planted and thriving
You and father fish make a great team lol FF is great at getting the idea out there ( it works ..trust me ) And you are amazing at breaking down the Why ? 👍✅ Wow I was wondering what that 'no oxygen' layer was in my 55g , thanks
Thank you. And yes, i just love watching nature work... sometimes we dont know why, and look to a completely seperate process or science and boom! We learn what was going on due to gut bacteria or septic tanks lol. Cheers
Would like to know your opinion in set aquasoil inside net bags, over the dirt , and under the sand cap, in order to not mess too much when moving plants.
You totally can. But any messy bits... like dust or muddiness... will still occur to some degree over time... that and the roots need to be able to get through the bag...so mesh media bags work best...nothing waterproof
I personally believe there are no rules to nature, so there can't be one specific rule set to setting up a natural tank. For example, my substrate is just 1 inch of river rock, 2 inches of crushed granite, then a half inch land moss/dirt cover, making 3.5 inches total with NO supplements whatsoever. The plants in there have been thriving for months now, and i'm even getting some extra large water plants to grow, like those purple/pink lavender or lilac looking ones you'd normally see at the side of rivers or lakes... It's still early to say for certain, but i think as long as the substrate is deep and has some dirt in it, nature will do its thing!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with us. Keep up the great work! I have some questions about using root tabs vs. Father Fish supplement. What are your thoughts about freezing the Father Fish dirt mix and inserting it under the sand vs. using root tabs? I've seen a few videos about it and would love to read your thoughts.
Nothing wrong with asking questions, but why would you want to pay $20 to jump through hoops to use FF's 11 unspecified ingredients rather than use a product (e.g. root tabs) designed for being inserted into an already running aquarium?
father fish has done several videos on what he puts into his supplement. He also shows you how much of each supplement to add if you are doing this yourself.
Yes, absolutely you can do that. I will just say that i have not added new soil or root tabs to that first tank in over 2 years... i started reading food labels and feeding for my plant needs more than my fish needs lol...the fish eat most stuff, so i have been trying to work out a wholistic diet to recommend for plant nutrients in a food web. But honestly father fishes fertz are great...theyre designed to last a number of years though...planning for bacteria to break free nutrients like iron and magnesium, calcium etc over a long long time...root tabs are like a shot of steroids, they work great for faster growing stem plants
Alex, if you could set up only one tank (29 gallon) what would you go for to maximise enjoyment from the hobby? Interested in your take. I can only have two tanks due to space. Have already got a 20g and am setting up the 29 now. Want to do so many things but have to make a decision.🙏
Sounds like my situation ❤ I started with just gravel let it get mulmly and then capped with sand per father fish so far so good my Cory's and rams ( sand sifters) love it and it keeps all the stuff collected in the gravel out of the water column ❤
I have 3 29s. One is currently stocked with: black neon tetras, bronze cories, glowlight tetras, and some of my larger guppy fry, one has neons and a female betta (severe jumping coverage)- the last is getting a reimagining, I'm thinking angels, diamond tetras, and cory trilineatus. Few of these were my original stockings, these are the ones that thrived. Keep that in mind- your best ideas may disappear in one night during a tank crash and you find yourself starting from scratch. I miss my ember tetras and cpds and laser corys, but I haven't taken out a second mortgage to replace them, ya know?
I've only just discovered Father Fish, but a lot of what he says makes sense. Tanks run like his aren't going to win any scaping contests, but not everyone is interested or has the time to do a fantastically scaped tank. His method is ideal for those of us who prefer a more natural look, or don't have the time to trim plants, and want to let our tanks work with waste the natural way, rather than always hoovering gravel and adding fertilizer. Once again, it's more about what you prefer. If you're interested in doing his method from the get-go, he has a video for that. It's entitled, "The Three Most Important Things to Understand About Your New Aquarium". If you're more interested in going with a highly scaped centrepiece of the room tank, Check out MD Fish Tank, and watch his videos. It's a whole different way of keeping fish which presents you with some real eye candy once it's going, but what he's doing is very time consuming. There are a lot of other people on UA-cam which have other equally good methods. You can find them by doing searches. Some of them are presenting things which, though interesting, could end up costing you a heap of money, while others offer inexpensive ways to keep fish alive and healthy. The two I've mentioned above are the two I've tried thus far. I'm sure I'll try the others at some point or another if I don't die first. Nothing is better though, than watching these people and what they do, so that you can decide what you want your tank to look like, and how much time and money you have to put toward doing it. I promise you, there will be a technique which will fit what you want to do. Alex is much more of an authority on this than I am, so if he contradicts anything I've said, follow his advice, not mine. I've learned a metric dump truck load from him in just the few months that I've been watching him. I hope he'll reply here, but if he doesn't, it's probably because he didn't see it. Keep asking, and maybe ask in one of his live chats if you can make it. I am very familiar with the situation you find yourself in; namely not enough room. I also have only two tanks, but if I had a whole warehouse to do what I wanted with, that would likely still not be enough room. For starters, I'd want to turn it into one giant tank, and then I'd have to get a new warehouse to put other things in. But no one has that, so we are compelled to live with what we have. Would you be willing to share what you would like to do, and and what the decisions you have to make are? I'd be happy to be a sounding board for you, and give you my opinions on what you could do, as well as point you toward any videos that I know of which would help in the decisions you are making. Best of luck to you in setting up that big ol' 29 (almost 30!) gallon!
@@voluntaryismistheanswer So sad for you! All of those are really nice fish. I'm madly in love with my CPD's, and the others are so cool I can only imagine having them. On the good side, in the aquarium hobby you don't have to get everything all at once. You can add those little by little if you want to get back to that. What happened if I may ask? I dread having a tank crash, and anything I can learn brings me (and everyone else who reads this) one step closer to avoiding that (maybe). Sometimes it seems like the aquarium gods just have it in for us and something goes wrong no matter what we're doing. Anyway, may you never have another crash again! I will sacrifice a rainbow trout on the pyre of the god of aquarium crashes in hopes that he will never again plague you with another aquarium crash. There are only a few things in life which can push you into a deeper depression and a sense of hopelessness than an an aquarium crash.
I also have room for only two 29s. One is a long one with over 50 corys (I always stock at least 10 per species, and I have julii, normal panda + long finn variety, white, black) on the bottom, also have 4 SAE, and 4 bristlenose pleco for algae control. For the midlle I have 8 Buenos Aires tetras, great fish, they will grow too, I plan to get 10 more. In general, my long tank, is the "race track" tank, for fish that enjoy strong current. The second one is a tall one, there I have a wall of Vallisneria in the back, with room to swim in front, with an white Angel as a center piece fish, recent addition, a real water puppy, always begging for food, plus an 4 years old male pearl gourami. As dither fish have a group of rummy and rasbora (I would add some neon tetra, but my water is really hard, so they don't fare well), and on the bottom, have 8 duplicareus cory (must have corys 🤪). Also, have an army of apple snails, as scavenger crew, as I overfeed to make sure corys get food. The tall tank is a low current tank, for fish that enjoy that. Also, since is autumn, I've turn it in a black water tank with leaf litter.
Thank you, nice video! Ever since I started my new Fluval sub/sand tank 7 months ago, I have trouble with bacteria blom and dim water! I got tip from my store to remove my big plants and plant fast growing hygrophyla polysperma. I helped a bit, but the blom still coming back, but not as hard as before. Only feed moderate once a day. Good oxygen level and stick test looks really good. So, is it the substrate that causes this or what's actually wrong here? Thanks again..💪
Please make a video about the bubbles coming up after doing Father Fish kind of deep substrate with lots of organic matter and how to deal with them. This is an underrated subject. But if you can, please tell me something about it. Does it decrease over time? It’s been 1 week and that is producing big bubbles. Should I worry and re-do the tank?
Its natural. Its mostly carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, oxygen and sulfur compounds... very very little evidence shows that the amount in an aquarium is ever going to be harmful to fish. However in large marshes and lakes, miles and miles of bubbles under rare conditions have killed people in Africa and India. ( google lake gassing Africa) ...i think 1983 or 86? Several thousand people died at night. But in your tank youd need the volume of 2/3rds the water displaced to cause the same issue for the fish...or tremendous boiling levels of co2 specifically ...but you likely have a mix of all the decomposition produced gasses. Cheers. Check out my video "my does my fish tank stink" for more info
It's not the sand, it's the plant, and to some degree your micro fauna. Different plants need different growing medium, just like your tropical house plants or garden vegetables. The only difference is you have to consider nitrification process in water and how it woll effect your live stock. Pure deep sand without soil will be perfectly fine for something like sagittaria, or similar species that likes to send runners on the surface. However it does nothing about fish waste unless you have things like black worms, scuds, snails or zebra mussels to turn the substrate, leading to mulm build up resulting in high bacteria count. Salt water tanks is a whole other story.
I'm getting rid of my tanks and want to get just one simple tank with thriving plants; stems, crypts and bulbs. I've never layered substrates before. But from the information I've gathered, does this sound correct? First a layer of sand from one of the other tanks, then a mixture of two different aqua soils like fluval stratum including some from another tank, or should they be layered instead of mixed? And then a mixture of lava rock for its porosity and some sort of small gravel to use as the cap. Or should the lava rock maybe be on the aqua soil layer? I was thinking maybe best on the cap layer as the bacteria will form on that layer faster I'm guessing? Although maybe not because I'd be using some substrate from other tanks that will have beneficial bacteria. But also using driftwood, plants and probably filters from other tanks that will obviously be seeded. And will add neocaridina shrimp and ramshorn snails from other tanks to add to the cycling process. Thank you.
