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Recently I've gotten into a side hobby of culturing blackworms. I think blackworms have a lot of potential for a great and easy live food to culture but there isn't a lot of good information online on how to best take care of them. So I have been doing little experiments to try to learn more about their care.
I have found the blackworms do care a lot about water quality, sure they can tolerate slightly worse water than most fish but they won't thrive in it. In fact I've had a lot of die off when the water got too dirty. I keep high water quality in my cultures by connecting them to my other tanks. This can be done in many ways but what I do is use any plastic tub, a uniseal and PVC for an overflow. I connect it to my tanks flow using these fitting used for irrigation tubing, of course you could also use airlifts, or a small seperate pump.
Here is an example of one of the tubs on top of a 20G long tank
Here are my other culture containers.
As you can see I also glue some mesh around the overflow to reduce blackworms leaving the culture. I've found blackworms can still make their way through this mesh but it keeps down how many leave the culture. Even without the mesh the blackworms leaving the culture hasn't been too significant. But worms leaving the culture may be ideal for some as this could be automatic feeding.
I currently use a sand substrate as it is what I had on hand. I added some filter sponges to some of the cultures and the worms all go in the sponges completely ignoring the sand. In the cultures without the sponges and just sand only a few worms burrow, they mostly stay in clumps on top of the sand. Still learning about how useful it may be to use the sponges. For the most part they are only a hindrance, but the worms do really like them so I wonder if that may help the production of the culture. One thing they are nice for is keeping the worms concentrated where you want them, this can make feeding easier.
Since water quality isn't a huge concern in these I have been trying to push the limits on how much I can feed them. Here is about what I have been feeding this culture every day. Unfortunately I don't have a good idea on the mass of the worms in this culture, but on this day they were fed 10g of kens veggie flakes.
24 hours later.
As you can see they completely devoured all of those flakes. That amount of food would have crashed most culture setups I have seen which is why I think it is very important to overfilter with blackworms. Many guides I have seen suggest feeding small amounts two or three times a week. But they can clearly eat very significant amounts of food. However it may not be nessecary to feed that much depending on how much worm mass you are trying to yield. This is what I hope to find out.
Here you can see the green flake food inside the worms.
So far flakes have been their favorite food, which makes sense as they are very thin and easy to break down. I originally fed algae wafers which they also like but they are not able to go through them as fast as flakes and I want to maximize how much they can eat. I think ideally you would feed small amounts of flake throughout the day rather than the single big feed I am doing, but I haven't figured out an easy way to automate this. The problem is that it is best to place the food right around all the worm clumps which would be hard to to with an auto feeder, and flakes float. For now this is good enough though.
I have tried cutting up the worms with scissors before but I belive I found too much mortality for it to be worthwhile. There is also likely a lag period where the worms are healing and cannot eat as much which means less worm mass produced that day. So I am moving away from manual fragmentation for now and just seeing how much they will grow on their own.
Here is day one after manual fragmentation.
Day 3 I am starting to see more die off.
Day 7 I see significant die off. I think here I may have lost at least 50% of the worms.
Day 10 they seem to have stabilized. And decided to end this experiment after seeing this much die off. Perhaps the conditions were just not optimal for good healing, maybe too dirty, overcrowded, fed too early etc. I am not sure. I may try again in the future. I am open to suggestions.
My newest experiment just finding out exactly how much the blackworms can eat and how fast they can grow. I started with 15.15 g of worms. I will weigh them again in a week.
Unfortunately this experiment isn't perfect because the worms can leave through the overflow but I a hoping their reproduction is fast enough this won't be a significant factor. I started off with 500 mg of the kens veggie flakes. I forgot to take a picture of how much this looks like. But here is 24 hrs after feeding. As you can see only green waste is left.
Today I am trying 1g of veggie flakes I will soon update on their response to this much food.
I have found the blackworms do care a lot about water quality, sure they can tolerate slightly worse water than most fish but they won't thrive in it. In fact I've had a lot of die off when the water got too dirty. I keep high water quality in my cultures by connecting them to my other tanks. This can be done in many ways but what I do is use any plastic tub, a uniseal and PVC for an overflow. I connect it to my tanks flow using these fitting used for irrigation tubing, of course you could also use airlifts, or a small seperate pump.
Here is an example of one of the tubs on top of a 20G long tank
Here are my other culture containers.
