# Planted 37 Gallon Dirt Journal



## FishFlow

Journal my 1st dirt tank. 
Decided to go with dirt for my plant build. 

~2" of Mircael Grow Organic, ~ 1" Eco-Complete cap.
Tank Dim: 36wx15dx16h
Lights: Nova Extreme, 2 T5HO, (1) 10K, (1) Fresh water Grow, Light to sub ~ 15"
Penn Plax 1200. 
300w heater.

Current photoperiod is ~ 12hours
edit: Reduced photoperiod to ~ 8 hours. Forgot when. Gonna guess ~ 11/7/11
edit: PhotoPeriord is now ~9-10 hours. Gonna guess as of 6/12 ish.

Dirt in tank 10/12/11.
First plants to show up. 10/18/11 Red Ludwigia (Ludwigia repens) (Thank jrman83!)










In the tank.


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## Summer

yay! I'll be watching for pointers. btw i love the random cat parts in the pic


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## FishFlow

10/19/11 More plants arrived and in the tank.

1 of : Hygrophila corymbosa â€˜Angustifoliaâ€™ 
1 of : Octopus Plant (Isoetes lacustris) 
1 of : Sword, Amazon Compacta (Echinorodus bleheri 'Compacta' 
1 of : Vallisneria "Dark Red Jungle Val" (Vallisneria americana var. americana) (sold 10 plants per order)

Order 4 plants, get 5. Now I get to guess what is what! haha.









Oct Plant, Amazon Sword, Red Val, Hygro corymbosa (or willow), Jungle Val

In the tank:


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## FishFlow

10/22/11

Picked up another bunch of plants. I don't recall the name. Ended up being 5 stems.

They are Anacharis


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## FishFlow

10/27/11 Added some more plants. 

Spiral Crypt









Cryptocoryne wendtii (no pic)

Water is finally not turning brown 24 hours after a waterchange. This is after adding the plants and WC was 2 days ago. 










(The "green crypts are the shorter ones upfront in the tank)

And most excitng for me is today I saw new growth for the 1st time in this tank.









It's one of the mystery plants. I believe it's the hygro


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## Kehy

I might be wrong, but the mystery plant that you thought was a hygro might be a willow hygro. I've got a couple stems that look fairly similar


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## jrman83

Hook up some CO2....then watch them grow. Keep up the good work!


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## FishFlow

CO2 is next on the list, I'm eyeballing aquariumplants 20lb + milwakee ma957 reg for ~ $200.


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## Rob72

tank is looking good fish, keep up the good work


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## FishFlow

11/5/11 Added 1 anubia and clipping from a red crypt to the 37 from the other tank. These pics are from today though. 11/9/11


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## Summer

It's looking pretty good!


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## FishFlow

I gots algae! And not all plants are showing good signs. 


Spiral crypt algae.









Red Val algae. (staghorn beginning to grow)









Octo stag









No Co2, I am 1/2 - full EI dosing now. Lights still reduced. One area I've devated from npt is the absence of floating plants. I am patiently waiting for my shipment. So for the most part I expect the algae and am cleaning it out every couple of days.


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## FishFlow

Death:

This guy did this in less than 36 hours.










Whatever this is:










Jungle Vals:
These guys were one of my *shoe ins* that just ain't doing nothing. No new growth, all cracked, and quickly brown/melt where I cut them. (which may be the issue) I pulled one out Sat due to I had clipped it down to the nub.









Sword: Hard to see, but top leaf crinkled.


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## FishFlow

But it's not all bad news!! Several plants are doing well. 

Most of the Ludwigia is growing. Some alot more than others. This one, while hard to tell, started out as one stem. It's not only grown taller, but it's sprouted off 2-4 other stems and is doing very well.










Then of course the hygro, it's doubled in size again. Still small that's 2-3" tall, and about as wide too.










Tank as of today:


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## jrman83

Your algae issues look fairly minor, but I think you may have a tad too much light for the tank size. I think if you went down to one bulb, you'd still have enough light for what you have in there and you would have less issues for sure. Just until you get the CO2 going. I would cut your lighting time back, depending on what it is now if you keep both bulbs going. The one pic of the crypt going away in 36hrs is common for crypts. I personally had never experienced it until recently when I moved some out of my high light/CO2 tanks to my non-CO2 shrimp tank. New sprouts started in about 4 days though. I would cut them off at the substrate as they just become mush and muck your tank up. On the Vals that don't look so good, just cut their leaves off and leave the base. It will sprout new leaves. Normal for them to get new tank shock also. 

