How To Make A ZERO Maintenance ECOSYSTEM Aquarium (FULL BUILD): transcript

what's going on beautiful people this video is a Full Compilation of how I built this self-sustaining ecosystem behind me now I mean self-sustaining in terms of I don't do any maintenance of it if it was a closed ecosystem it would be like all food for the fish as well but who doesn't like feeding the fish so I still feed the fish but that's the only thing I don't do anything else to the tank follow along I hope you enjoy it and it gives you some inspiration and how to do something like this [Music] yourself so usually I set up a tank and like by the end of the video I've sort of made it into how I want it to look as if it had been growing in for a long [Music] time but that is not what we're going to be doing in this tank I've had an idea something I'm really excited about and something that hopefully teaches everyone a lot about the start of a new aquarium don't know why I'm tucked down so in this tank I want to be at

create something that you've got to do nothing to for long long long periods of time after the initial investment and the fin of setting it up let's face it the majority of people that are in this hobby actually not the hobby just people who want to keep fish tanks half the reason they fail or just give up is because they're sick of cleaning it and I always try and say we should be creating tanks that you that look after themselves so that's going to be the goal with this one that we can all follow along hopefully it goes out to wide audience attracts more people to the Hobby because they'll be able to see that they can have a beautiful tank that doesn't take up like hours and hours of the time every week so we want it to be as low maintenance as possible and the way to do that is obviously a planted tank but also no filter because a filter still requires maintenance okay some of the good canisters you can get they you can go months and months about cleaning them but we don't even want to have to do that I mean I'm hoping to get to the point where I don't have to do anything apart from maybe trim some plants for like a year and as many of you know I like break down tanks after 6 months normally because I want to start something new but we've got plenty of

Tanks in here this one is going to be the dedicated one that just goes on and on and on so why is this going to be different to anything uh that we usually do then well the thing is I'm going to be like doing like as often as I can updates on it so there won't be like epically long videos but every time something changes I'm going to film it tell you about it like day two when you start to get some murkiness say or something like that or something isn't quite right some water testing's off I'll be filming all of that so that like it's a sort of thing that you might experience if you're doing it rather than here's the setup it looks great see your next video which don't get me wrong I'm I'm still going to be doing those as well but this is more like a follow along that hopefully you guys can invested as well and enjoy the process I'm not going to be planting it with these massive plants to start with because a lot of you haven't got access to that so we're going to simulate it with like smaller plants that can all grow in over time much more realistic and really exciting as well to watch the progress so the tank we're using is a 4T X 2T tank it has got 7 mm thick glass

and it's the aquamar in planter 1200 which you can get if you're in the UK when I got the tank I also bought the matching cabinet which ties everything together really nicely it looks so good with the tank next to it as well now the light we've currently got on it is a chiros wgb 2 thingy I don't know the proper names and whatnot well I know it's a very expensive light in fact it's probably as much as the aquarium itself like the glass that is now the whole point of this is make it a bit more accessible and affordable so I'm not going to use this light even though it's an absolutely brilliant light it's probably the best light I've got in the whole studio but again I want to make this something that you guys can have a go at if you haven't got a huge budget because obviously the a glass box is a glass box you can go for whatever price you want you know you can go secondhand and use there's always tons of aquariums being sold because people come in and out the hobby quite quickly really because they don't know how to make a tank that looks after itself but we're going to do that so instead of the expensive lighting I've got two of these which I'll leave a

link for if you're interested they sell these in UK Europe and the US and it's the AA 120 and I've actually got two of them on this tank here so you can see how well they grow plants there's no CO2 in this tank either and it just keeps growing and growing and growing and growing and then I've also got two on my Archer fish tank yes there are Archer fish in here there we go look they're currently hiding at the back because I've shoved a massive camera in their face [Music] [Music]

o [Music] now the lights actually come with a remote as well but I'm not that guy it's got like a manual switch on it which you can toggle the intensity and coloring I'll just get it set and and absolutely leave it this is just something to lose or stop working yeah not interested right this part is always Mega exciting for me you know you got your fresh canvas and technically what I do I think is kind of like an art because like like any art you start off pretty poor it and the more times you do it you get better and better and better and I've done this hundreds and hundreds

of times now so hopefully this one will be good as well but sometimes it's not but I'll make sure it is okay so the most important part of any sort of plant ecosystem for me I mean even including the lights the most important part is the substrate system we need to create environment where plants absolutely Thrive just send out great root systems all across it all grow grow grow grow grow the faster they're growing the better the water quality the better the water quality the less stuff you have to do [Music] and this lot is how we achieve that substrate system so we start off at the bottom with some neutri base this isn't absolutely essential but it's so good if you can get a hold of it just makes starting aquariums a lot easier it's got like dormant bacter in a ton of sort of nutrients as well for all the roots and

then I use compost on top of that this is going to provide real long-term nutrients as well and then over the top of all of that we've got some sand that I still need to wash but you know it's pretty good just some funny bits in it still it's just this is this sand will just cap the whole lot it's not the prettiest of color so we can then like top it off with some of this stuff in here which is a bit more natural looking with some stones and stuff like that [Music] so yeah in first goes the nutribase and on top of that goes the compost and in a minute I'll explain why we use compost and why I think it is such a good nutrient source for roots and aquariums in [Music] general and I don't really know why I've

sort of laid it out neat cuz now I'm just going to mix it all together anyway of course you can do this outside of the tank in a bucket if you're worried about scratching the glass but yeah I've done it now hav an I so if you get any clumps of soil just break them up there we go we got a good amount of nutrients there and I know a lot of other channels say like when you're using soil put an inch thick of it then an inch of cap in um you know I found that that's it's not really necessary it can be sometimes massively overkiller found and it takes ages until your tank is ready for fish because it's releasing loads of nitrite nitrate and all sorts of other things ammonia and also it can make the water go really really tinted as well as it will eventually filter into that water column but now I've got that thin little base layer I will add a little bit more soil to it now I'm using a pond Aqua soil which is like a compost that's made for ponds it's got less Organics in it from a start I mean it's got some which is good I'll explain why but it's got less than say your potting soil so if I

was going to use potting soil I would just use a bit less of it that's going to be something that you're going to have to test out yourself because I just know how much I need for my specific compost that I've chosen it might be different for the every Brand's got a different mixture you know so it just depends what you buy but that's what experimenting comes in now the reason I like to use compost under the sand is because of that organic matter that I mentioned organic matter will continue to break down once it's capped and with the water it will effectively rot underneath the sand when it does that it produces CO2 so any CO2 in a planted tank is good CO2 in any way we can help create that without having to constantly inject it and sort of add new bottles and fill it up with gas which I just cannot be bothered to do to most of my tanks the odd one or two I do do it on but most of them like I just let them do their own thing and just enjoying for what they are which is exactly what this one's going to be so yeah if you're going to do this and have a go at it do not skip the soil process it's so so important for the long-term growth of the plants and I want you guys to remember