Great Video, its really nice to See this Hobby Develop over time :) Your Tanks are so beautiful! How do you get rid of the Calcium rim on the water surface? I Always gotta use a Lid to hide it.
So my substrate, leaves and live plants, make the water acidic...which disolves the calcium and carbon...and then plants and fish, snails and shrimp use it for nutrition instead.... 6.5-6.8 ph range
Stem plants ... buy like 5 or 6 .... you can double those by cutting them in half every week or two. Theyre usually 3 to 6 bucks a species for common ones, and usually you get 3 to 9 stems in a little bunch. But local fish clubs are an amazing resource...just asking for trimings or buying on the cheap, then there is always learning to id local marsh and or aquatic plants...sometimes that works, sometimes they dont like tropical tanks...but i have over a dozen that worked out even up here in wet and cold Seattle
After whatching you and father fish inspired me. I’m getting plants etc etc tommrow for my new setup hopefully this goes got a jar full of life too but still learning ab those lil critters 😂😅
I’ve noticed that with my aquarium with white sand, i’m getting a TON of mulm on the bottom. I think the majority of it is a mix of dead leaves, pleco poop, and dead moss. I don’t do water changes because of nitrates, I do water changes to get rid of mulm. I think a big part is because the surface is covered in water lettuce.
So dead leaves will turn to soil/mulm faster than anything else. You can always get a filter media bag and toss leaves in that... or boil leaves and pour in your tannin tea without leaves. If it is annoying you
Couldn't click fast enough, I need inspiration today. (Ftr, my most perfect deep substrate tank is the one my fool beginner ass started 4 years ago before I knew anything: no water changes, it tastes sweet like spring water. I wish I could recreate that again, I say as I get ready to mulm vac the others lol)
Thanks so much for all your videos and info. For me personally, it's like Diana Walstadt and Father Fish laid down the basics of keeping fish more naturally and mimicking ecosystems, but you really go over it all with a fine tooth comb and bring so much to the table! I love your biology focused videos like this, and the in depth fish history videos. I've never seen anyone cover aquariums so well on youtube. You're easily my favorite aquarium youtuber.
Thank you. Im glad you find it useful! Im just a big ol nerd 🤓
I have been using 2 to 3 inches of soil with 2 inches of sand. Heavy planted and lots of floating plants for years. My plants grow like crazy and I do not do water changes. I have had many tanks like this and never had problems. I currently have 3 set up like this. I have to remove a couple of lbs of vegetable material a month from them as the plants grow so well. The fish are healthy and happy. I use a simple sponge filter. The moment I went to sand a dirt all my problems keeping fish and plants vanished.
Thank You! I actualy had this exact question if i could do exactly like that.
Try giving away cuttings to other friends in the hobby, or even selling them! You're basically breeding plants :)
Hi. Are you using a regular potting soil?
What plants do you use?
You can tell homie consumes the natural plants/fungi the planet has to offer.
Me?.... only when I'm awake
@@Fishtory helps you appreciate all the small things. My kinda people
@@Buddystemz🍄🍄🟫 🦚🪴🪷🚬🎶🍄🟫🍄
Lmfao as a fellow consumer I had the same thought 😂
@ haha we have an aura about us like minded people that is noticeable.
Had to count the rummy's out of habit of counting mine every morning like a maniac to make sure nothing died. Am I the only one who counts fish all the time?
My neon tank lol
Nope :)
ALWAYS
EVERY. TIME.
Nope. I do it too. I think it was pounded into us from childhood. One fish, two fish, red fish blue fish!
Yes 😊
Great video. Between you and father fish I'm learning so much and I've had aquariums for years. This helps a great deal.
Great to hear!
As a teen in the 80's I was really into my 40 gallon aquarium. I had a large hang on back filter with about 2 inches of gravel. Initially I thought that once the filter media got dirty enough (after about 2 months) that it needed to be changed (one aquarium shop owner at the time told me this). I liked live plants and wanted to have them in my tank. I quickly found that most of the coolest plants would not survive long in my setup (plants like anacharis grew well though). I then met a good aquarium shop owner that explained the nitrogen cycle to me. So I stopped cleaning my filter so often and let detritus build in the gravel and although that worked really good for several months, it did not last (I think due to the limit of relatively thin gravel substrate which I did not understand at the time). So my aquarium had some extreme up and down cycles no matter how careful I was. Of course, back then there was not much available for substrate compared to today (I did not know then at ages 13-16 that play sand was clean enough for aquarium use). Now with all this data on the internet and the availability of better lights (for plants) and better substrate I plan on getting an aquarium set up again. Just a 20 L but with an inch of aqua soil and a 2 inch sand cap because I have always wanted the natural look of sand in an aquarium. I will run a hang on back filter at low volume for flow and to insure the balance is kept. I will also plant many plants for the jungle look that I also appreciate. Thanks for doing good informative videos.
Glad you find the videos useful 👍 also thanks for sharing your memories & experiences
In January my first dirt/sand planted tank will be one year old. I have learned so much, and I freaked out about some things along the way, but you helped me several times. I agree about fusing different things from different fishkeepers. There were times I was really sure I knew something, but turned out I really didn't have the whole picture (I mean, I still don't, but I think I am getting better! lol). I remember thinking that my tank getting more acidic was a bad thing, because a bunch of my shrimp failed to molt, and I blamed it on the ph and not calcium depletion. I really appreciate your videos explaining all of this. You have helped make my journey less stressful and more enjoyable. I think a big part of learning to keep fish is gaining confidence, and good information helps that happen.
So glad to hear that! Im just learning daily also..but i have the benfit of doing aquarium research at my liesure all day for several years now. If i don't understand a process i love learning why its occuring.... then i run and make a video about it lol
I agree it is a learning process. This is the best part. I am starting tanks now and building the tanks up from the enviornment first.
i have boyu 86 liters tanks and 10w light. I have one inch of soil and 2 inch of sand cap. But my plants no longer growing and stagnated.Leaves turned to brown and some plants stems are rotten.Could you pleas advice on this
Thank you Alex! Im new to youtube and doing lots of research before i buy my first tank in over 20 years. I did okay back in the day but after going down the rabbit hole I have found that I know nothing. You have bridged the gap between my favorite aquascapers and hard to understand science. You are my fishy hero!
1 inch dirt with supplements capped with at least 2 inches pool filter sand, lighting, and some water movement, and you are good to go.
@@mightymike9469it's the "with supplements" part that gets tricky for me..FF uses more than 15 from memory 🫤 it's a lot
Aww thank YOU so very kindly
Great video Alex I'm six months in with an inch of organic compost, and a 3 inch layer of small gravel in my planted tank. It's the first soil deep bed substrate I've ever done and the best success with plants and very low nitrates that I've ever had. No going back from a deep bed for me now !
Right on! Glad you found your groove!
Have 3 deep substrate planted tanks (FF method). I'm 3 months in and they're doing great! I truly appreciate you giving some of the science behind this. You educate deep science and history in such a relatable way. You are a treasure!!
That is very kind of you to say. I'm glad you find it useful info. I just love learning new aspects of the hobby, and if you do as well...we stay curious in this community hahaha
Thank you. I really appreciate your doing the in depth research and weighing the risks and benefits in using the various methods. Your honestly pursuing informed, experienced, and science-based knowledge really helps everyone else save the time and disappointment from having to try and navigate learning all the variables involved in good aquarium-keeping. I appreciate you 👍
Thank you kindly. That is my goal :)
Good morning Alexander! Your such a great teacher. Thanks for taking time out of your day to help educate us all. Much love and respect! ❤
You are so welcome
Good video Alex. I definitely agree that nature works on a different time scale to most of us lol. I know from my tanks that deep undisturbed substrates become more fertile with every year that passes. They just keep getting better and better, to the degree that I’m not sure they ever stop evolving and improving. Simply fascinating to observe :)
Very true!
Do they have gas buildup ? I have this problem and I don’t know if that relieves over time. I don’t want to do my dirted tank again.
No the gas issue is temporary and should go away as the tank matures and settles down. @@sahindemirer
Gas release from vacuuming frightened me. Then I worried the loaches might disturb pockets. I just dont like the appearance of his substrates. Different aesthetic. Pool sand with soil made such a messy look in my tank. I did have incredible growth, but it isn't my preference. Was never able to grow the maiden hairgrass:( I'm sure I made some mistakes but I had an experienced mentor...
Understand your point, my preference is to have fine gravel or sand without any soil for the two inches back from the front glass, I have had good success with leaving two inches free of soil round the sides and front. The front substrate and front glass can then be periodically cleaned with an old credit card and kept aesthetically acceptable in a living area in the home. If you keep the area plant free, the Corydoras catfish will filter the plant free sand and keep it fairly mulm free. It means they have a free swimming area and we can enjoy them 'winking' at us and watch them draw the sand into their mouths and out their gills. @@wrmlm37
This is the first vid I have run into that explains the different color layers and what they represent. Thank you so much. I look forward to seeing these layers develop. I just launched my first two deep substrate planted aquaria. Thanks again for your efforts and knowledge transfer.