As you can see I also glue some mesh around the overflow to reduce blackworms leaving the culture. I've found blackworms can still make their way through this mesh but it keeps down how many leave the culture. Even without the mesh the blackworms leaving the culture hasn't been too significant. But worms leaving the culture may be ideal for some as this could be automatic feeding.
I currently use a sand substrate as it is what I had on hand. I added some filter sponges to some of the cultures and the worms all go in the sponges completely ignoring the sand. In the cultures without the sponges and just sand only a few worms burrow, they mostly stay in clumps on top of the sand. Still learning about how useful it may be to use the sponges. For the most part they are only a hindrance, but the worms do really like them so I wonder if that may help the production of the culture. One thing they are nice for is keeping the worms concentrated where you want them, this can make feeding easier.
Since water quality isn't a huge concern in these I have been trying to push the limits on how much I can feed them. Here is about what I have been feeding this culture every day. Unfortunately I don't have a good idea on the mass of the worms in this culture, but on this day they were fed 10g of kens veggie flakes.
24 hours later.
As you can see they completely devoured all of those flakes. That amount of food would have crashed most culture setups I have seen which is why I think it is very important to overfilter with blackworms. Many guides I have seen suggest feeding small amounts two or three times a week. But they can clearly eat very significant amounts of food. However it may not be nessecary to feed that much depending on how much worm mass you are trying to yield. This is what I hope to find out.
Here you can see the green flake food inside the worms.
So far flakes have been their favorite food, which makes sense as they are very thin and easy to break down. I originally fed algae wafers which they also like but they are not able to go through them as fast as flakes and I want to maximize how much they can eat. I think ideally you would feed small amounts of flake throughout the day rather than the single big feed I am doing, but I haven't figured out an easy way to automate this. The problem is that it is best to place the food right around all the worm clumps which would be hard to to with an auto feeder, and flakes float. For now this is good enough though.
I have tried cutting up the worms with scissors before but I belive I found too much mortality for it to be worthwhile. There is also likely a lag period where the worms are healing and cannot eat as much which means less worm mass produced that day. So I am moving away from manual fragmentation for now and just seeing how much they will grow on their own.
Here is day one after manual fragmentation.
Day 3 I am starting to see more die off.
Day 7 I see significant die off. I think here I may have lost at least 50% of the worms.
Day 10 they seem to have stabilized. And decided to end this experiment after seeing this much die off. Perhaps the conditions were just not optimal for good healing, maybe too dirty, overcrowded, fed too early etc. I am not sure. I may try again in the future. I am open to suggestions.
My newest experiment just finding out exactly how much the blackworms can eat and how fast they can grow. I started with 15.15 g of worms. I will weigh them again in a week.
Unfortunately this experiment isn't perfect because the worms can leave through the overflow but I a hoping their reproduction is fast enough this won't be a significant factor. I started off with 500 mg of the kens veggie flakes. I forgot to take a picture of how much this looks like. But here is 24 hrs after feeding. As you can see only green waste is left.
Today I am trying 1g of veggie flakes I will soon update on their response to this much food.
5 Replies
·
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Supporting
I Donated 2026
Rockstar
I hadn't seen it mentioned by others that attended Aquashella, but if you hadn't already heard about it or seen it in Aquashella videos, ADA has come out with Amazonia Pro. It's not a replacement for Version 2, but an addition. It is essentially Version 2 on steroids with higher nutrients and of course the negative side effect of potentially higher initial ammonia leaching and, if your not prepared and skilled, more chance of algae. That's even from the mouth of Homma-san himself. The scaping competitors were using it in the competition and AFA was selling 9l bags at the show. They said it would be available on the website within the next couple weeks.
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I have a wonderful stand of erio feather duster that has been algae free for well over a year.
Wnen I firts got it, tufts of bba would form on it on tips and I would just pull them off…
This summer my display tank has been struggling with simmering algae issues.
Still doing weekly 2/3 water changes, keeping nutrient levels and all stable, trimming away degraded leaves…
My erio is in sad shape…
I have tried spraying peroxide on it when doing water changes, laying the mass on a cafeteria tray and spraying on full strength and letting it set for 10 minutes before refilling to no avail.
I gave the fikters a thorough cleaning out, andremoved and reset plant groupings after thoroughly gravel vaccing the bdbs to remove organics…
Iam starting to think giving the erio a good hair cut way down low and letting it send up all new leaves.