something as well nothing I say to you is like this is how it must be done not at all like there's so many different ways that work this is the way that I really like doing it and get good success with and I've got a lot of Tanks here that literally just run themselves I've got so many tanks if I had to do maintenance on them all like I just wouldn't be able to do it like my studio would be half the size if not a quarter of the size so yeah and no way am I saying my way is the best way like I think that's a ridiculous thing to say in any subject to be honest because you can always look up some other data that suggests you're completely wrong another case study where the opposite of what you did work so this is just what I like doing I find it works really well I'm just sharing that experience with you guys so it's a good idea just to rinse all of this down you you don't have to but um I've just find that it's a little bit easier to release any sort of air pockets that might get caught when you put the sand over the top and fill it up with water so if it's wet they sort of naturally they want to come to the surface anyway [Music]

there we go look that's fully saturated cuz we're getting a pool of water in the foreground so now we can cap it all with the sand which as I mentioned needs [Music] cleaning so I've cleaned up the decorative sort of layer that we'll have on the top like the last capping if you like a little bit of decoration on top of it but I also found another tub of old substrate which has got like a bit of everything in it's got some aqua soil it's got Stones gravels sand as well so I'll use that just to bump up the thickness of the whole thing to make sure I've got enough depth for the plants to go in properly and it will grip them then grip so yeah thickening layer going on now everything I'm using here guys is reused well almost everything I was going to go and get like like brand new

everything but I thought well a lot of you aren't going to be able to do that you might have aquariums currently set up that you want to take down and give it another go and by me reusing everything it means you can reuse everything as [Music] well right ready for the clean capping I just want to suck out some of that water just make sure it doesn't just float on the surface of the clean [Music] [Applause] [Music] stuff and now we've got the clean going

in in the 4 grand first don't scratch the glass like I just did cuz if we put in four grand first now look we can drag it backwards over all the sort of dirtier layers and the dirt is good remember because it's going to uh provide nutrients to all the roots don't know why I set it like that [Music] oh just realized I made a little mistake as well if you come around this way cuz obviously this is the viewing angle so I want to make sure my hard gate comes from the back right hand corner well this part here look you can still see all that stuff underneath which isn't a massive problem but yeah I just think it would look way better I pull that back a bit and fill it with sand so it's just got that neat Edge that we've got in the front and that's easy to do look you

just run your your flat Edge down the end and pull it back to make a bit of a gap currently trying to fill with water but the sand actually is falling in over the top of it then I can just push the top bit in I'll put a little bit more sand in this area as well just to neaten it all up still a bit there I'm being overly fussy here but there we go that's a lot nicer [Music] [Music] so visually pretty boring up until this point but I've got to show it it's necessary it's how I do pretty much all of my tanks nowadays unless I've got a fish that sort of likes to dig out the sand in which case that's obviously not going to be very good is it but now we can get started on the fun bit the most fun bit I find of the whole process is

doing The Hardscape if you get this bit right the tank is going to look good no matter how you plant it to be honest so as I said before the viewing angle is going this way the sort of the way the camera is fa in which means I want my hard skate well you don't have to but I want to have my hard Skate coming out here I think that'll look really cool just like an explosion explosion coming out of this corner I think that'll look Wicked and also it will leave loads of space for planting or in the for ground keep the back area clear as well so yeah let's do that and it's not likely that you're going to have the amount of hard ape that I've got to choose from but having said that most of this stuff here is not suitable for the look that I'm aiming for but this stuff out here is but to start with I need a platform I want big round rocks like these gives it that Rivery look nice and simple the sort of stuff that everyone can get a hold of as well now as always you don't have to but I always find it's easier to start with

your biggest piece of Hardscape first and sort of build around that angle it out a little bit CU this is the nicest side we'll be able to see that and for now I'm just getting pieces in with no real sort of complete plan going for that sort of real natural style where you just don't overthink it and just get going everything can be moved so you don't have to worry just trying to come up with some kind of shape that we can use as like a base for wood and stuff to rest on to create nice upward angles now we've got that we can start laying some wood in and then Shuffle stuff around as we need to now luckily the plant before this had loads of wood in it so we got lots to choose from let's see let's see if this will work perfect look at that no I'm kidding well I'm just having a bit of a mess about trying to find some flow this is quite far over that way but then you know I don't want too much

negative space this will have a lot more plants in this area and it will taper down there so the plants are what will fill at all that space that is too parallel look how exact same gaps each side so we don't want to do that if anything we want this coming maybe opposite but this part doesn't matter how you do it it's like completely up to you I quite like the way that can sit sort of hug the Rocks like that I mean it looks really natural feel like we need something in the back here though perhaps something like this want to block out the light that gives us more shape at the back there this one can come down a touch cuz it's too parall that can go back cuz it's too close to the glass it's all going to come tumbling down is it no there's enough space to get around it but hopefully you can see what I'm doing here I'm trying to create something quite simple just gently placing sticks in that you guys will be able to potentially replicate what is it 1 2 3 4 5 six

sticks but it does give a really sort of natural Vibe sort of thing you can see twisted up in some River somewhere it doesn't have to be over complicated it doesn't have to be tons of big thick chunky wood like that's not really how nature looks and that's kind of why I just threw it in is because I'm try to create something that looks un what's the word UNS synthetic you know I want it to look like it could have randomly all just gone during a flood or something one piece locked in which locked another piece which then locked another piece another piece and I quite like it if I'm honest the one thing I would say is this rock is quite powerful which means I kind of want something bigger there as well not the same size but just to bance it out or do I am I thinking about it too much yeah I think I am just keep it like that you know every sort of situation scenario you create has probably been created somewhere in nature anyway so yeah that one at the other side I like that cuz it sort of keeps the flow going I'm just going to go with it don't mess around for too long if you're happy just stop and I'm happy now of course all of this

has to be glued down although it looks dry it's actually water logged cuz it's recently come out of the tank that was here beforehand I had so much wood in there the angelfish and the Cardinals I think I'll put the Cardinals back in this when when we're ready that is and the water quality and parameters will determine that but that wood will probably float or it'll get easily knocked in maintenance so I'm just going to go around and use some super glue gel at contact points like there and wherever there's a rock touching and then to itself as well and that should lock it all down so what I use is the super glue gel and then that takes a while to sort of dry and go absolutely solid so then I take this stuff I don't actually know what it is but I've used it for years it doesn't harm anything doesn't cause any problems with the fish this is a reactive agent and it makes this stuff go hard instantly which means you can carry on with building or scaping or whatever you want to do I'll leave a link for that as [Music] well anyway round here we've got this

little tub of Tricks this is what I want to use used for all the details so it's just like a mixture of Sands and different gravels and bits and Bobs you can buy like specific products that have got a mixture so look for those if not buy a few small bags of different grades and put them together should work really well just want to add a couple more stones to the outer areas push them into the sand a little bit just a bit more detail really you don't have to do this but I think it looks a bit more natural that's too straight there we go yeah I put that rock in against the wood and it basically made a straight line of rocks so if you see straight lines too off too much it it doesn't look too natural so just bring one forward and now it's doing that you know then out again then little baby one next to that one I think it's just adding oh I just tripped over that yeah I think it's just adding a few more points of interest like outcrops and it means that you can plant next to