If you are doing sand only, i have had some success with using corys to get organic material down into it. I just plop in a seemingly appropriate amount and feed them lots. After a few months, plants will start growing.
Yes indeed. anchor catfish, malaysian trumpet snails, corys, banjo catfish, and cichlids like geos or kribs will also help
@@Fishtorywhat about Neocaridina shrimp? I don’t have any other bottom dwellers
Great info. Although I haven't had the courage to cap soil with sand due to fear of compaction, I have used it with fine gravel and crushed lava rock cap (eco complete). The tank with the eco complete cap is doing amazing. Plant growth is awesome, roots are super healthy, and parameters are steady as you'd ever want them to be. I do have fairly hard water, which definitely helps. I set up a 2nd tank with a clay based substrate (oil dri and akadama), and can attest to the KH drop. It took the PH down to 6.5 and has held it there for over 6 months. Plant growth has been decent, since I seeded it with a good amount of Osmocote, but it'll be interesting to see how it matures. One nice benefit of the clay is that moving plants is way less messy than in a soil tank!
Its mostly extremely fine sand like playsand that causes the compaction. Its better to use fine gravel or poolfilter sand or any sand that is generally more coarse so that roots can reach down and get the nutrients they need. Additionally, animals like worms and snails are able to sift through and aerate the sand to prevent that much compacting.
@@valleymykel-mq7gw Thank you for the tip! I decided to give the "Father Fish Method" a try with some HTH Pool filter sand (pools are pretty rare in the Pacific NW where I live, but a local Wilco store had it). It looks fantastic, and I'm hoping it works well.
You’re always a wealth of information, thank you!
Been watching your channel for years.
I got the honor to meet FF since his store was in driving distance before he moved to Maryland.
Both of you are great!
Stay safe
That is awesome! Also, thanks for tuning in and stopping by. Happy hobby keeping to you and your organisms!
Im glad you pointed out how every tiny thing you do can change your tank from someone else's. You could have the 100% exact tank as someone else, but say your substrates are both 5", but one person replansts their exact stem cuttings into their substrate with super thin tweezers down about 3/4s of an inch, and the other takes that exact same trimming and plants them 3 inches deep with their ginger, you will get 2 different results over time.
Well said sir!
Very true!
Can't help but laugh at "with their ginger" 🤣
Exact. In agriculture we grow in so many media. But it all about light and nutriments!
Thanks that make me feel better as i just set up deep bed with tropica substrate and sand on top.but some people say sand is not good.The so called science man.
Sand is fine... its all a matter of preference basically. Sand alone is not going to grow plants...its the water doing the work until fish waste and other debris turns to soil in the sand bed...then after a year or so it starts a whole new cycle where the bed is "charged" with nutrients and acts as a dividing wall
Very timely video since I was wondering what was up with all the different colors in my layered substrate. Started my first deep sand substrate in a 55, after trusting the process and letting the green water come and go I got a great looking tank.
Great to hear! Thanks
Patience is sometimes hard to come by,but my FF dirted tanks are really going great now after 8 months,love how you break it all down
Right on. Glad to hear! And yes... with patience...theyre great 1 to 2 years in and from then on to around 10 years! But i can understand if someone wants to hurry a tank for kids or whatnot. But i think patience has greater rewards too
This was helpful. Getting ready to set up a dirted tank based on the FF method.
Best of luck to you. Have fun
lately i've been using just sand, liquid ferts for the first month with a high initial plant load. i add root tabs in time if i notice nutrient deficiencies in plants. i also do high filtration and high stocking. my 20 long full of crypts, swords, and vallisneria is a jungle now after 6 months, i've had some algae battles but it is balancing now. i have corys and assassin snails to stir the surface layer constantly, which helps work the nutrients down deeper as well as into the sponge filters.
Great tips. Thank you
I have a deep sand substrate with dirt in the bottom and aquasoil on its top. I also use a massive fluval fx 6. I have a massive planted tank with malawa shrimps and alot of nanofish. I rarely do water changes. My system is in equilibrium with no fish deaths for a looong loong time. Btw, I also inject CO2. I only feed ny tank once in every 2 days. I aint got time for more maintenance. Sometimes I trim the tank, but normally I let it grow every 2 months. I love ny system. Is a fusion between you and father fish and aome other guys. Since I changed my filter to the fluval fx, I noticed a massive growth in all my plants. They grow even faster. Oh and my light is a chihiros wrgb pro. In my tank, water flow is the most important for plant growth, after that lights and nutrition. Water flow is key 😊
Thanks!
PS. I rarely use ferts. Only once in a month maybe. I have so many fish I dont need more ferts than that XD
PS2. I never had an algae issue.
That is how i ran that first tank for years!
I am using the Aqueon Aqua soil and fine sand. The surface substrate may be compacted the plants are growing like crazy from one tank I now have 5 aquariums with cuttings from the one, I have done next to no vacuuming in this tank or water changes. My sponge filter motor just crashed I am using an airstone bubblier for the moment. The detritus just sits in the corner of the aquarium. I have fry guppies that shift through it and Nerite snails and bladder snails plus two Hill stream loaches and some shrimp in this tank. I started this tank in December 2023 it's four months in I think since the detritus isn't being absorbed as much I will have to assist in removing it my challenge is the long stem plants which will need to be pulled to catch the baby fish and their parents. I hope not to destroy the balance of the tank. Thanks for sharing your knowledge about the substrate.
I like your process the best Alex. I found out about deep beds the hard way. Father Fish said "Betta fish are better in a confined space because they can't swim." Mine can, so I give them a big tank to cruise around in
I've got 5 in a 10 gallon community and they do just fine
I saw that video and was like... uhhhh , WTF? yes some have crazy fins... which get infected and torn easily in high flow or tanks where they can get scared easily...but thats not at all common....and most betta i see are half moon or less in finage. Especially the aliens, plakats and giants/wild species.
The even odder part of all that to mez was idea that he skipped the fact that betta mostly live in tiny flooded pools, then claim a territory to defend to the death in some cases.... thats why they like, warm shalllow, still water in tannc tanks as a general rule.
Also humans created many lines to strictly be mean fighting fish... but most in the hobby are from the royal lines started in the 1770s or later...for beauty...not the super old fighting lines
@@Fishtory yeah. I think he missed the mark on that one. I have plakats and giants and I could hardly believe what he said, since they max out the space in very large tanks. I think the cruelty is letting a sentient being be cramped its whole life. Imagine us being only being able to go about in something the size of our kitchen. You could live in a mansion and you'd still want to go out.
Great video Alex! I am thankful that you shared the term, "brownian motion," at the end of the video. I have been trying to learn more of the principles related to how substrate moves and settles. I've made observations and hypotheses about how substrate materials settle over time in relation to one another, but I want to learn more about the physics behind it.
If I keep substrate materials layered in a clearly defined way, they usually stay that way. When materials are mixed together or loosely layered, I have rocks and aquatic soil pellets eventually float above my sand layer, especially if there is a current in the water from a filter. I am guessing that movement of particles from the current (and perhaps brownian motion) cause more buoyant materials to float to the top, while heavier ones sink, but I can't help but wonder if there is more to it than that. Maybe the size of the particles/materials matters in determining where it will eventually settle too?
I would love to learn more about the laws of physics that govern how substrate materials settle in relation to one another.
Thanks for all that you do!
Right on. Im fascinated by this as well! Im pretty sure you and i...and maybe 20 others would watch something that niche and nerdy haha.. but ill definitely add it to my to do list :)
I'm considering a dirt tank but not decided yet. It's a 20L and is sitting there with just a plenum, covered by landscape fabric anchored with gravel, until I make up my mind.
As for aesthetics, I've built my first 3 tanks with a "wall" of nice gravel all around the glass edge with whatever substrate I use being layered behind it and capped with a layer of the gravel. That way it has a clean uniform look along the glass. I like gravel caps for ease of vacuuming when it's needed. My latest, most successful tank, has now gone for 9 months with heavy bioload of poopy Platys, but only needed vacuuming twice and water changes 3 times. The water chemistry has been perfect the whole time and I've only scraped algae off the glass 4 times!
I used Novak's system of a plenum with the Walmart clay cat litter, layer of iron, one inch of an aqua soil, and half inch of a nice gravel. I seeded the tank with Dr. Tim's bacteria system to get it going with a strong start, and used lava rocks as the central hardscape decor to house them and the kuhli loach.
This time I'm thinking of trying a mashup of Novak and FF's systems. I want a lake look of just large rocks, a piece of driftwood, and a variety of grasses/vals for the fish to swim in and out of.
Always fun to try new combos out...just check your ammonia and nitrates are 0 and basically the rest is all up to you :)
Great video Alex.. the thing i like about your channel is the amount of education. Thanks buddy 🙂
I appreciate that! Thanks for participating
Thanks Alex!
If you've got the time and energy, could you do an in-depth video on potential ingredients to the soil lasagna, and how to tweak it for your specific circumstances?
Sure thing!
Second this would be great to see
Great. Can you please speak to if, when and where in the lasagne layer a Father Fish soil formula might be placed in a plenum system?