On the CO2, a 20lb bottle is way too big. Also, check the length of the bottle, do you have that much room? I would think that either a 5 or 10lb bottle would suffice. I have a 10lb bottle that has been going on my 125 for almost 6 months and haven't had to refill yet. My 5lb lasted around 5 months on my 75g. I have a 20lb on my other 125 that I bought used.....I may have to refill sometime in 2013.


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## susankat

The crypt is having issues with crypt melt which can be normal for them, Do not toss it as it will come back. One of the issues with the val besides the algae is its buried to deep. The anubia shouldn't be planted like that either, needs to be tied to a rock or wood, or just let it sit on the bottom and let the roots bury themselves.


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## majerah1

Looking pretty good.Still lighting it for 12 hours a day?Perhaps cut that back to about eight,and see how that does.


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## FishFlow

11/10/11 - Duckweed showed up on the 10th. 










And of course the canister filter kept all the duckweed pegged to the front of the tank and causing alot of it to circle down into the tank. The Ludwigia is a good duckweed catcher! haha.

11/11/11 - picked up 15 stems of Anacharis. Was told these can be floaters too.










Ended up redirecting the flow of the outflow down. Still to much so cut the flow at the can. (maybe 30%)











Noticed today, algae growing pretty good on the substrate. YeA! Lol.


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## FishFlow

jrman83. Thanks for your comments. As I was eyeballing my new substrate algae, I was comtemplating removing the 10K bulb and see what happens. The photoperiod is ~ 8 hours. 11 - 7pmish.

CO2 bottle. The price for 20 is just incremental from a 10, figured why not.  I do have a 29 that I wouldn't mind tossing the yeast bottles in the trash, and then the dual 40's that may find their way into the house eventually.  


Susankat: Vals too deep. Roger. I attempted to push the rootball past the 1" eco-complete into the dirt. How deep should they be? Anubia, that anubia is tied down to a small rock which is sitting ontop of the substrate. (weight to keep it on the bottom of the tank) The rhizome isn't buried at all. One of the pics, you can see the rock and rubber band. 

Thanks again for the feedback. I sure do apprieciate it.


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## FishFlow

11/19/11 LFS got their plant shipment in and I brought home some. 

4 stems of wisteria
1 Echinodorus Vesuvius (spiral crypt?)
(sry the pic i took before putting into tank went to la la land.) New plants are center, and far far right.)

Pic of tank this week.


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## FishFlow

11/21/11 - More plants!!! This batch was from jccaclimber from this board. Paid Friday, received Monday!

Got 5 types of plants. A Christmas moss, Blyxa, 2 baby jungle vals, and 20 stems of rotala rotundifolia. :O Oh, and mystery crypt. That's 5.

Rotala Rotundifolia


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## Kehy

lol show a pic of the whole tank


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## FishFlow

Blyxa


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## FishFlow

Moss.


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## FishFlow

Mystery crypt and another blyxa










And tank after planting.


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## FishFlow

Update:

12/5/11 Added 6 ghost shripm and 4 spotted cories. Also moved the angelfish from the 29 to the 37.

12/7/11 Added 8 amino shrimp and a flying fish (not really the name and an algae eater. Also got some plants in the mail today! WOOT. Thank you Z400. 










In the Tank:










Angel:


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## FishFlow

Update:

12/17/11 Added couple Zebra Snails. 

12/18/11: Moved tank to opposite wall, 60% wc (to aid in moving) also dosed excel for bba for the first time. 8 capfuls.

12/19/11: Mass shrimp deads. Lost ~8 out of 15. Also lost the flying fox fish. Believe the NO3 and/or PO4 is way too high for shrimp. Not sure about the fox. Going to test for no3 and po4 and do wc and cut my dry fert dosing down and measure daily.

Should also note, since adding the amano shrimp, the algae that was growing on the substrate (pic in here somewhere) is completly gone. Pretty sure those amano's ate it all up!

Also, Cories are digging up the substrate. Through the eco cap and into the dirt below. Apparently this is normal for them, surprising though, the manor in which they move dirt around, the dirt did not cloud up my tank. (wasn't aware there were huge holes in the back until the WC.)

****NEW INFO FROM THE WIFEY****
I (the wifey) spoke with the 'fish men' at the fish store and they informed me that the Cories were prepping to lay eggs which is why they were making these 'craters' - they were fairly large areas. About 6" long by 4" wide. The 'fish men' showed me in their tanks that Cories were in the same 'craters', and that they in fact were laying eggies.  They weren't looking for truffles...


