Brandy

My fry grow out is very well lit and I have mutts, I have at least one bent spine too. I assume genetic, and I won't allow any of those to breed.

This is such a fun project, I am starting to consider if I could make one of these indoors....I have innumerable planters this size with terrestrial plants....

Congratulations! Maybe just break up the sight lines more then? Moar plaaantsss!!! My answer to everything.... 🙂

I would put in some swords, crypts, and a stem plant, and measure in terms of growth. In my little tank I put an ozelot sword, a madagascar lace bulb, and dwarf hairgrass plugs separated from a single little pot. Admittedly I expect the madagascar lace plant to be too big, but I couldn't resist because I've always wanted to grow one. 🙂 Not exactly "natural", more just for fun. I can say the other ozelot sword planted on eco complete is struggling. I think because it was harder to anchor in the substrate and the roots were damaged in the fight. Some operator error from a terrestrial gardener right there. Soil is more familiar... I think that's the thing here, our backgrounds will alter our outcome. @Cory is totally right that 90% of people will have better success with chemical fertilizers. It's miracle grow against bone meal and kelp emulsion. Organic gardening takes skill and effort, you have to want to do it and be ready for a decade of learning curve sometimes. At least that's been my experience. I had my first 5 years of gardens fail utterly. Then suddenly I accrued enough knowledge and suddenly I almost can't fail. I like that this forum is a way to shorten the curve!

I think there is a thread on this here: It has lots of calculations, and some numbers direct from the manufacturer that might help.

@Streetwise what do you think is the usual trajectory for setting up a new dirt tank? Do you find all tanks go thru a consistent settling in period? Like, I have noticed a progression of algae in non dirt tanks, nothing exact, but generally brown to green, but the one tank I set up using dirt seems to sort have jumped over some stages... Straight to vibrant green, which isn't so surprising in retrospect but... I planned for this tank to be root heavy feeders and I didn't like the idea of placing root tablets all the time. It's a small tank, not many options for changing things around. I can prune anything that tries to take over. For me this was an experiment born of necessity. I didn't want to buy another 20lb bag of Amazonia or eco complete for a 5g portrait style betta tank, and as a gardener I have plenty of soil available... The sand is holding the dust down and it was really easy to plant in. If it works I may find I feel silly for spending so much on the aqua soil when I have great soil right here.

I really like the AC concept Bill was talking about. I think it was a 2 stress factors can be tolerated but add a third and things fall apart when I heard it, but I took that as more that there is obviously a threshold beyond which too much is too much, and we can't know exactly where that is. Maybe I can't promise my fish optimal pH, but I can do well on the rest and it's ok. If you've got perfect pH maybe you can have other parameters that are off and it works. Most people who get to fish nerd status probably can assess the health of their fish well enough to judge where they are on the spectrum, but if they suddenly have problems then they also know which factors need to be addressed first. I would like to be able to keep nitrates in my lightly stocked tanks! It actually is reassuring to hear that it doesn't have to be a tightrope act to keep both fish and plants happy. The few times my nitrates have jumped (usually due to accidental fertilizer od) I've worried quite a bit.

This is really interesting. It makes me think you have an x-linked lethal recessive in that line.

For rapid water cooling, there is also something like this: It might be an idea worth investigating.

I'm trying dirt out in a small betta tank. I haven't read the full book, just some essays and summaries, so likely I've made something up that may or may not work. I hope to learn more about what to expect from this thread! Thanks for starting it! I opted to cap with sand for appearances, and planted with a "huge" score of cheap hairgrass, an ozelot sword and a madagascar lace bulb. Relative to other tanks with eco complete, I am finding I have happier grass and ozelot so far, and so far the algae has gone greener than in my other tanks, which have always gone brown algae first. The tank has a heater and a filter. The filter was just part of the tank, I would have been interested to see how it went without one. The tank also cycled on its own with no livestock or additions, and the amount of biofilm was amazing and seemingly instant. (Not really I just wasn't paying attention because no fish.) The only thing I really have concerns about is the pH, which wants to drop. We have low pH at the tap, it wanting to go LOWER is a little alarming. It sounds like I would really enjoy the book, I'll look for it.