@@HotSauseexcellent... that's exactly what I'm in the process of building but haven't wrapped my head around it quite yet. Did you try it yet?
Hi Cheryl. Not yet. I don't even have a tank yet😢 I saw someone made a comment in Novak's video that did one that I was going to ask but I lost it😢. I may try to find it again. I was hoping Alex would chime in if the two systems are compatible.. I'm thinking plenum , gravel, cat litter, iron supplement, cat litter, dirt supplement -substrate, and lastly 2 in sand cap. LMK your thoughts. 🤔
I don't have deep sand substrate, only 4 inches at the highest point. I don't use aquasoil, and chose to 'stir fry' my compost for ~5minutes then layered it with sand.
I do try to step up and simplify my filter. I found that a 'minimalist' set of black foam plus k1 MBBR filter works in long run much better than any other filtration apparatuses I've ever tried (bioring, ceramic block, carbon, etc). You only need to squeeze and rub the foam like once or (at most) twice a week with your tank's water, siphon the filtration chamber for any debris left on the bottom, then refill the tank for the water loss (which also accounts as a small water change, probably 10-15%).
Deep substrate take years to develops the ecosystem properly, just like what you implied here. That's why we need good biological filter to helps nurture it until it get fully matured. It takes months or even years to achieve the balance, and even then, people tend to disturb it by over-adding chemical ferts. Deep substrate is rich in nutrition, so better focus on adding trace elements instead of macronutrients fertilizer.
I've been maintaining my tank for almost two years that way, with barely any fish died (except for that time when my brother unknowingly put an African Leaf Fish and it ate some as snack) 😅
It's a 30 gallons tank with 50+ tetra and platy. A bit tint-ish colored from adding too much botanicals I procured from area near my home.
I found that if you have good filtration, you can add some small fruits (~1inch) without fouling the water. It even serves as a good snack for your fish and shrimp when they decompose.
Just be prepared to stock some photosynthesis bacteria-PSB in case the water start to get cloudy.
It's pretty easy to make, just some starter, water, egg, and sunlight.
Is PSB readly available ?? What are benefits adding to tank
Great video, thanks. Most of my tanks are 3 inch dirted substrates now, capped with 1 mm grain size sand. I find that after it settles (a month or two) the nitrates keep going down. I only do water changes now every 6 weeks (and that is not because of nitrate that stays well under 10ppm, usually around 5) just to replenish whatever untested for stuff might get depleted or build up. I have found the same thing with aquasoil and I have one tank running a slow moving plenum, same thing there as well, the nitrates stay almost undetectable once the system is mature.
Totally. Thanks for the feedback and confirmation 👍
I loved every word of this video. Most of the stuff I now do automatically. I keep my aquariums exactly the way you do recently I had a terrible tank crash. I only put maximum 1 inch formula, soil father fish style with 2 inch sand cap, but I’ve had to put another half inch of sand on top of that. The problem is they are all nano tanks not even 10 gallons so I don’t have enough space to just keep filling up the aquarium to be half substrate. Plants are extremely expensive for me because I’m a permanent property level extreme low income but I would never ever give up no matter what so I’m just making things work. Tonight, I just got the idea that even though it took three years to build up the pots with the bottoms, cut off on my balcony because my daughters and my place is the type of a skyscraper 🏙️ instead what I’m going to do is slowly remove all of those pots which is extremely difficult & get into the fish tubs on the tiny balcony so there is some configuration of tubs, even though the balcony is extremely tiny, so I am extremely limited to see the least like maybe one tub or maybe 2 tubs maybe even 4 small ones but the problem is the smaller they get the shorter they go because they don’t really make “tall tubs” because the size would buckle & crack & break. I’m so excited about this. My life is truly enriched displays the extreme financial & time burden my childhood Hobby & rekindled spirits are pure joy is causing.
Should I do a dirted formulated father fish method for my tiny balcony tubs because eventually I want to not have to change any water. How’s the systems stabilise & only do Justin top off’s? This is so exciting. Imagine a couple tubs on a tiny balcony at the top of a skyscraper with some cold water white cloud minnows with goldfish or whatever just some cold water fish with plants bursting out of the tops of the buckets like maybe I can put some potted plants, even just like one pot on top of my buckets and the roots can grow through the bottom into the highly nutritious tubs. How does all this sound Alex? I’m so honoured whenever you respond, I love your knowledge & you’re a passion for life. I share your passions my friend. The fish make me forget my problems too (even if for just a moment, it is a joy I can not begin to describe). Yes I eat fish that are only wildcat in the open ocean sustainably so they have a good life First, but I also have the pet fish. We have carnivorous teeth for a reason to eat both plants & animals. I’m basically almost a Pescatarian. Once every few months I’ll have some chicken & once every several months or basically just once or twice a year, maximum I’ll have some lean red meat. I’m getting back into my organics to like all my Foods Organic.
Right on! That sounds good. If you can afford it... aquasoil is fine on its own for tubs, but if you decide to do water changes (depending on water costs) you can choose many substrate styles... but if it isnt sand capped or pure aquasoil, youll need to do many water changes to keep nitrates down over time...depending on plant load and the light it gets.. id recommend lots of floating plants that grow fast...hornwart, guppy grass, avoid anubias or java fern...or slow growing plants that dont clean the water fast.
Sounds exciting though! Best of luck on the remodeling!
@@Fishtory Thank you so much for your sound advice. Highly appreciated.
I think that seeing people grow plants in simple kitty-litter (Dr Novak) which is just pure-clay (no nutrients at all) has really made me think about how plants grow. Seems to prove that a substrate is simply a medium for plant roots to enable them to process nutrients (ie a home for bacteria). And that is what all these succesful methods have in common - Walstad, Father Fish, Novak.
Great video and explanations here.
The pure clay (no nutrients) substrate works - that was the most shocking part for me. I have not personally done it, but I have seen enough videos to believe it. Makes you start to think where plant nutrients come from.
Well some plants water feed, all root feed and some do both. But other than that... yeah the nutrients are from fish food, fish poo that was fish food, or lla f debris
I loved the growth! (Plant substrate beneath pool sand) Everything was so happy! We made a co2 unit with a juice bottle, drop counter...but I love a clean looking floor and it made the pool sand a mess...I maybe should have done more with grasses, but then I got a snail invasion...supposed to not multiply in your tank, but I didn't KNOW I wasn't getting the correct species...maybe I'll try in my new 29 tall...
The more planted, the better, but they do require constant pruning:) hoping my slider will eat it as a snack:)
Absolutely love your channel. Fully agree with everything you say. I wish I could find something I disagreed with but you are just so good at our hobby as a fellow fish fam. member unlike anyone else I can just never find anything I disagree with regarding your approaches of what you encourage people to do to try to keep our fish as healthy as possible during their lives.
Haha well we will see how long that lasts...but thanks my friend
@@Fishtory I love your personality man. You’re such a survivor. You’re so tough & funny. You have a great outlook on life. You always have such hardships but you just manage to deal with i them where most people just can’t. With the kind of suffering that you’ve gone through from little hints & bits & pieces I’ve picked up since I started watching you a few years ago. Not in a creepy stalker way but because of my Autism I have to study people’s faces extra hard so I can tell what’s happening in their personal lives. You have been kind enough to share with total fan’s like everyone else & myself. The thing I’ve seen that hurts you the most in my opinion is when you lost the ability to conceive children. When I saw your face when you were kind enough to share this with people it made me cry even though I’m lucky enough to have 3 Daughters. I just have so much other shit happening that it all comes out. I see my Daughter’s overnight on weekends now. I’ve never, gambled smoked, or drank, & I’ve never been violent. Just always Mr. Mom, raising my Daughters & building the house with Pons, everywhere deep underground, heavily reinforced. We had frogs 🐸, , & stuff, you only fine and nature reserves everywhere. I have the ADHD like you, but I also have Autism. No one ever cared about my OCD . I did not know what Autism was a few years ago but my ex got rid of me because she got a boyfriend a few months before she got rid of me. She got rid of me as soon as my youngest player to 1st grade. I didn’t get a penny from the house or any of that shit. Anyway man, you’re a great guy. Keep up the good work. Trust me, children have any age or variety all grow up & move out & you’re no better off than you were before. just keep doing what you’re doing because you’re really the best I don’t even waste my time following any other channels except father fish because of course he’s good but you’re the best mother to be fair. As long as I ignore his personal I do appreciate his knowledge regarding our hobbies in ways that encourages a small ecosystem.
Great video!
On the point of pool filtration sand: Inert capping substrate is more important than it may seem. Many tanks set along the lines of FF method have the issue with increasing water hardness, esp. if they don't follow the method to a T. Something in my deep substrate tanks is increasing hardness and pH (up to 8). In one of those tanks I have a layer of aqua soil and it truly pushes pH down, but the water is even harder than in older tank with no aqua soil.
I didn't add any aragonit, crushed coral... but I reused older sand-gravel and soft gravel substrates as part of it. So I suspect old snail shells, overlooked limestone pebbles and I also used cheap crushed lava rock. Not every lava rock is truly inert.
Quick test strip show the hardness should be well above 300 ppm, sometimes even 375 ppm (limit), TDS meter would go crazy (1000+ ppm), yet fish don't seem to care.