Figure I would poll the audience before taking any such action…
Wnen I firts got it, tufts of bba would form on it on tips and I would just pull them off…
This summer my display tank has been struggling with simmering algae issues.
Still doing weekly 2/3 water changes, keeping nutrient levels and all stable, trimming away degraded leaves…
My erio is in sad shape…
I have tried spraying peroxide on it when doing water changes, laying the mass on a cafeteria tray and spraying on full strength and letting it set for 10 minutes before refilling to no avail.
I gave the fikters a thorough cleaning out, andremoved and reset plant groupings after thoroughly gravel vaccing the bdbs to remove organics…
Iam starting to think giving the erio a good hair cut way down low and letting it send up all new leaves.
Figure I would poll the audience before taking any such action…
5 Replies
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96 views
I Donated 2026
Expert in Residence
MOTM Winner
I have always liked Rotala florida as plant due to its strongly colored leaves, but realized that I haven't actually aquascaped much with it - meaning to integrate it as part of a layout and not just growing a bunch of it in farm/collector style tank. Using plants in a layout in tighter bunches, and in competition with surrounding plants/hardscape is much harder than growing it farm style in a single patch - it also means be able to shape/trim the bushes to match the overall curves of the layout.
Back in 2016 or so when I first received Rotala florida samples from north america, I could only grow it in sparser bunches. It looked nice in macro photographs but I could not envision using it an bush that would show off well as part of a layout unless I can grow it much denser. In the recent years, there were two main discoveries that I found in my experimentation, the first is that it grows better in moderate GH (5 dGH+) compared to super soft water (say <3dGH), and that it grew better in certain soil mixes (I experimented with different garden soil mixes when engineering the composition of APT Feast). Eventually I integrated some of the soil data into APT Feast's composition, and paired with the higher power lights readily available today, I find that I could finally grow the plant the way I envisioned as part of overall layout. I could prune it dense, as the base stems were healthy enough to sprout dense side shoots after trimming - and the secondary/tertiary shoot tips were as fully colored and sized similar to a primary shoot tip that hasn't been subjected to topping yet.
As a midground stem, it works very well due to its slower growth rate vs other colored stem plants.
Against the deep purple of Rotala florida, I found that Golden white clouds worked quite well. So now they are the main inhabitants of the tank.
Tank this week (25/6/2025)
Tank started out like this:
A week or 2 after initial planting (5/5/2025). I reused old aquasoil from the previous scape, so I planted all plants up front rather than waiting more time for the tank to stabilize, with the idea that I could out-grow any algae issues. Initially wanted to add H. Chai but it really didn't fit the overall color scheme, and the bushes by the side were too invasive to be compatible with having a chai patch I think.
Since it was going to contain Rotala florida, I thought I might as well throw in other high demand troublesome species such as the Red Eriocaulon quinguangulare, blood vomit. I settled on Rotala tulunadensis for the background as I wanted something dense and shapeable.
Tank specs:
60x36x36cm
Filter: Oase biomaster 250, all sponge media
CO2 injected through inline atomizer
Substrate: APT Feast
Water column: APT Sky to raise GH to 5dGH, 2ml of APTe per day.
Light distance. Interestingly, not crazy high PAR - just around 200-250 umols PAR at the substrate level.
Trimming and shaping: Most bushes were shaped by cutting individual outlier shoots one by one. Only Rotala blood red and the Rotala tulunadensis was straight trimmed across the entire top once.
This is how the Rotala tulunadensis looked like after a straight trim on 29/5/2025. About 3 weeks from when the top picture at top of this page was taken. It took the plant a whole week + to show new shoots. It seems straight trimming slows down the plant quite a bit, but allows for a very dense & neat canopy afterwards.
There are some interesting plants stuffed here and there. Some Eriocaulon caulescens? bolivia? that local hobbyists passed on to me. Carved out a patch for Syngonanthus vichada - slow grower, but the couple of babies that came have doubled in size so I think they should be alright. I think I will move them to a larger tank with more space.
Only discovered the color combination with the Golden white clouds when the tank matured, but its one of my favourite fish-plant combinations now. I think that while some of the species are a bit picky about growth conditions, one thing I really like about this tank is that most things have moderate/slow growth rates, which makes maintenance with regards to removing excess growth less tedious.
Elatine triandra is used as a low growing green filler plant - it does this role well. As it does not root very deeply, I can easily cut and pull off excess growth easily. Its the fasting growing plant in the layout that requires frequent removal of excess growth.