Not having a garden I have always just added them to the compost bin...but I have a million large potted plants and it suddenly occurs to me I could totally bury them. Thanks!

You want to know the weirdest thing? Seattle has multiple lakes in the city, and my apartment has a large natural looking water feature in the middle that they SWEAR they don't treat in any way, and our storm-water treatment runs through various grasses and reeds in a 10 foot wide swale on either side of the street. I have yet to see a single mosquito. I used to be eaten alive by them in N. WA, but here they are just missing. I don't know if it is the amount of pavement or what...It weirds me out.

The price on the air pump and filter are similar to today's prices! Imagine how impossible that would be to afford then.

Welp. I use the same strip and it looks a shade better than mine--after I add stuff! But I am one person, with 7 adult petsmart guppies and some random fry. 🙂 what do I know?

Well, that would depend entirely on what type of guppies we are talking. My mutts are tough little buggers in an unheated tank--which in Seattle in summer is hovering near 75. In the fall, I will probably start a heater, because the humans like it cool in the room they occupy. The main thing I do try to do for them, because our water is soft, is add some minerals bringing Kh40-60, GH30-40, and drag the pH up to at least 7.4-7.6. Tap water is like 6.6 here with almost nothing in it. NOT guppy water at all. They show zero signs of stress, surprisingly. I know those are not optimal guppy parameters, but I am operating on the stable is better than chasing parameters theory.

Wait, what are these Vienna guppies I keep hearing allusions to? I want to SEE them. If there is a video I missed, link me up!

D'oh! I actually sewed christmas moss to mesh once, a square inch at a time. Why didn't I ever think of a sandwich?!

Yay! I think they will do fine with almost anything, but they might snack in the occasional newborn shrimplet, if they happen to catch it in the open. I don't know about that really hard super strong hair algae, but mine think the slimy trailing stuff that appears in new or over lit tanks is CANDY.

How big are these teeth? I have had to trim rodent teeth with some really cool little suture scissors, like these: https://www.allheart.com/allheart-4-12-inch-littauer-stitch-scissors/p/ah1510/?s=one%20size&c=&gclid=CjwKCAjw34n5BRA9EiwA2u9k3876MweJ8vz7AxDEsQoVeHIU-rtAySN-BU3-2lQuuIIH-SX9gdTQbhoCrT0QAvD_BwE (found via google search, never ordered from them) They have one notched blade, that makes it easy to hook behind a tooth, but I suspect puffer beaks are not as narrow maybe?

Well that is basically my exact setup. So there you go, I guess I am line breeding...mutts...lol. I guess I didn't think of it that way, since my breeder tank is fully planted and has shrimp and snails and multiple parents and whatnot. I just figured I would learn on the cheap fish!

Pity you can't culture blackworms easily... @Daniel you read me right. 🙂 Thanks for the video!

Which would most closely match blood worms in terms of how well loved they are, in your opinion? I discovered I am literally deathly allergic to blood worms--like epi-pen level allergic. I would like to find my best alternative though, because almost every fish ever loves blood worms and they come in every form--flaked, pelleted, freeze dried, frozen, live...

Lol, saw this a few times just a minute ago. I have to get to work, so it was providential, kept me out of the rabbit hole...almost.

Extremely clever. I love DIY!

I totally missed that thread, not having a fluval light. Thanks for bringing it to my attention! I really appreciated @StephenP2003's advice to dial in ferts first and add light slowly, something I worked out the hard way I think. Pity my ferts are not automated like my lights, a robot is always more consistent! So, without power adjustment, this technique is a bit more limited...I really only have raw hours to work with, and distance to water surface. I have heard of lowering light intensity temporarily by altering the height to be further from the water surface, or blocking some LEDs with tape during the start up, but I have never tried that.