them as well just creates a little bit more Synergy look at that hey that's a word but now I definitely feel we need something over here as well because obviously we're looking from this angle not too far back because I want stems back there but like something here nothing huge that one a little darker one maybe like that no maybe like that have a look from this angle yeah it's just adding something isn't it right now we can go super detail mode I need a pot so this is often my favorite part of any build because it's when it actually comes to life and what you want to do Chuck stuff in I mean don't overthink it I try and do it as quick as possible just chucking it like that technically in nature apparently sand gets pushed up against the edges not Stones Stones sit in the middle but I just feel like it looks a bit better when you just do it this way there's a lighter sand with this slot so I'm going to make sure I

sprinkle it sort of everywhere the lighter sand is very fine so that'll actually just sink into the uh the corser sand on top I'm going to Chuck so much of this about that it's not really going to make much difference yeah so I press the stones up against the big one and then let go as you run your fingers across it and I find that that gives it the most sort of natural look and then a Sprinkle or a chuck [Music] so that's good and I think what we need now is more of the sort of medium siiz Pebbles so we've got like bigger ones we got tiny ones to tie those in because you'd have a full grading wouldn't you

in a river system we need some more sort of in betweeny one see yeah just in this little bucket I always put this size in this bucket for situations like this so next to them like that all the different colors which I think looks best some can be touching up against it and others can be just sort of a little bit next to it oh that one's got a little bit of algae on it bit of realism I love these ones the little purple ones as well that is starting to look really good I just want a bit more of the corser gravel which we've got down here but it's mixed in with more of that sand so I've got this this what I use for water changes to stop it stirring up the substrate and I'm just going to sift out the sand [Music]

I mean there we go that's what I'm talking about like the difference when add in the detail in terms of making it look more natural versus before I put I put a before and after you know with this shot now and hopefully you can appreciate it as much as I do bare sand for me has its place but more in a sort of contemporary style design do you know what I mean like a modern look whereas this for me is just way more like realism right then [Music] planting so here's what we've gone for in the tissue culture wise halian tenum because it just spreads really quickly but stays short so it's going to give us that carpeting look in a low Tech tank that should look really natural and awesome and it goes a long way so I've got three of those I've got rotala HRA which is a stem plant it's packed full there it's going to grow up quickly we can trim it replant it so we're going to get loads and loads of plants out of

those two pots to start with but even as it grows and we can rrim then I've got a little bit of glosso stigma just for some details in the foreground it's a little bit of a different texture then to the halian tenum which is more of a leafy shape and with the potted plants so I've gone for two nice big Java ferns for the uh for the wood section and two b bitas as well the two together just go really really well grows at a decent pace now cuz I'm limiting everything I haven't got any anubus but if I was doing this in well I'll tell you what I can add plants as I go because that'll be simulating what a hobbyist would do as you go to sort of the the shop you add you go and get more plants don't you but to start with this is this is what I'm sticking with so we've got the 10 pots like I said and the six of the tissue culture so we've got a nice big Crypt uh becketti eye this will give us a different shape and tone to the uh Crypt Wy green this one looks beautiful by the way look here it is here that is that plant it's just so vibrant

it looks awesome doesn't it then I've got some junus repons just because I love that wild look it gives it grows fast and you can just trim it and replant it at all these different nodes that's come across it so again more bang on your buck for one plant pot and then I've got prostamin erectus just because it looks so nice it's fast growing again trimmable replanting and the fastest growing of all is Lim the filer I've got here I've got a Lim the filer one of the fastest growing plants trium replant and then for even more of a red pop and a different texture again we've got the dgar pous mini super red so the the leaves stay quite small and yeah it's just it's one of my favorite plants that actually always looks good so it's time to prep the plants I'll start with halium very simple peel the top off there normally a liquid in there as well I haven't got a pot oh well clean it up in a minute there you go let a root system in a circle snap it at one corner and just sort of of unfurl

it is that the word unfurl unfurl that's it then all you want to do is just break off little sections that you want to plant and that's the same for all of these pots so you just got to repeat the process then you'll end up with a load of little mini plants that you can stick into your substrate it's going to spread nice and quickly [Music] so you can see just three pots of easy grow helan tenum goes a long way and what I like to do is for the first half I just sort of dot it evenly then I use the second half to fill in gaps just to make sure you don't use the whole lot in like three quarters and then be like oh i' still got another section I've kept it all forwards because the back area will be a little bit more shaded and we want to be able to get that light down

there to the to the leaves and what that's going to do is then cause it to send out Runners that'll eventually just cover the whole lot and that look awesome and I think now I'm going to add in the ferns into the sections where I want them um I'm going to break them up usually I keep them whole just like massive impact but in this instance apart from one I'm going to use one Fern as a whole the other one I'm going to break up and just dot it about and let it grow on those areas whereas usually I just use like four whole pots because I want that full look straight away but we're not going for that this time and it's even more so this is micros and terus aqua flow obviously even more easy to prepare I think give him a wiggle that should break any roots that have grown around it free and you got your rock wall and there is actually a split in it so if you just break it on the split it all comes apart ferns are incredibly easy to get out of the pots and prepare break off any of the additional rock wall get off as much as you can I mean it's so nutrient dense that you don't really

want a ton of it going into the water column and there you have it your Fern so yeah I want to use this one as a main focal point and naturally your eyes are sort of drawn to that area there now I'm going to use the glue again to attach it because if I just place it in it's too big of a gap whereas if I put some glue all across that b bottom section there I can literally glue it exactly where I want it like that [Music] so that one pot just gives you massive amounts of greenness and vibrancy as a focal area it's always quite good in the tank to have one focal area and because the wood is knotting sort of in that section it it makes the ideal place just off center cuz anything dead in the center can look a little bit odd your

eyes don't tend to like it cuz it's symmetrical and uh nature doesn't often look symmetrical so now I just need to prepare the other Fern and it's very simple to be able to break it up as well same again oh this one's really grown in nicely be all right rock wall off and then the java fern you can see runs along and they're called ryom you can literally just take it and snap it it will snap on a ryome and you can see you get shoots that come that's the ryone the bottom bit and then the shoots come off of it they'll grow anywhere on those pieces so if you just snap off a few like that maybe snap this one in half there we go got two more clumps and then two more again we can spread them around the aquarium [Music]

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] B bit us up next and you can split it up like we did with the ferns but I just think they look better in their sort of whole form so I'm going to keep those like as two pieces [Music] and of course you don't have to but I find that when you mix them in with the ferns it creates a really nice natural texture almost like a forest floor somewhere next up is the Crypt becketti eye and as you can see look all the um rock wall is sort of intertwined a fork is so good at this look you just do this pull it through I used to used the the the pinces and one day I couldn't find

them so I just used the fork and then I realized it actually worked way better cuz it gets right into the roots you want to get as much of it off as possible because this plant although it looks like one there's actually lots and lots of different ones all clumped together which means you can literally just pinch it there split it and now we've got lots of plants we can plant all around the aquarium rather than just one clumped section be a bit more careful with this because you can break off leaves quite easy so make sure you just pull in the sort of clumpy bit apart so I managed to get five plants out of that and Crips like darker areas well they don't necessarily like it but they don't mind it so if you can plant it close to your ferns where there's like shaded areas it will do really well in there oh actually got six plants not five even better [Music] [Applause]