Brilliant point... and excellent observations! I only started noticing this and sorting it out ( same conclusions as you), recently. Thanks for such a great comment!
This is the reason for sudden fish death like discus where the water gradually increases it's hardness and the fish scratch and dash and die suddenly, bare bottom tanks are so much easier and lively..
I play the long game and let the sand substrate stratify over time. In my blackwater tanks it starts to hit the sweet spot at about 9 months, I think the breakdown of the botanicals helps a lot.
And your tanks also look beautiful for it! The leaf litter and some inverts can build extremely fast compared with just fish poo.
Highly informative and well delivered video. I've been driving myself nuts before setting up another planted tank and this gave me clarity.
Oh great! Im so glad to hear that!
I did the dirt and sand substrate and i love it!
Glad to hear it!
I learn that sand is really effective to make some fast-growing plant slows down its growth rate significantly, so you don't have to do any trimming etc. if I need to fill up some empty spot, just root tabs there and they'll spread there. drawback is nutrient. I've successfully make a rotala blood red singapore green which is not easy from what I know since they are always red at almost all conditions.
Very good points! Thank you.
I use FF method in all my tanks (4 tanks so far) and I have noticed that even the "easy" plants don't grow as good as I'd expect them to (as compared to my control tank, where there is no sand, only a built up mulm on top of the soil). Some thrive, some don't. I suspect that the sand is too dense, limiting the amount of oxygen to the roots. If I was to re-do the tank, I'd probably do a dirt layer, then a gravel layer, then cap it all with a sand layer. The gravel would probably allow the substrate to be more open and aerated. Just my hypothesis though. I could be completely wrong lol.
I think you are correct for most stem plants and any high light/ fast metabolizing plants.
@Alexnguyen, I am having similar problems with sand. As this video says ‘sand cannot nourish plants’ on its own. I love sand, it is so cool, so I will not give up. I think the key to the sand capped tank is it favours deep-rooted stem plants. Grasses seem to struggle which is odd because even they do over time extend deep roots into a substrate. At least that is my experience. I am thinking deep-rooted stem plants work well with sand caps. I have noticed that FF in his own tanks tends to have large plants that are root feeders. My experience is that without the capping, my plants tend to grow unrestrained. I think the problem is that sand and gravel are basically rocks and plant roots prefer mud. Trouble is mud and dirt (uncapped) is messy and potentially to much in contact with the water column (nutrient rich water - algae). So I completely understand why FF goes for capping.
I do not feel that sand is too dense or lack of oxygen. I think it is the reverse. Mud is much denser and less oxygen. Plants seem to prefer that imo.
@@thesolaraquarium I used to think that mud didn't have much oxygen but one guy who specializes in collecting hillstream fish told me that mud is very well-oxygenated, which is why a bunch of critters live in them after all. Critters don't seek oxygen-depleted zones, quite the opposite.
@@alexnguyen3022 interesting. May well be right. I know there is alot of gases in there.
Big comprehensive explanation of the variables.. these little things make a big difference… always learning lots here.. thanks for the science and history ..
You're very welcome!
Finally had time to relax and watch Shisho's latest videos! And it's a doozy of literal fishstory!! Fish and history brought to you by Shisho is the best flipping way to pass a lazy Sunday!!
Welcome back!
Shisho?
I have this durt and sand set up almost for a year now and it works well, apart from some plants died. Maybe the snails eat them up, not sure 🙂
Are you saying I need to add some fertilizer tablets to the soil from time to time?
I thought the residual waste would be enough for the plants.
Thanks for a great video, keep up the good work!
So fish food, fish poop and plant debris will provide some carbon and nitrogen or basic minerals like iron or Sulphur but may be missing some trace minerals or nutrients over a year to 2 years depending on your soil quality initially... but unless plants are newly dying or newly yellowing/pinholes/or browning and losing leaves, you shouldn't have to add much very often...I start with root tabs every 3 to 4 inches spaced like a checkerboard or chess board. With weekly dosing liquid fertilizers and then if that isn't enough, daily liquid fertilizers, co2 and root tabs for max growth ( oh and of course strong light if you do all that stuff).
I have deep sand covered by aquasoil. I covered the bottom of the tank with craft foam on the outside to block out light to prevent cyanobacteria.
Smart! Thanks for the tip
Thank you for yet another fascinating educational video.
Glad you enjoyed it!
It seems like I'm too deep into watching this video, because I've just picked up this hobby. So I don't really understand it yet, but this is great for those who are already in this community.
Well come back around when it makes some sense, or feel free to join the Facebook group or comment section for any questions.
What’s the Facebook group called
I am trying to do more a Walstad method. I have 5 tanks now, and I’ve only been into the hobby a little over 9 months. But I think I’m all over the board… I’m so new to this fish hobby. Lol I go into the Freaking Fish stores and buy everything, Usually stuff I don’t need!! Lol But I just bought Seachem fluorite clay. I was going to put it as a 2nd layer on top sand only where the my rocks are, to fill in surface areas. I wasn’t gonna do the whole tank. This is for a new 20 gallon African dwarf frog tank. Have lots of plants to include. But this tank is 100% empty now. What are your thoughts here?! Thanks for any information. I sure appreciate your channel. Hugs to all.❤️🌱
So if you want to grow plants youll need aquasoil or dirt ...then cap it with sand or clay/silt to prevent it from mucking up the water collumn with ammonia and nitrates over time. Id honestly skip thr flourite unless you just want it to look nice. In that case just add an inch of flourite, so your plants can still grow through the flourite layer and reach either root tabs, months or mulm built up or an aquasoil layer. When plants grow in gravel or flourite, theyre actually getting most their nutrients from the water anyhow
@@Fishtory thank you for the information❤️🤗
I just got back into the hobby after being gone for 20 years, and I feel like a newbie!
Sounds like you got bitten by the fish bug, LOL.
Hardness is an overlooked factor. Many people want to run soft water tanks, then you need to be mre careful about the nitrogen processing...
Our water is so hard that if you want to take a drink of tap water you need to equip yourself with a hammer and chisel. It will break your teethe trying to drink it.
100%
Very good information I wish I knew whilst working in pet shops from 10 years old
So I have a question for you. What if you use an undergravel filter with a weed barrier covering play the soil mixture down and then the sand layer on top of it. That would make it completely aerobic and non anaerobic. What would be better. I know that in septic systems that have an aeration tool in it the waist breaks down quicker
So it will break it down quicker and create more nitrates... plants under water will consume ammonia or nitrates, so it works fine...but you wont store up ammonia in the oxygen depleated layer creating a layer of "root tabs" essentially...but also you wont risk an ammonia leech into the water if it gets churned up. So i think either way works well
One of my tanks has aqua soil under gravel and a cap of sand on top of it.
I started that tank befote knlwing about FF so I had to add the sand after setting the tank up and having fish in it.
After some months it's working really well and plants are growing really fast.
Befote having sand my tank had algae blooms all the time and now I haven't changed the water since that time.
The only issue I see is that when You wqnt to movie some plays it's hard to do it because their roots get in the gravel, pulling up some of it when You take the plant out.
Planning to have a deep substrate. First layer at the bottom would be pumice stones, 2nd organic soil, 3 lava rocks with sand then at the top would be aquasoil. What you think?
It should work okay, but the sand as the cap really works well.... it also holds small plants In place the first week or two
In one of my tanks I have to use deep sand. I have a soft shell turtle (an Indian Flapshell) and he likes to burry himself in the sand with with only his eyes and nose sticking out. I can't have plants with him though, and because he's so messy, I have to run a Fluval FX6 filled to the max with different filters, and running at the max in order to keep his water and sand reasonably clean. One thing to note is that the sand isn't capped. He'd just mix it all up when he digs and buries himself. Further, he might confuse anything larger than sand with food, and swallowing gravel will kill turtles. Sand with a larger grain than fine river sand will abrade him and cause sores and problems with his shell. Even play sand is too coarse. One of the things he eats is fish, and I usually have some feeder fish in his tank. Some of them have not only managed to avoid being eaten, but have also lived in the tank's water for a very long time. The only plant I have in his tank is (horrors!) duckweed. He eats a little of that, as he wold in the wild, and it gives the fish a place to hang out if they don't want to be in the light of his basking stone or the tank light. I am using extremely fine river sand in his tank, and only that sand.
My other thank is a whole other story. I only recently discovered father fish, and my fish tank is kind of a cross between what he's doing and what Fish Shop Matt and MD Fish Tanks is doing. Matt and MD don't put the wild biologicals in that Father Fish does. I do put them in and I use Father Fish's products in that aquarium. I just don't put in quite as thick a layer of substrate as he does. I agree with Alex that there is no right or wrong way, though I might add, except for what kills your fish. I also have a thin layer of ADA Aqua Soil, Amazon version 2 substrate in the second tank, then some of Father Fish's product which he harvests from ponds, capped with a thin layer of sand. My plants grow like crazy, and the filter on that tank is not at all overworked. I don't have to do tons of water changes, and my fish are healthy, and reproducing even though I'd just as soon they not. I don't have room for the extras, and we don't have a locally owned pet store where I live, so there's nothing to do with them except add them to the turtle tank. That really hurts when it's a CPD or a fish that would bring in a decent sum of money in a fish store. I have only one rather rare species, and it's not all that in demand. It's my cryptic corys which I just can't bring myself to feed to the turtle. The cardinal tetras, rummy nose tetras, clown loaches, hillstream loaches, cherry barbs, hatchet fish, whiptail plecos, otocynclus, blue shrimp, micro crabs, and bamboo shrimp just aren't that special. You can find those at any PetSmart. Only the cryptic cory is a bit hard to come by, and they're really not all that hard to get if you're willing to wait.