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## FishFlow

12/29/11 More Plants!!
majerah1 on this site hooked me up. Gonna try and get all these right.

potomogeton gayi


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## FishFlow

Chain Sword









In Tank


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## FishFlow

Sunset Hygro










hybrid ludwigia









In Tank: (sunset is behind the ludwigia


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## FishFlow

ludwigia brivepes










Front of tank, laying down from current


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## FishFlow

rotala walichii


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## FishFlow

Tank after more plants.


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## FishFlow

Update 12/28/11 CO2 Added! Woot. Shooting for 2bps. drop checker is reading light green.

Update: Last week, both zebra snails were dead. Angel and 4 cories still alive and kicking. Not sure why snails kicked the bucket.


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## FishFlow

More Plants. From jrman83. These also looked amazing. Lets see if I can run them down.

Biggest Blyxa I've seen so far:









kleiner bar sword also couple more sunset hygros (stuck them with the rest behind the kleiner)


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## FishFlow

Update: Moved all fish out of this tank. moved Red Cherry Shrimp and 2 Oto's in. Shrimp are breeding, I have shrimp babies. Lowered the light period last week as staghorn was becoming too much of an issue. Staghorn growing much more slowly now.


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## danjsinclair

Hey.
Fantastic aquarium Fish. I am going back to live plants myself. Had to have fake coz of oscars but I am gonna get a small tank to grow my own so dont mind if oscar eats them.
Keep up the good work.
Dan


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## FishFlow

Pic update as well here.

This is couple weeks ago. Before the mass blyxa deaths.









And today before water change.


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## FishFlow

Today as well.


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## FishFlow

After WC and trimming. This tank is down to 2 ottos, 2 yoyo's, and some RCS.


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## FishFlow

I added this plant a week ago. and I'm in love with the new growth.


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## FishFlow

Pic prior to trimming & WC. I trimmed last week too. :O


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## KradSon

Looks wild, great job.


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## Subaru4wd

This thread makes me want to start a planted tank  Great job!


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## freeasabird

Very nice.


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## ElChef194

love this tank!


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## FishFlow

Need to update.

CO2 Tank dropped from 50 to 40 over the past weekend, and is an indication tank is almost empty. I lucked out and caught it before it dumped the remaining contents into the tanks.

This has been feeding both the 100 and 37 now.

CO2 tank has been feeding the 37 since ~ 12/29/11 (saw my green dc in one of the pics.. )
CO2 tank has been feeding the 100 since ~ 1/8/12.

So, 20# co2 tank feed 2 tanks for 6+ months. Not bad. I am having difficulity getting tank refilled though. I may purchase back up tank as I've been without CO2 for 3 days now.


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## dannyboy

great thread! this tank is a work of art!


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## whitetiger61

very nice wes..you have a jungle going on there..i like it

Rick


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## Rob72

tank is looking really good wes, nice and full


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## FishFlow

Got alittle bit lazy today and decided not to trim this one back. 









Added GLA atomic inline diffuser this week, and cranking up the CO2. Cut back on the ferts and 1st week half dose water still had 40-80 no3 and 1 po4. Lowest levels they've ever been after week.


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## FishFlow

Added Assassin snails ~10 days ago. Love them things.


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## FishFlow

2nd week of being lazy. Plants getting thick!


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## FishFlow

Time for WC. Looks fun when tank is empty.


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## FishFlow

And full of water.


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## Kehy

Now just add a couple dwarf water lettuce, and you'll never be able to see anything in the tank! Hahaha, looks sweet man.


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## Brian757

I really like your tank! I am considering getting some Spiral Crypt for the back! I really like your crypts. Very nice.


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## FishFlow

Last weekend. I believe this is the before trimming pic.


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## FishFlow

Small update. Ran out of CO2 over the weekend.


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## FishFlow

Picture Update. 
Still just two otos, couple ghost shrimp, and some RCS's.


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## FishFlow

Ran out of CO2. Didn't last the 6 months I got the 1st time. Got 4 months out of it this time. 

Also, Moved the Oto's to the 100 couple weeks ago. 

And a photo.


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## FishFlow

Update to this one as well. Alot happened since last post. Moved. This tank was small/light enough, I just emptyed ~ 80% of the water and moved it. (tank still has no fish). I had it back on co2 by may, and tank needs serious trimming. Which works out well, as the 100 appears almost empty. 











This tank was broken down last month, Aug 2013. I saved very few plants. Electric bill did it in. I miss this tank, I plan on doing a low energy planted tank soon in a smaller tank. CFL's, small filter, no heater.

Would add, while it's been broken down for a month, I've left it full of water, and discovered an unbelievable amount of assassin snail babies in the tank. I'm pulling 20-50 out every other day.


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