[Music] [Applause] [Music] time for the junus repons which is spelled like that um this one is obviously it's a proper grassy natural look and I find it looks best when it's tucked next to little rocks or Pebbles if it's out in its own of air it just looks bit odd so I'll just split it up you can split it all just like anything else and just dot it around [Music] evenly doesn't look like much now but those uh junus Rons does send out Runners just like the halian tenum it

just gives it a really wild natural look right it's now time for the free stem plants and I'm just going to plant them in their groups for some reason I always find that stems do better when you keep them clumped together I don't know if there's any signs behind that at all as most often is the case with what I do but I do know it just tends to work better if I don't know why so I'll keep them all together and just dot them along the background as they grow I can trim and replant next to them so I'm putting the lgia here because I want to be able to see it quite clearly just give a nice pop of red in that background section I'm going to put it right in the middle and then as it grows and we can trim it and place pieces in the foreground and behind it so create like a whole sort of section like that there of all red that look really good and the limb the feler grows really really fast so I'm thinking background section here and then what I can do is very

clearly trim replant trim replant full green section up here and then the poost and erectus just poking over this rock in the middle will look really good very vibrant and green and then planting complete for now I say for now because you know hobbyists go once or every other week to get new plants don't they I will limit myself just to a couple of plants adding per week let's say I think that's pretty realistic of what people do right so nothing left to do but fill the whole thing up and then I can stop spraying it down every 10 minutes it's so warm in here so anything dries out straight away obviously I heat the room instead of each individual tank because it's way more economic economic economical economical struggled with that one anyway let's fill her up so I will be filling from my water butt so I've got a spout here look which is attached to the Reel which goes in the water butt which has already been filled with water and dechlorinated as well so it's all the right temperature and ready to go

doesn't really matter on this tank because obviously we're not putting fish in straight away but usually if I want to just do a quick water change or put fish in a tank I've just filled up I can because the water is perfect temperature of the room and I need to make sure I place something down for the water to be able to drip onto because if it goes in there too fast and stirs all that up all the uh nutrients underneath are going to go in the water column which we do not want because that can cause algae in the start it wouldn't matter if you're doing like loads of water changes but we're going to try and do as minimal as possible in this early phase remember it's a self-sustaining ecosystem once it's gone through its sort of bedding in process sometimes that can take a month sometimes I can have it done in two weeks so it'll be interesting to see how long it takes in this one without so many plants to start with so I've got my cander jug thingy again put a rock in it gives it some weight then I'll just place that in the aquarium on top of some uh filter sponge turn it around and that just allows the water to get distributed nice and evenly on top of that sand stops IT stirring

[Music] up I was just filling it up and for hang on didn't I have more stem plants than that and I just remembered I did um prep and plant the ones that are in the easy grow the h r or any of the gloss of stigma so I'll stick that in now luckily we've we not filled up too much and yeah [Music] [Applause] [Music] whoops boom filled up it looks so sparse compared to what I'm used to seeing slight murkiness to it as well as well that is because I had to replant those plants which kicked up a load of dust and obviously there is no filter on it and there's not going to be a filter on it but there will be some movement of the water how am I going to generate that then so I've got a super fish surface skimmer and then a really really coarse uh piece that goes inside as well

basically never gets clogged because it is just so porous which means there's no maintenance that's the whole point of this tank I don't mind using any equipment that you can just keep on and it doesn't require maintenance I mean maybe gets cleaned out once every six months or something I don't know I also wanted some surface agitation um obviously you get surface agitation from the skimmer because it's pulling water in but I wanted a little bit of Ripple especially these lights so what I've done is I've taken the inlet like of the sorry the outlet and I just heated up the bottom and just Twisted it upwards so now the water should shoot upwards it seems a shame to have spotlights like this and not have that ripple effect so hopefully this generates you know a little bit it won't be huge but better than nothing I could use a wave maker as well I haven't got a spare one at the moment but that's an option later on if if you want to use it I don't know yet stick that on actually just go right in the back corner right out the way well saying that the plug won't reach that side plus that looks ridiculous doesn't it just random piece of does yeah it does it

doesn't look great there I'll stick it on the other side because the plugs are that side as well y little Ripple hey nice there we go look looking special and obviously the surface skimmer is great great for Flow gas exchange and cleaning the surface so it's doing three jobs in one you can get a wave maker as well that would also do a job because a WAV maker requires no maintenance you know one like I've got my Mauna tank here is uh really decent it's only little you can barely see it but it generates a lot of movement on the top and because of that movement most of the time you don't get any scum either like there a little little tiny bit of an or slick I can see but I think only I would be able to see that rest of the tank though looking immense you've been fed you greedy Piggies now one last thing I want to do because my wood has been underwater for a long long time it's probably Le released most of its tannins and when you guys get some wood you might find that it releases some depending on the wood you use of course spider wood like this doesn't really release much tannins neither does the manzan that's already

in my tank like this stuff yeah not a lot of tannins at all but big pieces of Driftwood they do release some tannins and if we come in tomorrow and this is like crystal clear and that's not what you guys experience it's not going to be very fair is it so I'm going to put a little bit bug wood in it just to simulate it here we go look here's a fresh piece of aged wood Mangrove wood from superfish that has never been underwater I'm going to stick that in probably going to float actually will you float you just kind of float kind of don't I'll have to put a rock on it there we go look it did sink uh it's quite dense that kind of wood so it was floating because there was a couple of air bubbles trapped inside of it but yeah I'll leave that in there and then that's going to simulate sort of very chunky thick piece of of wood so imagine that spread over I think that's quite a good example of the amount of tannins that will be released so here is the tank on day three day one we set the substrate system all up and we put The Hardscape in which went really really

well yesterday everything was planted we filled the whole thing up with water and then I sabotaged my own tank by adding a proper new piece of dense bogwood in the back that I knew would release a load of tannins which is what we're seeing here all this is the tannins and all of this remember is to create realism I'm not in the habit of like sabotaging my own tanks oh drama no I'd rather do without the headache if I'm honest but I know that this is the scene that a lot of people would come to after filling up their tank for the first time and they come down in the morning now I left the lights on all night and that was just purely so I get all the of the plants sort of standing up we didn't feel it till the end of the day so like technically it said 24 Hours by the end of today and then I'll turn it off yeah I mean 24 hours of light is not going to do anything to a brand new tank so don't worry about that obviously if you got fish in there you don't want them like

oh we just want to go sleep now obviously if we had a big canister filter attached with like activated carbon and polymers and things like that some fine filter floss it would be far less pronounced but filters require maintenance that is not the point of this tank everything we' ' got on it so far is just just going to what's that oh I thought I saw something in the surface schimmer it's just a leaf which means it's doing its job which is good but um yeah I don't want to put anything in the tank that's going to require maintenance I've got spare canister filters don't get me wrong but I just enjoy the challenge I think this is just going to be really fun so what are we going to do about this murkiness then now there's a few options you could just leave it and just enjoy tanning water it will only get more and more sort of brownie it starts off with the of murkiness and then it goes Brown so yeah you could leave it if that's the look you want to go for I'm not particularly a massive fan of it I am on a specific tank that you know that's what you're going for but that's not really what I want in this one so I know the whole point of

