# Dirt with gravel Cap



## oval291 (Dec 19, 2016)

Does anyone in here use dirt with a gravel cap? Want to reboot my tank as I believe the pool filter sand I am current using is too fine....


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## Oughtsix (Apr 8, 2011)

Yes I do and it has worked very well for me. I have about 3" - 4" of Miracle Grow Organic Potting Soil with about an inch gravel cap. I am very pleased with the results. I let the tank sit and cycle for about a month before I added any fish.

I am setting up a new 180g and when I get to the substrate I will definitely be doing dirt with a gavel cap again!


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## toothless assasin (Sep 10, 2018)

Oughtsix said:


> Yes I do and it has worked very well for me. I have about 3" - 4" of Miracle Grow Organic Potting Soil with about an inch gravel cap. I am very pleased with the results. I let the tank sit and cycle for about a month before I added any fish.
> 
> I am setting up a new 180g and when I get to the substrate I will definitely be doing dirt with a gavel cap again!


hi there, did u mineralize the potting mix first before scaping?

Sent from my S60 using Tapatalk


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## MultiTankGuy (Jan 8, 2018)

*Dirted Tanks*

oval...


Yes. I used to keep dirted tanks. However, after about 6 months, the nutrients in the soil I used were used and I had to find another means of fertilizing my plants. I used root tabs, but I wasn't as careful as I should have been in placing the tabs and disturbed the dirt underneath the gravel. I had debris floating in the water for a time. I didn't like the mess, so I went back to just a gravel substrate.


MTG


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## Oughtsix (Apr 8, 2011)

toothless assasin said:


> hi there, did u mineralize the potting mix first before scaping?
> 
> Sent from my S60 using Tapatalk


No, I did not. Straight organic potting soil with a gravel cap. I didn't even sift the large sticks out of the potting soil. It took a good month for the ammonia levels to reach zero even with using seeded filter media from another tank. The tank was planted while it was cycling... the plants grew very well in the high ammonia high nitrate water.

I have thought about mineralizing the soil before setting up my 180g... but the straight potting soil has worked so well it is hard to talk myself into mineralizing the soil. I am getting close to 2 years now and the plants are still growing like crazy!


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## Euphotica (Oct 2, 2018)

Yes I did and it worked great. I used just garden dirt that had a lot of old humus in it. The nutrients didn't run out because I had...you are going to wince at this...*goldfish*, and they kept it pretty well fertilized. 20 gallon tank with an undersized, underpowered, unsophisticated short hang-on filter that created some surface motion but didn't rile up the bottom. 1 gallon water changes once a week. Absolutely crammed with plants ....whatever was common in pet shops in Bloomington, Illinois in 1982 I guess, and some Elodea I appropriated from the fish pool in the university greenhouse. At first I had gravel on the top of the dirt but eventually with the goldfish poking around it was a mixture of gravel and dirt. Still worked fine. Discolored water from disturbed dirt didn't really bother me. I like a natural look. I think I protected the filter intake some way but I don/t remember now. The fish were healthy and grew like crazy for two semesters, after which they went into a fishpond.


Note, I didn't know what I was doing at the time and I think I just lucked out. There are a million ways that could have gone wrong.


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## Hemphill (Jan 24, 2018)

Ought, do you use C02 with your dirted tank? Did you dose ferts also?

Thanks!


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