# My Little Ecosystem



## Mariostg (Sep 6, 2014)

Hi darklord.
Cool stuff. Can you put a picture that shows the overall setup? I am curious.

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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Welcome to the community darklord.

Cool setup. I have been wanting to create a DIY aquaponics system as well to grow vegetables/fruit.

You got me thinking now. I just posted a thread looking for flowering plants that could be in a vase, but now I just might do a aquaponics system, with a tank under the nightstand pumping tank water to a vase/planter on top of the night stand, flowing back down to the tank. Still looking for what flowering plants though.


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## eggplantlady (Jun 21, 2010)

Great tank! I love the plants growing out of the tank; so natural and appealing. Unfortunately I can't do this as both of my cats love to play with water (and would probably like to fish too). Good job!


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## Mariostg (Sep 6, 2014)

WaterLife said:


> Welcome to the community darklord.
> 
> Cool setup. I have been wanting to create a DIY aquaponics system as well to grow vegetables/fruit.
> 
> You got me thinking now. I just posted a thread looking for flowering plants that could be in a vase, but now I just might do a aquaponics system, with a tank under the nightstand pumping tank water to a vase/planter on top of the night stand, flowing back down to the tank. Still looking for what flowering plants though.


I have a black cala lilly that's doing pretty well above my 75 gal.

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## goatnad (Aug 13, 2015)

Nice setup! I really like the large lily.what is the round onion looking thing in the dish to the right of it?


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

Hi Mariostg, unfortunately I am a horrible photographer the best overall setup would be these photos.

Bump: Hi goatnad,  was trying to grow ArrowHead (Sagittaria) from bulb which I bought from the market.

Bump: Hi eggplantlady, Thank You for the comment I am also worried about local cats, which I spied that day sitting in front of the tank watching the fish. But local cats are well taken care of many people actually feed the stray cats here.


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

Hey WaterLife, yes I was inspired by the aquaponic ideas and had included plants as one of the filter medias. The water I have for my fish is crystal clear, which I am proud of. I am now looking to expand these into edible vegetables with another setup. Will post that once completed. Cheers!

There is also an advantage to this, as I am actually quite overstocking my tank and with no issue. One down side is the land plants are very very hungry and greedy, they had been stripping the tank of any nitrate in water and some water plants may not get enough nutrient.


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## Blacktetra (Mar 19, 2015)

I was wondering how you kept nitrates low in such a heavily populated tank!
Maybe I'll have to try something similar. I have to keep my tank slightly under-stocked (just 10% less than 1" of fish per gallon or so) because my plants aren't as hungry or as thickly planted as some tanks. Looks really cool!


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## GadgetGirl (Oct 11, 2013)

I love this! I really want to try something like this. Can you explain how you are growing the terrestrial plants? How are they physically supported? Do you have any problems with algae? Do you use any ferts?


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

Black Tetra, the terrestrial plants are very hungry and they keep the nitrate low, I am using natural sunlight. However, I had seen some really cool stuff, which people does with house plants in Riparium, maybe you can try. Downside is the aquarium plants may starve.


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

GadgetGirl said:


> I love this! I really want to try something like this. Can you explain how you are growing the terrestrial plants? How are they physically supported? Do you have any problems with algae? Do you use any ferts?



Hi GadgetGirl, I use plastic basket containers, put a layer of big size gravel, put plant soil(aquarium type), then stuff the terrestrial plant in nicely.

Next is the balancing act of tying and securing the whole container with transparent plastic tie. Show as little as possible.

Then patch the containers surface with as much moss as possible to hide the basket for taste.

Algae is not taking roots as nitrate is low. So far no fert. But I may want to try CO2 for the aquarium plants as they are starving.

Hope I can see your setup, when done, if you decided to go wild and natural like mine. Cheers!

Below are some items I used:








plastic basket containers








coarse gravel








transparent plastic tie


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## Maverick2015 (Aug 8, 2015)

I love how you have a mixture of the immersed and submersed plants. I was thinking of adding something to grow out of the tank and now I want to even more.


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## Mariostg (Sep 6, 2014)

If your plants are starving, adding CO2 is not going to help. The limiting factor being the nitrogen, assuming it's low. You should keep it no CO2.

Baskets that works well are shower caddies too.
In my 20 Gal long, I recently setup watering mats to bring the water from the tank to the plants. It's in testing mode.


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

Mariostg said:


> If your plants are starving, adding CO2 is not going to help. The limiting factor being the nitrogen, assuming it's low. You should keep it no CO2.
> 
> Baskets that works well are shower caddies too.
> In my 20 Gal long, I recently setup watering mats to bring the water from the tank to the plants. It's in testing mode.