this is like self- sustaining no water changes there little you know as possible but that's after the bedding in sort of phase which is going to be a couple of weeks to a month depending on well multiple factors I can't even say cuz sometimes it's really quick and sometimes it isn't I mean I've had it happen in the week before everything settled and looking good so I think what I'll do is I just whip the water down and up again and any tan is released by the wood will be out and then like the mountain that's leeching after that will be far far less and usually one big water change after new wood goes in if it's not like the stuff that's continuously leeching and you've got tons of it is enough to reduce that sort of murkiness completely it doesn't really come back I mean time will tell obviously but before I do the water change I just want to test the water I want to know what's going on are We leeching anything from the substrate system did I put too much soil in that's now causing a ton of nitrite in the water or even nitrate or ammonia or anything like that you know it's good to

have the information [Music] [Music] [Music] so the testing shows we basically got no sign of anything to be honest pH is at seven just just as it is at my tap there's a slightest of hint of green to the ammonia but again that's how it comes out my tap as it normally shows about 0.2 PPM out the tap which I don't maybe it's the coloring of the room the lighting I don't know no nitrite and nitrate is basically at zero maybe the slightest hint there if there is it's

probably coming from the wood that's a good sign it basically means that the capping Lay's worked nothing's leeched into the water and yeah all good we can change the water knowing that everything is decent below it for now anyway obviously there'll be a lot more testing as time goes by just to make sure things especially before we put fish in no that's not the plug there we go okay so nothing complicated at for my water changes just a big piece of like Pond hose it's good diameter as well which means that takes it down nice and quickly I'll just suck on the other end get it flowing there we go water's draining all the auto top off is trying to fill up as fast as it can and yeah to be honest I might as well just take out pretty much all of the water and fill it back up again filling from my water butt here so there's a little pump inside switch that on got a bull valve here and just the end of a this is like the inlet of a filter I just attached some hose to it yeah then just stick it in I would

fill it up like now but I actually want like all of this water to drain out first and then I'll refill it there we go then all sorted and clear for now hopefully the tanins stay low and they don't come back over the next day they might do a little bit but we've reduced a lot of the fine particles as well as the tan is in the water now and depending on how much was in that bogwood will depend on what it looks like tomorrow right so now the uh the lights have been on for a few days we've got all the plants standing upright there's actually some new growth I can see I'll show you in a second but what I like to do in this sort of phase now is adding some floating plants you can do it straight away of course as well but then I'd have less content for this video I'm joking I'm joking no I normally wait a few days like I say cuz more light gets the plant settled in quicker and in that time you're not really going to get get any algae anyway so now we can add them

[Music] I've got a few choices in some of the tanks so we've got red root floaters in this tank here but for some reason in this particular tank Roots don't go too Red I think it's something to do with nitrogen levels or something I'm not entirely sure then in the triple tanks we have got mini Water Lettuce now this one is absolutely brilliant at absorbing nutrients it's so fast and in the tank next door we've got a carpet of duck weed like a couple of pieces got in here

and that is now the result it gives a very greeny look sort of dark greeny look to the tank looks quite cool but I need to fish some of that out fish it out and then there's just mini Water Lettuce in here as well with the bars I'm going for it calm down calm down and then up here in the red tank we've also got some insanely good looking red root floaters but there there's again there's duckweed in there I don't want to put those in although I know it does well under those lights the red root floater so maybe I'll just take a mixture yeah that's a good idea I'll take some of the mini Water Lettuce from this tank and then some of the not so red root floaters from this one and then just see which ones do really well I know the mini water letters will but it's whether or not these go like Nic and red it doesn't matter if they don't they still do the job well now obviously the flow is over at that end so it's it is all going to get pushed down to this side but it doesn't matter and we don't actually have to keep these in here forever like after a period of time of the tank settling in you can sort of reduce it in numbers till eventually if you don't want and you don't have to have them at all because there'll be so

much plant life underwater that it'll just there won't be any chance for algae to take hold but for now yeah should probably not have them just sat in the front like that looks a bit silly but they're going to go where they want and there we go that's really all there is to update for today um it's just a waiting game now letting everything grow in right we're at day five now as you can see looking pretty darn clear no real changes from yesterday apart from the fact that it's got a little bit more clear again we are getting some growth now on the plants already so that Lim the fer you can see all the top parts are really bright that's all new growth same with the Pagan erectus and there's all new sort of shoots on the top of the rotala HR it's green at the moment it does Stay Green for a while until it gets nearer the light and after a few trimmings it then sort of I don't know it changes itself and it starts to become a lot more red but yeah nothing really else to sort of comment on so it's now much later in the the day and like as you can

see most of the tanks well all of the tanks are off actually yeah all the tanks are off was about to leave and I thought you know what I still want to do one thing to the tank so on the tank that was previously in this position I had a load of plants up in this top section it was all uh monstera plants and they got massive root systems coming off of them so I have to give them a trim up but they were lodged behind wood that was like right the way to the surface we don't really have that here so I'm going to have to come up with another system of being able to attach them and this stuff is what I've got in mind I'm thinking undo it obviously straighten it out fold it back on itself twist it all so it becomes thicker and more rigid fold it over and make sort of like a u hook that can uh go on the rim of the aquarium and then I can attach the plants to that hook using velcro strips and then as they grow I can undo the vcro and tie it again bigger

[Music] ch [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh well guys I cannot tell you how glad I am that worked because I miss having the big monster there in this section every time I've come in it's just looked so Bland there because I'm used to this

big explosion of green and I was like H got so used to it under the water though if you're only interested in Aesthetics of a tank then it's probably not very pretty to you you but remember the stem plants are going to grow up to that area anyway but it's more about the sustainability of the tank and with those in with that one in there would be brilliant but with the rest of them in there as well I mean any nitrates nitrite or ammonia it's just not going to stand a chance best way to achieve self-sufficiency is with automatic filtration and that includes the substrate and the plants and the plants that come out the top as well it's going to look awesome [Music] oh yes the show just got a lot better absolutely love that it's just it feels like it's back how it should be again you know it's a bit dark in here but you

get the idea it's like a full-on rainforest creaky thing now love it right I I better go home for now and we're back next day it's actually day seven the last SE segment that you saw was day six I have to keep going back on the edits and things to see what day we're on I should have just remember I'm going to write in the calendar when day one was and then it should be easier but yeah it's day seven and putting in the plants yesterday has affected a tank a little bit you might be able to tell on screen I'm I'm not entirely sure but there's a slight sort of misting going on now and I don't think it's any tannins from the bogwood I think what it is is those plants had all their roots systems in established aquariums and I think they just got covered in beneficial bacteria and once I put them into this one which has no food source currently like there's no ammonia there's no nitrate really well in fact let me just test there we go look test