Some more close-ups.
I'm trying to replicate concepts of this layout (slowing growing bushes) into my 4ft tank.
Back in 2016 or so when I first received Rotala florida samples from north america, I could only grow it in sparser bunches. It looked nice in macro photographs but I could not envision using it an bush that would show off well as part of a layout unless I can grow it much denser. In the recent years, there were two main discoveries that I found in my experimentation, the first is that it grows better in moderate GH (5 dGH+) compared to super soft water (say <3dGH), and that it grew better in certain soil mixes (I experimented with different garden soil mixes when engineering the composition of APT Feast). Eventually I integrated some of the soil data into APT Feast's composition, and paired with the higher power lights readily available today, I find that I could finally grow the plant the way I envisioned as part of overall layout. I could prune it dense, as the base stems were healthy enough to sprout dense side shoots after trimming - and the secondary/tertiary shoot tips were as fully colored and sized similar to a primary shoot tip that hasn't been subjected to topping yet.
As a midground stem, it works very well due to its slower growth rate vs other colored stem plants.
Against the deep purple of Rotala florida, I found that Golden white clouds worked quite well. So now they are the main inhabitants of the tank.
Tank this week (25/6/2025)
Tank started out like this:
A week or 2 after initial planting (5/5/2025). I reused old aquasoil from the previous scape, so I planted all plants up front rather than waiting more time for the tank to stabilize, with the idea that I could out-grow any algae issues. Initially wanted to add H. Chai but it really didn't fit the overall color scheme, and the bushes by the side were too invasive to be compatible with having a chai patch I think.
Since it was going to contain Rotala florida, I thought I might as well throw in other high demand troublesome species such as the Red Eriocaulon quinguangulare, blood vomit. I settled on Rotala tulunadensis for the background as I wanted something dense and shapeable.
Tank specs:
60x36x36cm
Filter: Oase biomaster 250, all sponge media
CO2 injected through inline atomizer
Substrate: APT Feast
Water column: APT Sky to raise GH to 5dGH, 2ml of APTe per day.
Light distance. Interestingly, not crazy high PAR - just around 200-250 umols PAR at the substrate level.
Trimming and shaping: Most bushes were shaped by cutting individual outlier shoots one by one. Only Rotala blood red and the Rotala tulunadensis was straight trimmed across the entire top once.
This is how the Rotala tulunadensis looked like after a straight trim on 29/5/2025. About 3 weeks from when the top picture at top of this page was taken. It took the plant a whole week + to show new shoots. It seems straight trimming slows down the plant quite a bit, but allows for a very dense & neat canopy afterwards.
There are some interesting plants stuffed here and there. Some Eriocaulon caulescens? bolivia? that local hobbyists passed on to me. Carved out a patch for Syngonanthus vichada - slow grower, but the couple of babies that came have doubled in size so I think they should be alright. I think I will move them to a larger tank with more space.
Only discovered the color combination with the Golden white clouds when the tank matured, but its one of my favourite fish-plant combinations now. I think that while some of the species are a bit picky about growth conditions, one thing I really like about this tank is that most things have moderate/slow growth rates, which makes maintenance with regards to removing excess growth less tedious.
Elatine triandra is used as a low growing green filler plant - it does this role well. As it does not root very deeply, I can easily cut and pull off excess growth easily. Its the fasting growing plant in the layout that requires frequent removal of excess growth.
Some more close-ups.
I'm trying to replicate concepts of this layout (slowing growing bushes) into my 4ft tank.
242 Replies
·
36415 views
Staff member
I Donated 2026
Founding Member
Hello Welcome, TheBurn
Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @TheBurn!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?
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Staff member
Supporting
I Donated 2026
Rockstar
PVAS Fall Fish Shrimp Plant and Dry Goods Auction is this Saturday!
Twice a year PVAS holds an All-Day Auction & Tag Sale: Auctions are free and open to the public.
Registration opens at 9:30 am, Tag Sale opens at 10:00 am, and auction bidding begins at 10:30 am. Sometimes there is a short break for lunch. Raffles usually occur about 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm. Bidding usually wraps up about 4:00 pm but continues until everything is sold.
All buyers and sellers must be registered at
www.MyGroupAuctions.com. 
Sign in to see what's available! 14 pages of auction items are listed so far
Twice a year PVAS holds an All-Day Auction & Tag Sale: Auctions are free and open to the public.
