Adding soil type substrate under existing gravel

Hi, I have a Trigon 190 corner tank set up as a community tank which I’ve been running for about 9 months. The substrate is a very coarse Dorset Gravel stone, varying from 5mm to about 15mm. I have 2 Java Fern on driftwood, some Elodea and 5 mossballs in the tank. I would now like to introduce more plants to the tank that root in a soil type substrate. My query is this; How do I add a soil type substrate underneath the gravel, bearing in mind that I don’t have a second tank to transfer the fish to. Is this possible to do on a working tank? Thanks in advance.

Hi Luap,

Yes it can be done but not without emptying the tank.
The way I done it before with success is first get your tank water up to tip top shape, small water changes of 15-20% everyday for a week. Then you need something to hold at least half the tank water
95 litres from a trigon 190 and a couple of buckets for the fish. Remove water to the buckets from the top section of the tank and move fish to those buckets, then drain off the rest of your water to a bin (clean) or the likes, that you intend to keep. This should be at least half your tank water. Then you can drain off the rest. Place an airline in the buckets with fish and keep them warm in the house somewhere. When you have the tank empty now is a good time to wash your gravel oh remember to bag you filter media or let the sponges steep in a container of your tank water if its from the juwel filter. I would use tropica substrate, it doesn't seem to upset the water chemistry like some of the others, then cover the tropica substrate back up with your gravel, fill the tank then with your kept tank water about 4 inch's, carefully trying not to disturb the substrate too much. (use a plate in the bottom to pour the water onto and allow it to disperse slowly over the bottom). When you have the 4 or so inch's of water back in the tank plant up with your plants first, then top your tank back up with the original water you have kept aside. Put your filter and heater back on add your fish and top up half of whats required slowly with new conditioned water of the same temp.
The following day you can refill the rest.

Hope that is of some help.

Cheers
Alan.

Hi Luap,

Allan gave a very good step-by-step instruction how to do it. I do not have experience with plantica substrate but in my opinion you could use any FERTILISED substrate that is available in the market. (Fertilised substrates do not require washing - so read carefully what is written on the package). I would wait for 2 or 3 days to check water parameters before I put back my fish but it also depends on the fish you have if they are hardy - go straight on.
My consern in your planted tank is the size of your gravel. I used to have similar one in size and sometimes I had problems with keeping my plants in it. Generally, gravel of 1 to 3 mm is recommended for planted tanks. I expect that your gravel is a mix of light colours - plants look better on dark substrates. Joey could tell you more about his experience with big gravel stones in his planted tank.
If you can efford just think about changed all gravel for substrate. One hard work in a tank - better result!!
So, nice to have another person going into planted tank!!

Many thanks Allan & Katherine. Plenty of good advice there from you both. This forum is a god-send!

I'll probably hold off from doing anything for a couple of weeks as I've just started using Easy Carbo and Ferropol & Ferropol 24 this week. I don't want to make too many changes at once. I notice one of my Platys seems to have developed what I think is Dropsy in the last day or so. All other fish are fine. I presume this is just a coincidence and nothing to do with the recent addition of the Easy Carbo and Ferropol? I'm also thinking about co2. So I might get this up and running first before making drastic changes to the tank. Any suggestions there? I agree it might be better to do it as one big job OK, ie empty the tank and put in new soil and smaller gravel. I want to be happy with the result and not create different probs such as plants coming loose etc. Thanks again. Why, oh why, did I sell my old 80 litre tank a few weeks ago!?? It would have come in very useful for this job! I've added a photo of the tank as it is at the moment if anyone has any suggestions as to planting schemes and layouts etc!

Hi Luap,
Easy carbo is a liquid substitute for CO2 injection , i have used something similar to easy carbo the seachem excel with great results , hence there is no real need for co2 injection , also the plants need the correct substrate, lighting, etc before the co2 will maximise growth there has to be a balance struck between co2 light and nutrient for optimum plant growth.

Zoom wrote:

Hi Luap,
Easy carbo is a liquid substitute for CO2 injection , i have used something similar to easy carbo the seachem excel with great results , hence there is no real need for co2 injection

Sorry Zoom, can I clarify that, please? It's a common mistate to put equation mark between easy carbo and CO2. I think it's a short-cut that everybody accepts but it causes a lot of missunderstandings when we go into the problem more detailed. In fact, easy carbo is not a CO2 supplement, it supplies carbon but not carbon dioxide to the tank and helps limit algae growth in a way. Moreover, the producer never said that it replaced CO2 fertilization. On the label there is only written that "easy carbo can be used with or without CO2 fertilization." If CO2 fertilization is used, EasyCarbo can be limited to the minimum dosage or even below it depanding on the situation in the tank - this is my experience of using it.

Zoom wrote:

also the plants need the correct substrate, lighting, etc before the co2 will maximise growth there has to be a balance struck between co2 light and nutrient for optimum plant growth.

Of course they do! But I wouldn't say that it's the only acceptable order to achieve success with planted thanks. It would be great to have it done in this order but I know some planted tanks (including mine) that were set up on gravel with use of liquid fertilisers as well as undergravel fertilizers (ball) and proper lighting at the beginning, then CO2 fertilasation was added. I set up my planted tank in November last year and all changes were made through the next half a year. There was a great improvement in the plants condition when I replaced lighting and added CO2 but till last Monday the tank was running on gravel. My plants were growing up as crazy - I had to cut them every 3-4 days.
There are also Low Tech planted tanks that run on a minimum lighting, garden soil, no CO2 and they look good.