done is basically saying to us there is nothing in the water in terms of food sources for any beneficial bacteria so we can change that though we can definitely sort that out right now and I'm not talking about fish so this tank here is over fed deliberately and this is why it's deliberately overfed so that we get tons of snails producing now snils tend to get a bad rep in the fish keeping world but I absolutely love them and one of the problems that people seem to have with them well one of the main problems anyway is that they're overproduced now this is the only tank actually I also do it with the tank next door the rainbow fish one but not to the same extent this is the only tank in all of the studio that has got like an overpopulation of snails and why does that happen because we overfeed the tank so like snail population is completely proportionate to the amount of food that they're getting like if there isn't enough food the population sustains itself and I

guess the fastest snails get the food now the reason I over producing this one is just for reasons like this where I can come along grab a load and then populate another tank now if the problems people have with snails is true then wouldn't all of the tanks be overrun with snails but they're not and they also add a ton of other benefits as well I mean they're going around they're collecting up any waste any waste food but they'll also munch on pretty much anything so yeah I just think they're fantastic and I think they're a key reason and why a lot of my tanks do really well as an ecosystem so here we go then the first life going in to the aquarium quite a few snails there but it is a big tank don't you go slow motion and they'll just sort of huddle around for a little bit and then spread across the whole aquarium and what they're going to do that's really good is they're just going to pick out any sort of dead leaves or anything that's not converting well to being

underwater that wasn't underwater before like that there which is a bit a muck from the roots of the monstera they'll eat that in and amongst that gloss of stigma there there's the odd brownie looking patch you know patches of brown that's like decaying matter they they'll eat all that off they'll leave the good stuff and only eat the bad stuff oh yeah that's another thing as well people often say snails eat your plants they don't eat your plants trust me they I've got a lots of plant tanks there wouldn't be any plants left they don't eat the plants they eat the bad part of the plants so if you see them on your plants munching it's because there's a corner that's gone a bit bad or there's something bad on the plant and they're helping you and they're getting rid of it I guess when you think of all of that and combine it snells for the wind surely I think I should probably uh probably stop doing this as well what's going on beautiful people it is day nine and you might notice I'm wearing the same clothes as I was wearing in the last video because I am disgusting although it's day 9 it's actually after lunchtime because I've

been working on another tank but something's coming in the post but anyway look what has arrived in the post this is an auto water top off system apparently I mean it's pretty small I think You' got to provide your own tank for it to come like draw from obviously but yeah it looks pretty simple it was £50 or $60 55 whatever which you know isn't cheap really but I wanted to get something that worked not that the other one didn't work it just didn't work the Pepsi one it didn't work for this volume of tank it's no it's not designed for it but we gave it a try and then we stepped up our game so let's take a look at this why am I juggling it so much oh my goodness it's so bright today but I now have a secret weapon la la la la la and I can now film to my heart's content with no issue it also means that

I can film The 8ot whenever I want hang on one of the lights has gone off oh oh yeah it's the end of the day nearly most of the lights will go off soon but we've still got so much to do [Music] that's a lot of boxes okay I know there's a load of box throwing and rubbish throwing there but I do do that for a reason like I just get everything out the way apart from the things I actually need to work on there's a decent amount of stuff here to be fair and this is that really high quality squidy tubing so that is good I mean you'd expect higher quality for the pricing wouldn't you even this little pump feels a lot better than the usual ones you get of that size 217 L per hour 200 CM maximum height which is 2 m so we'll be absolutely fine yes so I think this is one where I should actually read the instructions put it together and

explain how it works afterwards because I don't want to mess this up and come in in one morning it's just all the water's just everywhere right I've sused it out it's actually pretty simple so you've got your pump that goes to this little junction box which gives it power then you've got another wire which is obviously the sensor that goes to the float then you've got your hose with a check valve on the end that can attach inside the tank as well which then connects to the pump when the signal sent that the water level's low the pump turns on sends the water up trickles it in when it activates the top float to say that it's enough it cuts the power off nice and simple I just need a vessel now for the water and I mean it's not like I haven't got any to choose from that's a lot of Nano tanks I'm going to use them all at some point though and here is the space that I've got to work with so lots and it works out as a

80 in width 40 in depth about 50 High which to be fair is the exact dimensions of that tank but I don't want to waste the tank just for put water in I can just use a tub can't I yeah I've got this empty box out here which needs cleaning but you know it hold water W it [Music] I wasn't expecting to be cleaning a tub this afternoon right water supply sorted kit figured out I'm going to get it all fitted now probably easy to unplug it all and then redo it when it's in its spot and then we should be good for that perfect water level moving forward you can already see since uh I last filled it up can you hang on that's 3 or 4 days worth of evaporation and before you smart cookies comment I know I'm still going to have to top up the top up but what that does mean is the actual

tank itself is going to stay self-sufficient and looking perfect for longer I think this tub's going to last a good couple of weeks I mean time will tell so there's quite a bit of movement over this side of the tank with the flow disturbing of surface not a huge amount and I'm not sure if that makes much of a difference but I'm going to put it on this side anyway completely still more accurate [Music] [Music] [Music] okay everything is fitted everything's switched on as far as I can tell so if the water level drops it should bring the bot botom float down and that means it should fill right well let's try it

so bottom float down yay I heard it click on and it fills up oh and it goes off again when the float gets up to the right area of the sensor it's so easy I can't believe that like I've actually wanted to do this for quite some time but I've always been put off by thinking oh it's complicated or it could like not work and could take age like how fast was that did it in 5 minutes might be something that I want to do on my uh big 8ft tank CU that one loses water fast and takes ages to fill up fast because it's a bigger surface area so we are on day 11 and this is the first day that I've noticed some significant changes actually obviously it's been happening the whole time but like noticeable the first thing to know is that all of the plants are growing for example if we look down here at the halian tenum all of those bright green leaves are brand new and it's trying to send Runners as well for instance this whole outcrop is all brand new growth that has come from the middle section that's why it's again all sort of vibrant and green perfect

example there is that Runner the plant is sending which means that it won't be too long until it's covering everywhere if we've had that much sort of new additional growth in just 11 days by a month it should have covered the whole surface of the substrate and surprisingly the Crips are doing really well I say surprisingly because sometimes when you put Crips in they just melt off and then you only get the new growth but the old leaves are staying decent then if you look just in the center there there's a new Leaf coming up a brand new underwater growing Leaf which means they're really liking the substrate system yeah I'm really happy with that it's just going to look gorgeous when they all start sort of sprouting what happens is you tend to get a few leaves like this and everything and then before you know it everything goes nuts the limb the feel at the back look is now as high as the uh surface skimmer so I think I'll give it another another four more days it'll be near the surface I can trim it and then replant it to thicken out that section even more the lgia has got really cely red tips now that's growing decently going to take a little bit more

