Walstad 33 Long Community Tank

Happy New Year Fishlore-ians! I've finally got the gumption together for my first big tank in a long while, and figured I would detail it here. I'm going to go full in on the Walstad method, which I've had great results messing around with in a 5.5 gal for the last year. The goal here is not only to make it work in a larger tank but also to be more precise in my plant care, since in the small tank I just let the plants go crazy.

Definitely going to be a slow build over many weeks as I space out the $$$ and ponder options at each stage.

Hardscape: I'm aiming for 1-2" of soil under 1-2" of gravel, then splitting the tank horizontally into thirds with the center being very dense tall plants and the two sides being a mix of decor and plants (perhaps one side with driftwood and the other with stones?). My biggest concern is keeping the dirt contained below the gravel cap, as in my small tank the dirt creeped up over time and make cleanliness very tough.

Livestock is going to focus on schools of smaller fish, nothing decided yet. Tetras, barbs, mollies, otos, corys, etc. are all possible. Maybe Furcata rainbows if I'm feeling showy.

For now, I've just got the empty tank placed and ~8.5 cubic feet of organic Miracle Grow stacked up. So consider the attached picture titled "Potential"

 

Maybe I'm just not as familiar with the Walstad method as I should be, but if keeping the soil contained under the gravel is a problem why not use sand instead of gravel? I recently set up a 20 gallon tank with about 1" of dry cow manure, then 1" of potting soil, and then about 2" of pool filter sand. It's working fine, and the plants are growing well.

 

Maybe I'm just not as familiar with the Walstad method as I should be, but if keeping the soil contained under the gravel is a problem why not use sand instead of gravel? I recently set up a 20 gallon tank with about 1" of dry cow manure, then 1" of potting soil, and then about 2" of pool filter sand. It's working fine, and the plants are growing well.

Nothing wrong with sand, I just like the look of gravel better. Probably will be a very small gravel size to get good coverage.

 

First progress, got the soil layer in!

Over the week I bought Miracle Grow's Nature's Care Organic & Natural potting mix as well as a 7 kg bag of Seachem's Flourite gravel. Based on my math of covering a 4 square foot area 2" deep, I needed only needed 1 35 qt bag, but not knowing how much floating material I would remove I went with two.

I added the two bags to the tank, spread them around, and filled with water until there was a distinct gap between what sank and what floated.



(These pics are all on a phone in a poorly lit area, sorry)

Not being in any great hurry, I left the tank be for ~24 hours so everything could separate, then skimmed up most everything on the surface and tossed it outside. After that, I removed most of the water and stirred up the dirt into uneven clumps so it would dry faster (less labor than squeezing and again, not in a hurry).




Next was to add the Flourite a few days later. I wanted to mix in Flourite so the organics of the soil would be balanced with the inorganic clays of Flourite, hopefully helping the plants even more and giving the substrate a longer life. I rinsed the Flourite in a 2 gallon bucket 3 times, but I would never get rid of all the dust, probably don't want to either. So I just carefully poured it in, stirred it around, and patted everything to a nice even layer.




I think if I only had 1 bag of MIracle Grow I'd be a bit short on the total layer thickness, but maybe still workable. In the end glad I got the 2nd one

So now I'll just let things be while I decide what kind of layer to put on top. I do think I'll go with sand to provide a more solid cap and easier live plant insertion. Maybe I'll lightly cover the sand with gravel just for aesthetics...

Also, had a scare where I thought there were a bunch of scratches on one side from my dirt mixing, but a razor confirmed it was just silicone strands, whew!

 

All the dirt is in! After further researching options, I ended up going with one 50lb bag of Black Diamond blasting sand from Tractor Supply as my substrate cap. Online reviews pointed to it as a fine dark substrate option and safe for bottom feeders, so for the price it seemed hard to beat.

I initially tried to rinse the sand in a bucket, but discovered there wasn't a lot of floating stuff coming out, and the sand soaked up the water and clumped very dramatically in the bucket. So I went with the easier option of just pouring it all into the tank, smoothing it out, then carefully adding water until there were several inches of water above the substrate. Then I left things alone overnight and skimmed off any floaters in the morning. I'll probably do some large water changes to be extra sure.

Unfortunately can't get good pictures until I get a sunny morning.

So now I guess I need to find a light, then I can gather some plants and start the tank!

Stocking wise, I'm feeling like I want a central bunch of tall plants (maybe jungle val) to create a kind of "barrier" between two halves of the tank. Then I'll distribute short & medium plants around each side for different environment feels. TBD.

For fish, I'm thinking one large school of active swimmers (White Clouds or Tetras), a few larger fish (probably Mollies or Platys), a school of Otos for the bottom, and shrimp, snails, & maybe some dwarf lobsters for lots of activity.

 

Got my cannister filter hooked up to cycle the water for a while. Stuffed it with filter floss and Purigen in case there is anything bad I want polished out. Long term I'm just going to have a powerhead for water movement but no full filter thanks to all the plants.

I ordered a Finnex Planted+ light, hopefully it will get here this weekend. Then it'll just be a matter of finding my first plants and decor!

Once those are in, I'll start dosing ammonia using Fritz's Ammonium Chloride powder. I might grab some starter bacteria. I could pull material from my current 5 gal tank, but I'm worried about transfering duckweed into this new tank so might just bite the bullet and buy the starter stuff.

 

Got the plants & first decor in! Picked up 6 giant Jungle Vals for a central "forest" area and partial top coverage, and grabbed two bunches of another dense plant (forgot to write the name down, it's not hornwort) which I will move around as I figure out where I want them.

Have the water level reduced so it's easier for the plants to get lots of air exposure and pull CO2, hopefully giving them a leg up on algae until the system is more established.

Finnex Planted+ light on top. Going to run the default 24/7 schedule for now and see how I/the plants like it.

Power-head is running in the back-right, heater right next to it. Two Purigen packs are sitting in the tank for now to continue polishing what they can, I'll probably remove those once the first fish go in.

Dosed ammonia up to 2-3ppm, and put a few squirts of water from my established tank to help kick the bacteria, should have gotten some on the plants as well.

I think I can say the tank is officially started, so this will be the end of the build thread. If I start up a journal I'll edit in a link to it.

 

Your tank is so cool!! super exciting project and i can't wait to see what you do with it