Nitrous Oxide?!!! I'm gonna stick my head in my fish tank and laugh myself silly, since Nitrous Oxide is also known as Laughing Gas. I wonder... how much of what do our fish tanks off-gas, and is that possibly a problem? For the most part, it can't be much, but if you're adding CO2 to a fish tank, any of that which isn't used will go directly into the room, and could give you CO2 poisoning if the room is not well ventilated. It would be a huge and expensive thing if we had to start adding hood fans which vent to the outdoors to our tanks. It would be interesting to do a study to see how much of what is coming from a tank. I don't know where you'd get the instruments from to determine that though, and I bet it would be very expensive to do it with any precision. If any of my aquariums are off-gassing anything bad (other than turtle farts) I'll just live (and die) with it. But I'll still wonder out of curiosity.
Good video again! Lots of good information packed in it, and also many things which get us curious about what happens in our fish tanks. Keep up the great work! You have a core of people here who love your deep dives, including me.
Haha sounds like a lot of work to keep a turtle. But they're pretty rad. Also, yes... i was literally thinking about an experiment to harness a small amount of nitrous oxide and purify it somehow...youll hear about it, if i figure it out lol
@@Fishtory I'll beat a path to your door if you get it figured out! Then I'll supply local dentists with it and undercut the big guys. Yet another way to pay for your and my aquarium addiction!
Kame-san is a bit to keep up with, but there are ways to mitigate it, including the really heavy duty filter. Under most conditions it would be serious overkill for a 20 gal. tank, but it's just right for this purpose. Kame is a Indian flapshell turtle, which is a species of softshell. He is also a fairly big boy and all that plays into his messiness. There are turtles out there which are much cleaner, including the red eared slider, the map turtles,, musk turtles, and a hand full of other hardshell aquatic turtles. Softshells are more or less another name for a rice paddy plough. They dig a lot, and turn the substrate over all the time, so it's best to only put in one thing, and that's really fine grained river sand. The closer it is to flour in consistency the better. Hardshells don't much care what the substrate is, just as long as it is bigger than what they can get in their mouth. They aren't smart enough to know what to eat and what not to eat. They'll happily chow down on ADA Aqua soil pellets, and die. They won't spit it out like a fish will. They'll just swallow it whole, and it will clog them up. Then, they die. The same is pretty much true of any turtle. Really find sand is okay though, because if they do accidentally ingest any of that, it will pass on through. They also don't see fine sand as food, so they only get it in there mouth on accident.
I know. Long winded. I guess I'm like you in that respect. I like people who are long winded though. I learn a lot from them. Well, most of them. There are a few old buzzards around who can go on for hours about absolutely nothing. You'll find me snoring through that stuff.
Super good in depth look at this. Very nice, thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you so much for this video! Do you put a heater in or just let the room temperature do its job?
I just heat the room to 72 or so, then the lights and filter etc end up heating most tanks to 76 or better
Me over here just appreciating how nice sand looks and how cories nuzzle into it
Totally!
Nice to see a video on tank substrates as I just setup a 20gal and have a 29gal to setup this week lol. Atm I'm going with a fairly thin layer of organic soil then about an inch to two of sand, though for these since ik some plants can struggle to dig through sand and, quite frankly, I was getting bored of my plain sand caps from last year, these two are being setup with a mix of sand and gravel on top and I'm going with if it reorganizes itself to separate out into different respective layers then however it chooses to, that's the new look I'm going with. Smaller gravel does give it a bit better look imo so first one setup (the 20gal) is white sand and standard size gravel that I rinsed and reused from the 29gal, the 29gal is going with sunset color sand that's kinda light brown/orange-ish and fine gravel that's pretty small and blends into the fine sand a bit better. Hopefully this will solve my issues with getting vallisneria to root and thrive with a nutrient layer and more uneven substrate to hopefully give rooting plants some easier path options around the larger substrate pieces so they don't have to wait as long on the feast I hid for them. Also hoping to get back into fish breeding with these new setups and try a couple new species now that I've experimented a bit and think this is currently my best option for only a smaller amount of algae and more viable plant options then water column feeders and wood/decor clingers like my java ferns- of which I have both the standard and windlove(?) that has stayed small for me for the past three years so I see the latter as a nice nano tank option
Nice. And yes i think the val is either a sunstrate grain size issue...since the roots are pretty slender. But be aware that duckweed and val put out chemicals to kill one another... so try not to have a bunch of duckweed if you want lots of val 😉
@@Fishtory oh so what you're saying is... put val in all of my tanks, thanks because I still hate duckweed unless I'm feeding a goldfish fry
Every tank is different, the setup you choose is related to the tank size. Light, type of fish you want plus how many. Heated or non heated. The list goes on
Indeed
I so appreciate you showing us the different substrates youve tried yet another video i needed 😅❤ much love speaking of caps my corys and sand sifters keep eposing my new crypt roots those dastardly jerks 😅❤
Haha sure thing. Some are embarrassing when i try some kooky order or ingredients...but i want to try it all lol
I watched this movie once, and then again and again.. you are right. most people do not understand what father fish wants to tell us. Unfortunately, your movie does not make it easier for them, it introduces even more confusion. By the way, I like your aquarium with the "mud" over the layer of sand ......
Haha oh you are very correct
Thanks Alex, Ive been feeling pretty low, as I had a massive die off because of acidic water caused by a large piece of mopani wood, along with not enough water changes. Been trying father fish, and I thought I was doing so well until I went away for a week. Onward we go….
Ahh it happens to all hobbyst at some point. Sorry to hear that. Try to live and learn... ive killed like hundreds of fish and shrimp over my lifespan... i just hope im making up for it with what ive learned from each accident or mistake 🙃
@@Fishtory Thanks, I just have to remember all the fish I’ve eaten as well. Next batch…
Good, practical knowledge. Great looking dwarf hairgrass, too!
That stuff is my bane, I have killed it in several situations lol
Many thanks
Very cool to get a more recent look at some of your tanks and see how things have changed, and others like the layers in your substrates have stayed so much the same. What you said about nature taking eons really is apt, like a river stone that's tumbled off a mountain all sharp and jagged and takes a ton of years to become that pretty rounded pebble we pick up while hiking. 🙏✌️
Thanks for continuing to educate! Much appreciated!
My pleasure! Thank YOU for coming by
Fantastic video very knowledgable, but I got to the end not really knowing what to do. I've just put a layer of sand from pets at home. I've not got any soil, but have a few plants in the sand. Should I use layers of sand and soil or not, I still don't know.
Check out my other Substrate videos. There's plus and minuses. I don't like telling folks a right or wrong way...if both ways work fine. But look at my "lasagna" method videos for my personal favorite nature tank base style
I really like that Florida river sand
Indeed!
Great video. I also found the helpful. Thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for great videos. You are my favorite fish guy!
Aww thank you sk much
Mine too!
I use house plants and good old regular gravel. I secure the plants outside my aquarium and let the roots dangle in. I have beautiful, healthy plants and fish. I do water changes, and that water goes in my garden. Nothing goes to waste around my place.
That works great as well...especially for larger fish!
I will follow your advice. I still have questions about the lighting. Do you have a post on this subject?
What type of lighting do you recommend? how many hours per day?
Should you avoid sunlight?
Starting out it's best to avoid windows... but once you understand your tank, you can play with that. But I suggest starting with 8 hours of medium to strong light a day for a month or two, if algae isn't a problem then increase lighting a half hour every 2 weeks up to 12 or 13 hours ...with 13 being for people with lots of stem plants or floating plants. I recommend fluval planted plus 3.0 Hands down the best light for new and seasoned planted tank owners
On septic tanks, it is called a leach field.
Septic tanks have to be handled with care too.
Thanks for the terminology and clarification 👍
Great channel man. I've been watching quite a few videos of yours, father fish, etc and your intro perfectly captured what I'm going through.
I'm wanting to redo my 29gal tank for good plant growth and leaning towards something like the Fourite Black or Fluval Bio stratum 2" deep with a 1" layer of Caribsea torpedo beach sand on top. I already have the sand and had originally bought it to put on top of the AquaNatural gold pearl gravel substrate I've been using already but when I started researching substrates, I fell down this wild rabbit hole.
Would you recommend Stratum or Flourite Black or another product for the 2" base layer? Or could I maybe save some money and mix half and half stratum and flourite black and then top with sand?
Stratum is my preference...there's merits to each and yes you can mix but it will mean less root minerals if you use fluorite
Father fish style tank is the best way to go!