time but once it gets going another plant that's really quick and you can just about see the growth on the uh hatr the back there obviously it's lower light right down there so it takes a little bit longer but they got nice thick submersed leaves on them they're going to sprout up very quickly as well the most recent plant put in just a few days ago is the rotala wiii and look at those tips that's all the new underwater growth so this is growing really well don't know if the camera is picking it up but at the moment there's just a little bit of algae on the glass it's not huge um I'm just going to leave it CU I want to see how it goes you know if it just like clears itself up it makes sense actually cuz it's only over this part of the tank here now there's extra light coming from that tank and then this side is where all the floating plants are sitting so that actually makes sense you can sort of see it a bit better when you look down from the side of the tank we've got some tannins released obviously as you can see there there's a slight yellow tinge to the tank but I'm just going to leave it hopefully it clears itself it probably won't though cuz tannins don't tend to

come out of the water unless you're changing the water obviously it's particles I'm assuming it's particles anyway um but which won't evaporate only proper pure water evaporates minerals and sediment and things like that is left behind but for now I don't want to spoil anything by changing it or having to do anything because the whole point is that it's self- sustaining and if I'm cleaning the glass every two seconds and changing out the water that's not really the point of it is it one plant that's not doing well though is up here look you can see that the Amazon frog bit is just kind of like oh hang on let me turn down the brightness if I can yeah you can see it's got those sort of whitish leaves um and they're sort of rotting away and I think that is because it's such powerful Lighting in this area that the leaves don't like it so all that's going to do is put excess nutrients in the water and that's the complete opposite of what we want them to do so I'll take those out but I tell you a plant that is doing well look is the redroot floaters look at all these new shoots coming up all red as well so all of the redder sort of ones you can see

dotted about are new and the green ones were what they were like originally now redroot floaters they really like highlighting more like like pure midday sun and that is what we're getting with the lamini lights and that is why it's probably too strong for the mini Water Lettuce but not to worry at least we've you know put two in see which one works and we'll go with the red root floaters and they're even starting to get some of those red roots coming that that takes a little bit of time but it will happen and the auto top up that's been running for several days now and I you can see perfectly level it's actually a joy that you don't even have to worry about it if I only had like two or three tanks in my home I definitely get this for every single one of them it just keeps it looking good all the [Music] time so basically the amount of work done on the tank now in the first 11 days is one water change which was instantly don't know why I'm counting um that wasn't actually necessary I only

did it for aesthetic reasons because filming a tank that's got tannin in is actually really hard like it just the the camera doesn't know what white balance to pick and you got to try and man anyway that's just another story so I did a water change didn't need to do it but I wanted to do it you guys might want to as well you know not everyone wants like brown water in their tanks it's good for the fish a lot of the time and it's good for the plants I mean it brings the PH down but quite a lot of people don't want to see that because most people walk in and go oh your tank is dirty when it's actually really good and then the second thing I've done workwise is take out those plants that's it for 11 days and the tank is looking great so so far I'd say that's pretty darn self-sufficient and now that I know the plants are like bedded in the roots are obviously taking up nutrients because Crips and things like that are growing well they don't really feed from the water column so they they must be getting their nutrients I'm going to add some fertilizer now after day 11 just one whole cup full and that should be enough now this is still work isn't it

adding that in is work it's something to remember so at some point probably within the next week or so I'm going to get an auto doser to go with the auto top up and the auto feeder when the fish are in as well so truly self-sufficient so it is day 14 of the self sustaining tank and this tank is probably one of the best starts I've actually had out of anything really maybe not the 8ot we have had so much good growth now over those well 40 well technically I planted on like day two so 13 days look at that lmil in the back there it's so far up bear in mind it was right down about there when we planted it the wiii was only planted like 6 days ago 7 days ago and look at all the new tips on the top like the reflection you can see it a bit more you see the difference between the underwater growth and the out ofwat growth that is doing really well I'm really pleased with that cuz I've not used that plant for quite a while I'm looking forward to getting some really nice stems of it the p and erectus at

the back again shooting up as is the rotala hatra as well fully converted now and the red tips on top of the lgia pusta super red look properly going red now we're away really and look at all the runners in the helian tenm look runner runner runner runner runner it's just sending shoots out everywhere so there I'm really really excited for like the future of the tank cuz once you get to this stage where we're at now everything just accelerates like way quicker those first two weeks are normally when you run into problems with algae diatoms that kind of thing we seem to have completely Got Away of it in this tank the only bit of algae I can see is this little patch on the glass that hopefully you can see as I sort of move up and down but it was worse than that and it's already dropping off every morning when I come in the snails are on it there's one there getting to work and of course I could just really quickly come in here now and just take a blade to it and get it off but I'm trying to refrain from doing that because I just want to see how it progresses and be able to like sort of document it and

show you guys as well so so 14 days the only bit of grime on the tank is this patch around here of a little bit of like green spot or dust algae the water level at the top L is still spot on and the container for the auto top off has barely really gone down so yeah excellent news that's going to last a long time now a few people were saying that the uh the water tub down here that contains the water for the top off system should be RO water because of a mineral buildup or something from tap but the whole thing was filled up with tap water and I've always just topped up with tap water and I don't have any problems anywhere else if you know what I mean so the TDS of my water is about 100 from the tap between 90 and 100 I never seem to get any problems with mineral buildup or anything like that and nitrates it stayed pretty low on all the tanks so yeah I'm just going to carry on with the tap water cuz if it ain't broke then then don't fix it is the end of that sentence even the Java ferns which funnily enough is one of the

plants I struggle most with if I'm honest uh is sending out new leaves look at that one in the middle that's a brand new Leaf that's come out as well so every single plant is just growing fantastic really pleased with it one thing I am noticing though is that in and amongst the halian tenum is like slight little bit of diatoms collecting now there's only one thing that would really get rid of that without like disturbing all the plants and ripping them up hopefully you can see in the shot it's not incredibly obvious it looks like just darker sand but it's not it's like a a buildup of sort of particles and things and the way we combat it is with these guys am Mano shrimp so I've got quite a lot in this tank way more than is actually needed considering how established it is so I can pinch a few out of there and just switch them across probably only need about three and then there'll be enough of a food source in this whole tank now after 2 weeks for them to be able to munch on it without having to feed the tank at all so just done a test for ammonia and nitrite everything is showing perfect as you'd expect I mean

it was pretty much just after a few days to a week as well which means we can actually get some life in this tank other than the snails don't forget the snails sorry guys sorry you little thing [Music] sorry so I've managed to catch out four um two big MERS and then I think two males one of them's full of eggs as well well and four is a really good number to start with if we need any more than we can I can add them in now because the temperates match you know we know the levels are all good cuz we've tested them it's all good to put them in now something else that I want to add in is two of the black mollies a male and a female reason being well two reasons actually first one being they proved that they're very good at algae eating

like from hard surfaces these rocks are completely clear and they're always sort of sort of munching them the other thing is that I never see any of the Molly babies I mean they're life bearers there's lots of males and females every now and again I see one or two but I think they all get eaten by the sword tails so if I move a male and a female across they can start a little population in there which would be awesome and we get the added benefit of keeping the algae down if if there is any I mean so far we've been really really good better than I would expect at the two we stage but sometimes you just get lucky like that and other times you can have the most disgusting tank you ever seen but that happens less frequently nowadays um just because the systems I set up seem to work really well okay so male versus fit white there's a male right there in the center of the screen when he turns to the side you can sort of see a spiky fish Willie he's got fish Willie underneath and just like Guppies the females have like a a rounded bottom fin so there's a male there and there's a