Registration opens at 9:30 am, Tag Sale opens at 10:00 am, and auction bidding begins at 10:30 am. Sometimes there is a short break for lunch. Raffles usually occur about 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm. Bidding usually wraps up about 4:00 pm but continues until everything is sold.
All buyers and sellers must be registered at
www.MyGroupAuctions.com. Sign in to see what's available! 14 pages of auction items are listed so far
0 Replies
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20 views
Supporting
I Donated 2026
Journal MrJG - UNS 90L
@Sb1415 Apologies I totally snagged the format of your journal post for this so thank you!
Many moons ago I was an active and contributing member on plantedtank.net, I think at one point I had around 14 scaped tanks going before burnout and life changes. Instead of weekends consisting of maintenance I transitioned to camping/boating and life has been great. I’ve always missed it. After downsizing and making a move to a new home I kept only a small 12x12 cube tank that started life as an amateur iwagumi layout, Seiryu and hairgrass only. I put it on the nightstand beside my bed and added some of my favorite Anubias and crypts from taken down tanks. Its been sitting there running for 5-6 years now, low light, top offs only w tap. Maintenance when it got out of control. Super old aquasoil now flattened out to a thick 4-5 inch thick layer in a perfect line front to back.
In Aug/Sept 25 had a bit of a health issue that kept me in bed for several weeks recovering while I looked at this sad little cube, mostly healthy but not truly thriving. No fertilizer being added for years, GDA covered anubias leaves that also were many years old and I thought to myself I should make this better… that was the tipping point. OK I’ll do a deep clean on the substrate, get some stems to throw in there, maybe get a carpet going. Tissue cultures/stems ordered and I got to work. No more top offs, 10% water changes instead. TDS ~900 when I started. Ultimately everything melted back and didn’t grow well. I’d been keeping the lighting so dim all these years to maintain just the crypts/epiphytes without it turning into a mess and I was ok with it again. That was the spark.
I decided I wanted to build out a new tank, most of my old hardware/tanks I had let go of in a bulk way so I was going to have to start new with everything sans some 5 gallon buckets of Amazonia that I’d placed in the basement of the new house.. Phoenix rising from the ashes? Most likely more like algae emerging from the depths. I still consider myself a beginner and maybe amateur at best so yeah…
So I got to work again reading, researching, what’s new, what has changed since I’ve been out of the loop for so long? Ooo dark start that sounds much better, in line CO2 diffusers cool! CO2 reactors, pretty awesome sounding, 2Hr aquarist read every article, and I’m back in baby!
Tank inspiration
None really hence no name, it fit right into a slot to occupy my mind from a not so great situation that I was in and I’m ok with that. Ultimately I’d like this to be a low-mid energy tank that can have minimal amounts of weekly maintenance while still looking the part. I’d prefer to keep it as simple as possible while still having some high tech bits. Get all the equipment out of the tank, co2, low-mid level lighting, minimal/simple fertilization. I got busy ordering equipment and started brainstorming layouts and what hardscape materials I could find. Instagram was my friend for a while, seems that everything that kept grabbing my attention were island style layouts with a very thin layer of sand surrounding. I’ve also always been partial to big chonky pieces of driftwood, I thought to go the manzanita route but wysiwyg pieces were fetching stupid prices. I ran across this ironwood in a listing and couldn’t let it go. The deep lines in the bark were just calling me so I quick snap ordered it before my brain could process dimensions, I knew it would fit but didn’t fully visualise how much it would ultimately limit the layout. I wanted to stay mostly inert with stone and eventually/begrudgingly ordered the tumbled lava stone with the intention of keeping it to a island/river layout style and mimicking some of my found instagram muse tanks. It will mostly likely end up more nature style although the start will be more Willy Wonka than anything. Thanks @Burr740 for that, I shopped like a kid in a candy store.
Equipment
Tank
Many moons ago I was an active and contributing member on plantedtank.net, I think at one point I had around 14 scaped tanks going before burnout and life changes. Instead of weekends consisting of maintenance I transitioned to camping/boating and life has been great. I’ve always missed it. After downsizing and making a move to a new home I kept only a small 12x12 cube tank that started life as an amateur iwagumi layout, Seiryu and hairgrass only. I put it on the nightstand beside my bed and added some of my favorite Anubias and crypts from taken down tanks. Its been sitting there running for 5-6 years now, low light, top offs only w tap. Maintenance when it got out of control. Super old aquasoil now flattened out to a thick 4-5 inch thick layer in a perfect line front to back.