Boosting for the algorithm 🙌 Love your work, keep it up! 🌻🐝
Few points which are running in my mind since some time, and would be really helpful to get your viewpoints on the same. My tank is a heavily planted tank with a deep substrate (soil capped by sand) tank and I am trying to understand its behavior over time. Now penning down the points: 1) Is a heavily planted tank really a "natural" tank ? We do not see heavy "underwater/immersive" plant growth in most of the ecosystems. Where do we find such a natural setup where there is heavy growth of under water plants ? 2) A heavily planted tank mimics a pond in its behavior (with Phytoplankton doing the same role in a pond as under water plants in the tank) ? 3) The natural substrates are mostly inert substrates in nature. What we see is mostly totally composted bio matter slowly accumulating and covering the bottom of the lake/pond/slow moving water areas. The only place where I see sand in the substrate is fast flowing waters like a river, where you can actually put your hand down, and you will get sand in your hand, without much of the biomatter. I have not yet come across a place where I can find sand covering some kind of soil. So , I am wondering , if there can be only two types of natural setups ? Blackwater setup, where tank is having slow composting items, with non immersive plant growth, with an inert substrate. This low pH, acidic setup will be most suitable to most of the tropical fishes except the fishes which like fast, fresh flowing water. And the other will be , fast moving river water kind of setup. This setup will be suitable for most of the fishes which inhabit areas like waterfalls , fast flowing water etc. Thank you !!
There are areas in my country where the shore water is completely covered with aquatic plants and the fish seem to gather around that area.
Fish love the plants
Yeah you have an interesting point... most the large rivers ...congo, nile, amazon, orinoco... their main channels are devoid of most plants. But those same rivers flood like clockwork...then plants and areas of even terrestrial growth, are soaked for 4 to 8 months and this is when we see the fish spawn and hiding amongst plants etc. Also rivers and lakes have so much volume that they dont need to worry about nitrates from the fish generally. The larger issue is having enough phosphates for the plants...especially across south america. Of course there are exceptions like the pantanal and spots in the upper orinoco delta that are so dense with aquatic plants that you cant really even support large fish, only nano fish. So id say the heavily planted tank isnt natural.... but mostly due to the diversity of plants from all over. I think youd really dig biotope tanks done well. Some have no plants, some are mock Laminar flow in one direction, even. Like a hill stream. But other than amazon flood tanks, you dont see flood plain tanks done often...and it is VERY natural ...but also very temporary each yeat.
@@Fishtory yeah, now i am trying out a acidic stagnant blackwater biotope setup as well :) I am thinking, maybe it is even easier. But I could be completely wrong, as this will be my first try in this direction. Probably, less or no algae issues, external plants being easier to manage, a different chemistry (probably safer and stable too?) , and maybe even cheaper (a simple grow light for external plants, no filter or probably just a sponge filter should work). Let's see.. And thank you for your response, your videos are very informative, and the depth you capture is really nice.
@@alexnguyen3022 yeah, but those areas are mostly like a swamp, with plants growing "out of water" and all sort of leaves, biomatter falling and slowly rotting. These areas are steaming with life. The water is murky enough that the light hardly reaches the lower part. Do you experience a clear shore water with fully underwater immersive plants (case of usual planted tanks) ? If yes, please do let me know the location, as i would be happy to understand it further.
Thanks for sharing! I have been missing the deep dive informational videos/live streams 😊
More to come! And you are always welcome my friend. Thank you for the patience
@Fishtory I don't think we could be in this hobby long-term without patience 😉😁
Great video, thanks
Question. I've tried half a dozen Dirted tanks using organic potting soil & called with playsand.
Thanks 4 the Tip of not fixing roots all the way down into dirt but instead plant into the sand layer only.
My problem is after 2-3 weeks I notice black areas in substrate in front of glass I can visually see.
I see surface of substrate areas that turn black. I move a rock and under that is now black & noonher white sand.
I noticed many rooted plants aren't growing & are wilting away. I pulled one out and noticed all roots are black & smells like rotten eggs.
How does one prevent this in next tank?
How does Father fish get 4-6" deep substrate and not have roots turn black upon planting?
A y suggestions would be great.
Well i use larger grain sand and only an inch or two.... his method is " different". Perhaps hard vs soft water plays a role but also buy pants already well rooted under water if possible.
Fantastic info!
Thanks for your informative channel. I love your style!
You are so welcome!.thanks for watching
I'm not interested in plants. I used to do hi-tech planted tanks with CO2 and the whole nine yards. I had to trim, prune, and re-scape plants continuously. It was too much work and too much mess. I want to focus on FISH. I've been watching your videos as well as a few other YT channels that advocate "nature/ecosystem/Walstad method" tanks. Every video begins with a discussion of substrate, but inevitably turns into a video about plants and plant care and how to grow the fanciest, most challenging plants. I'm not even slightly interested in plants, except inasmuch as they are able to reduce the need for water changes. Is there a way to set up substrate/plants in such a way as to eliminate the need for water changes, but without plant care becoming the overwhelming focus of the hobby and requiring more labor and attention than the water changes that I'm trying to eliminate? If so, please make a video that explains clearly how to do so, and please keep the discussion about plants to a minimum. In other words, I don't care about fancy, difficult-to-grow plants. Just tell me how to set up the substrate and which plants are the easiest/most effective for reducing the need for water changes.
Great question. Swapping out laborious water changes for laborious plant maintenance is not that appealing and definitely something to think about. All I can think of at the moment in mine is figuring out the fish/pothos (terrestial pant) ratio - so it won't matter having slow growing epiphytes (my tanks are currently bare bottomed) because the reliance on and trimming will mostly be focused on one plant - the pothos. Also feeding the fish on alernate days. I personally prefer to get to a monthly water change at most, if any. A problem may be ph stability by then. And the thought of keeping the ph raised to match the tap and reduce fluctuations, which is not conducive to significant nitrate absorption due to the plant's preference for lower ph. I'd rather not have to add ph reducing chemicals then having to remineralize the water.
Generally speaking, issues with deep substrate don't seem to get discussed by advocates. I just posted asking questions on a Father Fish video but it disappeared or didn't show up.
I think dr Novak advocates his plenums, you do not need a tank full of plants to help convert those nitrates, his plenum and bcbs will take care of that with the anoxic bacteria that alex was talking about in the beginning. In a slow moving plenum or a well established deep substrate, they can take months to establish this particular bacteria which could be why it is not common knowledge.
Everyone overthinks this topic. Just choose a substrate and don’t overfeed. 😂bacteria and Micro organisms will do the rest in a well established tank. Iv been three years without a water change in a 55 gallon with a sand and gravel mix no root tabs no fertilizers. It’s fully planted and thriving
You and father fish make a great team lol
FF is great at getting the idea out there ( it works ..trust me )
And you are amazing at breaking down the Why ? 👍✅
Wow I was wondering what that 'no oxygen' layer was in my 55g , thanks
Thank you. And yes, i just love watching nature work... sometimes we dont know why, and look to a completely seperate process or science and boom! We learn what was going on due to gut bacteria or septic tanks lol. Cheers
Would like to know your opinion in set aquasoil inside net bags, over the dirt , and under the sand cap, in order to not mess too much when moving plants.
You totally can. But any messy bits... like dust or muddiness... will still occur to some degree over time... that and the roots need to be able to get through the bag...so mesh media bags work best...nothing waterproof
I personally believe there are no rules to nature, so there can't be one specific rule set to setting up a natural tank. For example, my substrate is just 1 inch of river rock, 2 inches of crushed granite, then a half inch land moss/dirt cover, making 3.5 inches total with NO supplements whatsoever. The plants in there have been thriving for months now, and i'm even getting some extra large water plants to grow, like those purple/pink lavender or lilac looking ones you'd normally see at the side of rivers or lakes... It's still early to say for certain, but i think as long as the substrate is deep and has some dirt in it, nature will do its thing!
I agree
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with us. Keep up the great work! I have some questions about using root tabs vs. Father Fish supplement. What are your thoughts about freezing the Father Fish dirt mix and inserting it under the sand vs. using root tabs? I've seen a few videos about it and would love to read your thoughts.
Nothing wrong with asking questions, but why would you want to pay $20 to jump through hoops to use FF's 11 unspecified ingredients rather than use a product (e.g. root tabs) designed for being inserted into an already running aquarium?
father fish has done several videos on what he puts into his supplement. He also shows you how much of each supplement to add if you are doing this yourself.
Yes, absolutely you can do that. I will just say that i have not added new soil or root tabs to that first tank in over 2 years... i started reading food labels and feeding for my plant needs more than my fish needs lol...the fish eat most stuff, so i have been trying to work out a wholistic diet to recommend for plant nutrients in a food web. But honestly father fishes fertz are great...theyre designed to last a number of years though...planning for bacteria to break free nutrients like iron and magnesium, calcium etc over a long long time...root tabs are like a shot of steroids, they work great for faster growing stem plants
great video as always! I'm so glad i found your channel I'm learning so much!
Right on! Im glad you found me as well! Welcome
How do I request for a conversation or something we've learned?
I started a channel because of you and what I learned.