Hi Mariostg, I'll like to see your setup on the watering mats... It's really cool to have people to exchange ideas. Now I'll need to trim the land(terrestrail) plants...to reduce their feeding from the tank, since I can't possibly stock any more fish with so many fries in the tank.


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## Mariostg (Sep 6, 2014)

Darklord, indeed, cool to exchange ideas. And there are lots around here. That's why I wanted to see more pictures . I am not photograph either BTW.

I have a thread on the watering mat idea: Watering Mats
And I implemented the idea tracked on this journal My Alternative Aquarium. It's a filterless 20Gal long tank.

Let me know what you think


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

Hi Mariostg, the plants are placed on the mat. And you draw water from your tank to wet it. I'll like to see your black cala lily.... My orchid planted in my tank... Had not flower yet... Will take some more photos


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## Mariostg (Sep 6, 2014)

For the 3 small sandwich plastic container, I cut a slot on one side near the bottom and fed a piece of mat through. Then filled the container with coil. The paint tray liner as just one open side as you can see on one of the picture. Ideally I would like to have more space on the back and side of the tank. I could move the tank if I see that works.

Black Cala Lilly is here http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showpost.php?p=8263609&postcount=42, on my "Mario's over the tank river" thread.


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

Hi Mariostg, nice black lily, yes it is definitely flowering. There is clear segregation of land plants and water in your case. My setup is very integrated and may need some gardening work. Will do some trimming and take some photos again this weekend....Cheers!


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

Hi Mariostg, I found a way to attach more photo  directly from forum.









Is this the kind of overall view, you are looking for? I wish I have rimless tanks.


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## Mariostg (Sep 6, 2014)

Hi darklord. Tapatalk won't ler me see it. Will have to try from my laptop tomorrow.

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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

By overall view, I think he means to see the WHOLE setup, planters and all, to see how the whole system runs together. 
So try standing back and taking a picture with everything in the one shot
and/or
take a series of photos in order showing/explaining how the system is setup. Water from here runs to here, to here, then to there, then back to here.

Cheers!


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## Irish-n-Zwack (Aug 10, 2015)

Beautiful setup. I love it!


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

WaterLife said:


> By overall view, I think he means to see the WHOLE setup, planters and all, to see how the whole system runs together.
> So try standing back and taking a picture with everything in the one shot
> and/or
> take a series of photos in order showing/explaining how the system is setup. Water from here runs to here, to here, then to there, then back to here.
> ...


Ok Attached is a pictorial explanation using the photo I had taken.


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## WaterLife (Jul 1, 2015)

Ahh, I see. I thought all the other planters were connected to the tank as well.
The water returning to the tank from the planter is pretty much a overflow spout.
What do you use (as substrate) in the planter? Soil, clay balls (hydrotone)?

Is the undergravel plate there for any particular reason?
Looks like the substrate is too compact to use a undergravel filter in it and would probably make the water cloudy if it did work.

Still a very cool tank.
Plants look nice and healthy. And fish look content with the tank as well, breeding away 




EDIT; Oh my, just looked at the new post 1st page and see I have posted on about 70% of them...


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

WaterLife said:


> Ahh, I see. I thought all the other planters were connected to the tank as well.
> The water returning to the tank from the planter is pretty much a overflow spout.
> What do you use (as substrate) in the planter? Soil, clay balls (hydrotone)?
> 
> ...


There is only 1 planter. Actually I'm only using filter media and filter floss. Filter media-are those ceramic and porous ring and tube like stuffs in a bag. 1 bag of activated carbon.

As I restarted this hobby from when under gravel plates are the great stuff, so I included that and a uplifted tube using air stone to exchange water with under gravel.

Water has been great and lots of babies.

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## Mariostg (Sep 6, 2014)

Thanks darklord.
Waterlife explained well what I meant as far as overall picture means . Nice explanations though on your last picture.

Me too I though all planters were connected together.

You probably don't need charcoal unless you want to remove medication or smell.

Do you clean the filter often? Maybe if the flow rate was slower, it would allows deposit to settle at the bottom of the planter hence making more nutrients available for the plants. 

Is it me or the tank is not level? Seems like the waterline is not parallel to the tank rim.

Keep good work.


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## darklord (Feb 22, 2015)

Mariostg said:


> Thanks darklord.
> Waterlife explained well what I meant as far as overall picture means . Nice explanations though on your last picture.
> 
> Me too I though all planters were connected together.
> ...


Haha[emoji13] Yes.. The bricks I bought for the tank stands were not even.. Cheers Mariostg.

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