In Aug/Sept 25 had a bit of a health issue that kept me in bed for several weeks recovering while I looked at this sad little cube, mostly healthy but not truly thriving. No fertilizer being added for years, GDA covered anubias leaves that also were many years old and I thought to myself I should make this better… that was the tipping point. OK I’ll do a deep clean on the substrate, get some stems to throw in there, maybe get a carpet going. Tissue cultures/stems ordered and I got to work. No more top offs, 10% water changes instead. TDS ~900 when I started. Ultimately everything melted back and didn’t grow well. I’d been keeping the lighting so dim all these years to maintain just the crypts/epiphytes without it turning into a mess and I was ok with it again. That was the spark.
I decided I wanted to build out a new tank, most of my old hardware/tanks I had let go of in a bulk way so I was going to have to start new with everything sans some 5 gallon buckets of Amazonia that I’d placed in the basement of the new house.. Phoenix rising from the ashes? Most likely more like algae emerging from the depths. I still consider myself a beginner and maybe amateur at best so yeah…
So I got to work again reading, researching, what’s new, what has changed since I’ve been out of the loop for so long? Ooo dark start that sounds much better, in line CO2 diffusers cool! CO2 reactors, pretty awesome sounding, 2Hr aquarist read every article, and I’m back in baby!
Tank inspiration
None really hence no name, it fit right into a slot to occupy my mind from a not so great situation that I was in and I’m ok with that. Ultimately I’d like this to be a low-mid energy tank that can have minimal amounts of weekly maintenance while still looking the part. I’d prefer to keep it as simple as possible while still having some high tech bits. Get all the equipment out of the tank, co2, low-mid level lighting, minimal/simple fertilization. I got busy ordering equipment and started brainstorming layouts and what hardscape materials I could find. Instagram was my friend for a while, seems that everything that kept grabbing my attention were island style layouts with a very thin layer of sand surrounding. I’ve also always been partial to big chonky pieces of driftwood, I thought to go the manzanita route but wysiwyg pieces were fetching stupid prices. I ran across this ironwood in a listing and couldn’t let it go. The deep lines in the bark were just calling me so I quick snap ordered it before my brain could process dimensions, I knew it would fit but didn’t fully visualise how much it would ultimately limit the layout. I wanted to stay mostly inert with stone and eventually/begrudgingly ordered the tumbled lava stone with the intention of keeping it to a island/river layout style and mimicking some of my found instagram muse tanks. It will mostly likely end up more nature style although the start will be more Willy Wonka than anything. Thanks @Burr740 for that, I shopped like a kid in a candy store.
Equipment
Tank
- UNS 90L
- 90 cm x 30 cm x 30 cm
- 79 liters or 21 gallons by volume, 62.5 liters or 16.5 gallons actual w hardscape
- Oase Thermo 200
- Replaced the charcoal media with more ceramic from Oase
- Replaced w Fzone stainless steel -Fzone glass Lily w skimmer ⅝”
- Replaced tubing with UNS pro tubing ⅝”
- Fzone Quick release ⅝” so Lily pipes can be cleaned without having to reprime filter
- Gla inline atomizer - replaced Fzone Co2 inline diffuser ⅝”
- GLA dual stage - replaced Fzone pro series dual stage regulator w/ 5lb tank
- Timed on 3 hours before lights on, off 1 hour before lights off
- Using distilled by gallon, remineralized with salty shrimp GH targeting GH around 4-5
- Hoping for 0-1 KH
- Dark start cycled with prime dechlorinated Tap and APT Start
- 80% old used ADA Amazonia v1, small bits sifted and bagged to create slight slope
- 2HR Feast topped to around 2 inches
- UNS Bora sand
- UNS Kona pebbles
- Fzone Bright 90 - 90CM
- Before hardscape made rough par map using photone with diffuser iPhone 15 Pro
- At 100% top 404, mid 219, base 127 PAR
- At 50% top 190, mid 110, base 62 PAR
- Will be starting tank with 45-50% lighting intensity
- Timed at 3pm-9pm photoperiod with 60 minute ramps
- Current Colorcast LED strip w/frosted background
- Timed scenes for dawn (orange 1 HR during pre-ramp) /daylight (green during ON cycle) /sunset (red 1 HR during post-ramp) /night (indigo 1 HR after lights out)
- Arizona Ironwood
- Black tumbled lava stone
- APT 1 and 3 dosed at recommended levels per calculator
- APT Jazz - in 3-4 months as Feast gives out
- Trying to keep it simple with fertilization to start
52 Replies
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5156 views
Rockstar
Journal 62G AIO Dirty Soil Lagoon
Well I’m done talking about it, it’s time to get this journal started.