Alexanderjwilliamson@gmail.com is my personal email. If you have questions
Nice video, (very informative). Question: Are you using co2 for the aquarium behind you? 🤔
Alex, if you could set up only one tank (29 gallon) what would you go for to maximise enjoyment from the hobby? Interested in your take. I can only have two tanks due to space. Have already got a 20g and am setting up the 29 now. Want to do so many things but have to make a decision.🙏
Sounds like my situation ❤ I started with just gravel let it get mulmly and then capped with sand per father fish so far so good my Cory's and rams ( sand sifters) love it and it keeps all the stuff collected in the gravel out of the water column ❤
I have 3 29s. One is currently stocked with: black neon tetras, bronze cories, glowlight tetras, and some of my larger guppy fry, one has neons and a female betta (severe jumping coverage)- the last is getting a reimagining, I'm thinking angels, diamond tetras, and cory trilineatus. Few of these were my original stockings, these are the ones that thrived. Keep that in mind- your best ideas may disappear in one night during a tank crash and you find yourself starting from scratch. I miss my ember tetras and cpds and laser corys, but I haven't taken out a second mortgage to replace them, ya know?
I've only just discovered Father Fish, but a lot of what he says makes sense. Tanks run like his aren't going to win any scaping contests, but not everyone is interested or has the time to do a fantastically scaped tank. His method is ideal for those of us who prefer a more natural look, or don't have the time to trim plants, and want to let our tanks work with waste the natural way, rather than always hoovering gravel and adding fertilizer. Once again, it's more about what you prefer. If you're interested in doing his method from the get-go, he has a video for that. It's entitled, "The Three Most Important Things to Understand About Your New Aquarium". If you're more interested in going with a highly scaped centrepiece of the room tank, Check out MD Fish Tank, and watch his videos. It's a whole different way of keeping fish which presents you with some real eye candy once it's going, but what he's doing is very time consuming. There are a lot of other people on UA-cam which have other equally good methods. You can find them by doing searches. Some of them are presenting things which, though interesting, could end up costing you a heap of money, while others offer inexpensive ways to keep fish alive and healthy. The two I've mentioned above are the two I've tried thus far. I'm sure I'll try the others at some point or another if I don't die first. Nothing is better though, than watching these people and what they do, so that you can decide what you want your tank to look like, and how much time and money you have to put toward doing it. I promise you, there will be a technique which will fit what you want to do.
Alex is much more of an authority on this than I am, so if he contradicts anything I've said, follow his advice, not mine. I've learned a metric dump truck load from him in just the few months that I've been watching him. I hope he'll reply here, but if he doesn't, it's probably because he didn't see it. Keep asking, and maybe ask in one of his live chats if you can make it. I am very familiar with the situation you find yourself in; namely not enough room. I also have only two tanks, but if I had a whole warehouse to do what I wanted with, that would likely still not be enough room. For starters, I'd want to turn it into one giant tank, and then I'd have to get a new warehouse to put other things in. But no one has that, so we are compelled to live with what we have.
Would you be willing to share what you would like to do, and and what the decisions you have to make are? I'd be happy to be a sounding board for you, and give you my opinions on what you could do, as well as point you toward any videos that I know of which would help in the decisions you are making.
Best of luck to you in setting up that big ol' 29 (almost 30!) gallon!
@@voluntaryismistheanswer So sad for you! All of those are really nice fish. I'm madly in love with my CPD's, and the others are so cool I can only imagine having them. On the good side, in the aquarium hobby you don't have to get everything all at once. You can add those little by little if you want to get back to that.
What happened if I may ask? I dread having a tank crash, and anything I can learn brings me (and everyone else who reads this) one step closer to avoiding that (maybe). Sometimes it seems like the aquarium gods just have it in for us and something goes wrong no matter what we're doing.
Anyway, may you never have another crash again! I will sacrifice a rainbow trout on the pyre of the god of aquarium crashes in hopes that he will never again plague you with another aquarium crash. There are only a few things in life which can push you into a deeper depression and a sense of hopelessness than an an aquarium crash.
I also have room for only two 29s.
One is a long one with over 50 corys (I always stock at least 10 per species, and I have julii, normal panda + long finn variety, white, black) on the bottom, also have 4 SAE, and 4 bristlenose pleco for algae control. For the midlle I have 8 Buenos Aires tetras, great fish, they will grow too, I plan to get 10 more. In general, my long tank, is the "race track" tank, for fish that enjoy strong current.
The second one is a tall one, there I have a wall of Vallisneria in the back, with room to swim in front, with an white Angel as a center piece fish, recent addition, a real water puppy, always begging for food, plus an 4 years old male pearl gourami. As dither fish have a group of rummy and rasbora (I would add some neon tetra, but my water is really hard, so they don't fare well), and on the bottom, have 8 duplicareus cory (must have corys 🤪). Also, have an army of apple snails, as scavenger crew, as I overfeed to make sure corys get food. The tall tank is a low current tank, for fish that enjoy that. Also, since is autumn, I've turn it in a black water tank with leaf litter.
Thank you, nice video! Ever since I started my new Fluval sub/sand tank 7 months ago, I have trouble with bacteria blom and dim water! I got tip from my store to remove my big plants and plant fast growing hygrophyla polysperma. I helped a bit, but the blom still coming back, but not as hard as before. Only feed moderate once a day. Good oxygen level and stick test looks really good. So, is it the substrate that causes this or what's actually wrong here? Thanks again..💪
Please make a video about the bubbles coming up after doing Father Fish kind of deep substrate with lots of organic matter and how to deal with them.
This is an underrated subject.
But if you can, please tell me something about it. Does it decrease over time? It’s been 1 week and that is producing big bubbles. Should I worry and re-do the tank?
Its natural. Its mostly carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, oxygen and sulfur compounds... very very little evidence shows that the amount in an aquarium is ever going to be harmful to fish. However in large marshes and lakes, miles and miles of bubbles under rare conditions have killed people in Africa and India. ( google lake gassing Africa) ...i think 1983 or 86? Several thousand people died at night. But in your tank youd need the volume of 2/3rds the water displaced to cause the same issue for the fish...or tremendous boiling levels of co2 specifically ...but you likely have a mix of all the decomposition produced gasses. Cheers. Check out my video "my does my fish tank stink" for more info
Great video. We have alot of topics for discussion here.
Yes we do
It's not the sand, it's the plant, and to some degree your micro fauna.
Different plants need different growing medium, just like your tropical house plants or garden vegetables. The only difference is you have to consider nitrification process in water and how it woll effect your live stock.
Pure deep sand without soil will be perfectly fine for something like sagittaria, or similar species that likes to send runners on the surface. However it does nothing about fish waste unless you have things like black worms, scuds, snails or zebra mussels to turn the substrate, leading to mulm build up resulting in high bacteria count.
Salt water tanks is a whole other story.
Exactly!
I'm getting rid of my tanks and want to get just one simple tank with thriving plants; stems, crypts and bulbs. I've never layered substrates before. But from the information I've gathered, does this sound correct? First a layer of sand from one of the other tanks, then a mixture of two different aqua soils like fluval stratum including some from another tank, or should they be layered instead of mixed? And then a mixture of lava rock for its porosity and some sort of small gravel to use as the cap. Or should the lava rock maybe be on the aqua soil layer? I was thinking maybe best on the cap layer as the bacteria will form on that layer faster I'm guessing? Although maybe not because I'd be using some substrate from other tanks that will have beneficial bacteria. But also using driftwood, plants and probably filters from other tanks that will obviously be seeded. And will add neocaridina shrimp and ramshorn snails from other tanks to add to the cycling process. Thank you.
Great Video, its really nice to See this Hobby Develop over time :)
Your Tanks are so beautiful! How do you get rid of the Calcium rim on the water surface? I Always gotta use a Lid to hide it.
So my substrate, leaves and live plants, make the water acidic...which disolves the calcium and carbon...and then plants and fish, snails and shrimp use it for nutrition instead.... 6.5-6.8 ph range
Ok, silly question. I want to start transitioning my tanks to beep substrate. Where can I get enough plants without going broke?
Stem plants ... buy like 5 or 6 .... you can double those by cutting them in half every week or two. Theyre usually 3 to 6 bucks a species for common ones, and usually you get 3 to 9 stems in a little bunch. But local fish clubs are an amazing resource...just asking for trimings or buying on the cheap, then there is always learning to id local marsh and or aquatic plants...sometimes that works, sometimes they dont like tropical tanks...but i have over a dozen that worked out even up here in wet and cold Seattle
After whatching you and father fish inspired me. I’m getting plants etc etc tommrow for my new setup hopefully this goes got a jar full of life too but still learning ab those lil critters 😂😅
I’ve noticed that with my aquarium with white sand, i’m getting a TON of mulm on the bottom. I think the majority of it is a mix of dead leaves, pleco poop, and dead moss. I don’t do water changes because of nitrates, I do water changes to get rid of mulm. I think a big part is because the surface is covered in water lettuce.
So dead leaves will turn to soil/mulm faster than anything else. You can always get a filter media bag and toss leaves in that... or boil leaves and pour in your tannin tea without leaves. If it is annoying you
Couldn't click fast enough, I need inspiration today. (Ftr, my most perfect deep substrate tank is the one my fool beginner ass started 4 years ago before I knew anything: no water changes, it tastes sweet like spring water. I wish I could recreate that again, I say as I get ready to mulm vac the others lol)
I'm actually replanting a pure sand not so deep substrate 20 g tank today, with all my pond vals and anubias
Nice, those feed heavily from water collumn, so its a good way to start a sand tank while any mulm builds up