Luap, if you don't mind change the background for black colour. I was affraid of using it and had navy-blue one before the restart of the tank - I thought that black cabinet and black cannopy with black background would be too much. I was wrong. I'm glad I made use of Joey's advise - he was absolutely right that black background was the best solution. Plants look georgeous on it.

Thanks Katherine,

Just in my experience you can dose a tank with CO2 and if everything else is substandard it wont make a huge difference, but with proper fertilization and lighting things become a lot different.
I'm sure you did notice a difference in your tank when you added CO2 , but I'm talking about optimum plant growth. What I'm trying to point out to Luap is with the low tech set up he has the easy carbo will do and he doesn't need to go through additional expense until he decides to overhaul his tank.

Alan.

Alan,
you're absolutely right and the magic word is: 'balance' in every respect of this hobby.

Zoom wrote:

Hi Luap,

Yes it can be done but not without emptying the tank.
The way I done it before with success is first get your tank water up to tip top shape, small water changes of 15-20% everyday for a week. Then you need something to hold at least half the tank water
95 litres from a trigon 190 and a couple of buckets for the fish. Remove water to the buckets from the top section of the tank and move fish to those buckets, then drain off the rest of your water to a bin (clean) or the likes, that you intend to keep. This should be at least half your tank water. Then you can drain off the rest. Place an airline in the buckets with fish and keep them warm in the house somewhere. When you have the tank empty now is a good time to wash your gravel oh remember to bag you filter media or let the sponges steep in a container of your tank water if its from the juwel filter. I would use tropica substrate, it doesn't seem to upset the water chemistry like some of the others, then cover the tropica substrate back up with your gravel, fill the tank then with your kept tank water about 4 inch's, carefully trying not to disturb the substrate too much. (use a plate in the bottom to pour the water onto and allow it to disperse slowly over the bottom). When you have the 4 or so inch's of water back in the tank plant up with your plants first, then top your tank back up with the original water you have kept aside. Put your filter and heater back on add your fish and top up half of whats required slowly with new conditioned water of the same temp.
The following day you can refill the rest.

Hope that is of some help.

Cheers
Alan.

Great guide Alan

The only thing I don't understand is what you mean by "bag the filter media" Could you explain this please ?

Hi Barr,
I think what Alan means is to put the filter media in a plastic bag to stop it drying out to keep the bacteria in the media alive as long as possibe. (Correct me if I'm wrong Alan!) I still haven't changed the substrate on my tank yet as I've been busy sorting out a CO2 system first. When I get round to re-doing the tank as a planted setup I intend to keep my external filter running in the plastic bin with the fish in it when I'm changing the substrate in the tank. This will keep the filter "alive". This could also be an option for you. Do you have an external filter? I agree with you, it's an excellent reply by Alan!

Luap wrote:

Hi Barr,
I think what Alan means is to put the filter media in a plastic bag to stop it drying out to keep the bacteria in the media alive as long as possibe. (Correct me if I'm wrong Alan!) I still haven't changed the substrate on my tank yet as I've been busy sorting out a CO2 system first. When I get round to re-doing the tank as a planted setup I intend to keep my external filter running in the plastic bin with the fish in it when I'm changing the substrate in the tank. This will keep the filter "alive". This could also be an option for you. Do you have an external filter? I agree with you, it's an excellent reply by Alan!

I am using an external filter as well. I would have thought the job takes 3/4 hours. If I just switched the filter off for a few hours would this really effect the bacteria in the media ?

Barr,
I had a power outage on my filter once for about 6 hours and it didn't seem to affect the bacteria. There was no resultant spike in ammonia. Having said that, I was told that the bacteria can start dying after about 30 minutes if there's no water flow bringing oxygen to the bacteria. So take your pick! Perhaps some of the experts on the site can shed more light on this. I'm only a novice myself!

Hi Luap ,I have the same tank as you. After doing a bit of research this morning I am going down a different route. MY solution “JBL The 7 Balls”

All I have to do is stick one of these bad boys into the roots of the plants and they work for a year. No hassle of trying to add fertilized substrate under my sand or move fish etc.

Cheap as chips as well

www.zooplus.ie/shop/fish/aquatic_plants_...izer/jbl/126486#more

I did consider these JBL fertilizer balls and they seem like a good idea. Unfortunately, the gravel in my tank is quite big (10-15mm average) so I think I might have problems keeping plants down in it. They wont really be able to get their roots into anything and might end up floating. I'm looking at a few different possibilities such as trying some plants in small pots and hiding the tops of the pots with the gravel, or else choosing plants that adhere to wood and stones such as Anubias and Mosses. I still haven't ruled out the possibility of changing the substrate in it's entirety. Might be worth it in the long run. Watch this space! Any thoughts on these options Barr?

Luap wrote:

I did consider these JBL fertilizer balls and they seem like a good idea. Unfortunately, the gravel in my tank is quite big (10-15mm average) so I think I might have problems keeping plants down in it. They wont really be able to get their roots into anything and might end up floating. I'm looking at a few different possibilities such as trying some plants in small pots and hiding the tops of the pots with the gravel, or else choosing plants that adhere to wood and stones such as Anubias and Mosses. I still haven't ruled out the possibility of changing the substrate in it's entirety. Might be worth it in the long run. Watch this space! Any thoughts on these options Barr?

I was going to do something very similar to the pot route. What I was going to do before I discovered the JBL balls was just to cut the bottom off plastic water bottles(ordinary 2 ltr drinking water bottles so its food grade). Put the fertilised substrate into these. Put in the plants the cover them up with the gravel. It would be way less messy. I’ve bought lead weight to keep them down.


Afraid I'm not not too sure how Anubias and Mosses work. But if its as simple as them adhering to stones and wood etc without any extra work - I'd be interested in getting them as well.