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  1. I learned the ropes of keeping planted aquariums in the Netherlands where low-tech tanks were the norm and as a kid also the only way to keep things affordable. I can now afford to spend the money, and I will if it is something I want, but there is a certain satisfaction to the simplicity of a low-tech tank. Some of my methods may go against common wisdom so if you want to try this at home do so at your own risk Before getting started I’ll first show a picture of the tank as it is now after 5 weeks The tank The tank is a 90 gallon 48x18x24" all glass aquarium. It used to have a wooden hood and two 32 watt standard 4' tube lights. However, the hood has to be removed to get to the bottom of the tank so I took it off and it is now a completely open tank without hood or glass lid. The tank is placed along a Northern wall without direct sunlight but some ambient light from the living room. It is also not in a high-traffic zone so less disturbance for the fish. The light I replaced the tube lights with a 48" Current USA Satellite Plus Pro LED light. It is a 60 watt LED light with build-in programmable timer and dimmer. You can also program the intensity settings for the white, red, green, and blue LEDs independently. At 350-400CAD it is not something I would get in my student days, but it should last a looong time, save on energy and the light it produces and the unit itself look very smart. I also like the programmed dimmer that simulates a 15 minutes sunrise and sunset. It is very thin and sits very low above the water, but I have not seen any heat or light burn on the floating plants. LED lights showing the white (6500K full spectrum), with the colour LEDs shown as purple as I'm only running the blue and purple, leaving the green off. The substrate In the Netherlands we would often use sand with a thin layer of small pebbles on top as the substrate. Despite the typical washing or even boiling recommendations we would specifically use "dirty sand" to avoid making the bottom too sterile. This time I went a step further and took my bike into the river valley and dug up about 1.5 gallon of dirt from a little pool. The first pool overwhelmed me with a sulfur odour that even Shrek would have found offensive. A second pool was more sandy with some small stones, black/grey gunk, but no offensive smell. That soil was harvested and I took out 4 gallons of water. The muck went in a layer along the back half of the tank, covered with 1-2" of sand recycled from a tank that I took down several years ago and 3-5mm pebbles went on top of that. The idea was that the gunk and water would kick-start a natural bacterial composition, using the substrate and plants as my biological filter. It also provided some tubifex like worms and other weird wormy oddities but nothing that looked dangerous. Muck added to tank with two remaining gallons of "magic water" on top After adding a top layer of sand and pebbles The water I filled the tank with the 4 gallons of pool water and the rest was just untreated tap water. It gave the perfect recreation of a South American white water stream biotope, completely clouded over by the high concentration of fine particulates. An old small internal filter, rated for up to 50 gallon tanks (I think it does theoretically 200 gallon/hr), with just some filter wool in a basket. That cleared out the water in a day or two, but leaving a fine dusting on the bottom. In my book a bit of dirt is just fine and closer to the real situation in nature, but it may not appeal to everyone. I am modeling a Venezuelan/Colombian clear water "morichales" biotope that has very soft and acidic water. In contrast to the black water biotopes, morichales are heavily planted and have all the kinds of fish I love, including cichlids and tetras. But Edmonton water is hard and basic so I purchased a small RO-buddy reverse osmosis unit (90CAD from Amazon) rated at 50 gallon/day max, and producing about 30 gallon/day with my water pressure. There may be better choices but so far it is doing well and hardness of tankwater has gone down from 315ppm to 50ppm. The pH is still at 7.3 and I am now experimenting with peat and leafs to try to bring the pH down without resorting to chemicals. The leafs again reflect the natural situation of the morichales biotope, although the oak and elm leaves I am using are decidedly not tropical. Elm and oak leafs plus a dusting of particulates/mulm I don't know how many images I can include in one post so I will post the plant and fish images plust story in a separate message.
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