I have been really out of it the last year or so in terms of maintaining my own tank, mainly out of frustration with time constraints and inconsistency with dosing etc. However, I have now acquired a dream tank, rimless and with low iron glass like I’ve always wanted. While I loved having a sump and prided myself on putting it together, I’m past that desire. The AIO allows the same benefits with hiding equipment, and overall easier maintenance without climbing in and out of cabinets. Now onto the details of this build.
Tank: Planet Aquariums Tideline 62 Gallon AIO Lagoon
Filtration: (2) 250gph pumps on either side of the tank with center overflow into socks (I’m going to punch holes in the socks for now and stuff with polyfill, reviews state the socks clog way too quickly and there is no replacement sock as the insert is not the common round style). The baffles will be stuffed with the poret foam I have already from my sump for extra mechanical/biological.
Substrate: The bottom layer will comprise of bagged pond soil/peat/earthworm castings/ STS. This will be a thin layer and will mainly act as filler to raise up the cap of APT Feast. This is similar to a substrate setup I did when I first started back up in 2020, And that tank did very well. While capping with sand and relying on the dirt to feed the stems worked well, it did require a little more effort on my end with dosing. I don’t trust myself to be as diligent as some members on here are with their inert subs, so I’m taking the mulligan and using aquasoil as a cap, hence, “dirty soil.” This will be another island style layout, and the surrounding substrate will be comprised of Caribsea Carolina Creek Sand.
Hardscape: River rock (local hardscape center sourced) and malaysian driftwood. I have recently acquired another large piece of wood and I’m sourcing new stone this week, as what I have just isn’t meshing with my current vision for the tank.
Plants: …. I have not solidified my vision of what this scape will look like just yet as I haven’t been able to setup the hardscape to outline the island. The plan is to use a good amount of colorful stems, epiphytes, and potentially moss.
Lighting: I will be ordering the Week Aqua Z400 this week and am excited to test it out.
That’s all for now, more pictures and details to come. I should hopefully have the hardscape setup by the end of this coming week after acquiring more stone and wood.
CO2: Almost forgot, for Co2 injection I have made a DIY Yugang with a locking food storage container. It will be stored in the cabinet and the hook will feed into the return pump chamber on the right. I initially was bummed that I had to sacrifice storage to fit a 5lb CO2 tank under the stand, which also meant getting rid of of the 20lb tank I’ve only been having to fill twice a year. @GreggZ Will appreciate this, my awesome father in law suggested that I hide the co2 tank in the pantry closet which is directly behind that wall and just drill a hole for the co2 line. Since my father in laws word is pure gold in my wife’s eyes, that suggestion was approved! He’s just as much my dad too so I appreciated him supporting the project
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Staff member
I Donated 2026
Founding Member
Hello Welcome, Rachel Smith
Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @Rachel Smith!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?
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Staff member
I Donated 2026
Founding Member
Question of the Day UV Sterilizers - good or bad for planted aquariums?
So they have been around for ages and there is no doubt that they do work. I have a hang on one that I will bring out if I ever get a green water outbreak, ich or other issue that I think it can solve. I think many of us have one in our "aquarium stuff" pile.
The question is, should we run them continuously? There is a school of thought out there that thinks this impacts our fertilizers so they shouldn't be used continuously. Any thoughts on this?
How about if you're keeping sensitive fish like our friend @BryceM? Discus are real sensitive to bacteria. Would you run a sterilizer 24/7?
Would love to get your thoughts on this?
P.S., these questions of the day are intended to get us talking to each other. If you see this, please give your 2 cents even if it is "I have no idea". Our community will be better for it.
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Supporting
I Donated 2026
Rockstar
Well...let's spend more money! I had thought about attending Aquashella - Chicago a few months ago but decided to pass this year. When I was thinking about it, they still didn't have the specific VIP guest list posted. Out of curiosity, I checked today and to my surprise, the man himself, Yusuke Homma, will be presenting the masterclass on Saturday. I can't pass that up when it's only an 8 hour drive. Ticket purchased, room booked. Anyone else attending?
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