female the side I'm pretty sure is hard looking for there's one definitely that one has got sort of got like a bloated belly as well so it's probably pregnant it's probably the one we want now mollies tend to be very good at evading capture so I've got the double net method here and uh where's that female Gone Big male big male right there she is I think she's that one in the middle so I've got to try and COA her towards one of the Nets I'll probably catch a bunch of others in the same time as well but oh that was easy I got her okay now I can just keep the the net here under the water can pick out the female and then put her in this pot you go I can put all the sword tails back simple as that now I get the mail as well so that is a really nice male and female pair hopefully we get babies very

quickly they're going to love this so to start with when they go into the back we are not going to see them at all with that black background but eventually when all the stems are up in that and on the foreground hundreds of babies everywhere we'll see lots of them there's the little Rano look getting to work straight away it's exactly the area I want them in so it's now the next morning and already I can tell the amanos have come out and done their job in between all of the Hal tenum was like fluffy sort of brownness before and now they have cleared an absolute ton of it it's looking a lot more clear I did just see them at the front but I kind of scared them off when I came close to the tank these guys seem per perfectly happy which is good and the female there look this one big round belly on the bottom of her and that's not food so hopefully there oh Amano hello my friend thank you thank you for your service overnight one thing I'm noticing though that I need to fix so if you see down low right in the middle there that's where we've got the

rala HRA and we've got it that side going all the way behind the wood as well well these pieces over this side are not getting barely any light and that one in fact is starting to sort of Wilt away the reason for that this Leaf here is obviously trying to grow towards the light because that's how things work so what I've been doing like take this one for instance is just twisting it back and locking it behind another leaf and then it sort of tries to grow up that way rather than towards this light so I'll have to keep doing that you just have to pay attention and keep twisting stuff out the way I say that I obviously haven't been paying attention have I because the RO TI at the bottom there isn't doing great but that'll fix it yeah if I H how can I do this so that it stays tuck it around the back like that there we go perfect much more lit up just like the rest of them now and to be honest once they get up a little bit further like another couple of inches then they're hitting the sweet spot for the light intensity and they'll really

start going nuts this is quite cool though see that there look at that leaf in the middle that's a brand new bobus Leaf so they start off quite spindly and then those leaves will just sort of unfurl and go nice and big that's really cool it means the B Bas is working well in this setup as well as the Java ferns but it is literally taking every piece of willpower inside of me not to clean this glass not just yet anyway I want to see how it sort of goes there is three more fish that I want to put in here as part of the cleanup crew I think the four Manos already proved work great I mean there's one there right now so this area can stay clean with just one and the rest can work on the rest of the tank there we go look that's exactly what they do just pter patter along like that all day picking up the diatoms so the final part of the cleanup crew and just for a bit more interest as well is free autosyn lless yay so they're glass cleaners well there any surface cleaners really but eventually when the surfaces are clean

they will go on the glass as well so another thing that will help with that now why three of them well they're quite social one seems a bit sort of cruel especially when they've been in a group of three already two it's a big tank so probably not enough and free you always find give it a minute and all three of them will find each other again and they just hang around in groups of free even when I put six in or even more you'll find little pockets of freeze just dotted around the tank which is quite sweet look straight away these two have found each other and they're together and that's what I mean they're quite social so yeah if you're going to get Autos if you can get free you know it's it's a really good number in a big tank like this though I'll probably get some more get like more like six eventually but is good to start so when it comes to a cleanup crew that doesn't seem like a lot right and a lot of the time people go and get a cleanup crew don't know why I did that uh because when their tank is already like obliterated in alga and problems don't do that you don't want to do that like this sort of stage a week

to two in depending on how the tanks reacting is a really good time to add any sort of cleanup crew and Al eers because they're not going to be able to like combat a problem that's going absolutely crazy like but that point you need to get in there manually and remove stuff and maybe use some chemicals I use a gluto alide API CO2 booster things get really rough but you should be on it before that point and sometimes you're not and that's fine but you need to manually remove and then you want to add in your algae eaters because they basically constantly graze on background algae rather than like being able to combat a complete Aly Fest in the whole tank I mean you could do that but you'd need a lot of them and when it was gone they would have any food left so a cleanup crew is more about grazing on background algae rather than combating a really bad problem and another good point is that you know if you're putting in just a couple of fish especially in a tank this size technically your fish in cycling now the ammonia produced by

these fish you know their waste in an aquarium that's two weeks one week to two weeks old it's got loads of planting is really flourishing is going to be negligible and any ammonia or nitrate produced by such a small number of fish is going to be consumed so fast by the plants it's going to help them grow it's going to cycle the tank it's going to be all good and you might find after another week that it's not quite combatting the problem as much you want and you can add a few more if you want as well so it's a win-win in terms of a cleanup crew because they do a job for you really well they also add a ton of interest to the tank because it's all right having really good shry offy fish but sometimes it's just interesting to come right down and look at what the Little Critters are doing and just enjoy them for their own sort of beauty and interest as well really some something as simple as a Ramson snil can be quite interesting well to me it is anyway right it is day 16 oh my goodness 16 days has flown by fast but I'm still so pleased with everything look at this the

amanos are now out in force that foreground is super clean now I actually added more to the tank so we put the original four in that I transferred over from this tank here and then when I was breaking down the guppy tank that's up on this whole sort of rack I found four more inside of this aquarium and I thought what better place than over there and I say over there because it is this way yeah so that's a total of eight Amano shrimp two black mollies which to be honest aren't necessary for like algae eating or Cleanup Crew but I just think they're really nice and I want to breed them and the babies are not surviving in there eight Amano shrimp and about six Autos would be perfect I need three more autos for this tank and I just found one more that I found on the fish wall did he go in yeah he did go in oh there's a tiny bit of duckweed there we do not want duckweed in this it would be impossible to get it out with the roots at the top so the tank itself is definitely getting more and more murky like a little bit it's just the wood

releasing the tanins hopefully that water top off and dilution over time will make it go I'm resisting everything in me to change some of the water and to clean the glass but the glass is actually getting clear itself now that we got the uh the algae eaters in there it was way more pronounced I don't know if it you should be able to see on the camera if I move sort of like that look against the black background and uh it's going to be gone I'm not going to scrape it I'm going to completely leave it I just I want to leave it alone really want to change the water L but I won't what's going on beautiful people so yesterday I posted the latest video of it not yesterday as you're seeing it but yesterday from now I posted the last video of the self sustaining tank here now in that video I asked you the question should I do a water change the murkiness is annoying me um I'm happy to go on if you guys want to but if you say we can change we can change and I've had some thoughts a lot of people didn't want me to and they saying just leave it now leaving the tank would not be detrimental to it at all there is

nothing wrong with the water quality it's just got a haze to it some people are saying just keep leaving and in time it will go it's a bacterial Bloom and it balances out over time but this is 100% not a bacterial Bloom it is definitely the tannins in the water now they do not go over time they're just in the water as we top up the tank all it does is stay in the water you're not diluting it in any way the only way to get it out is to take it out either by water change or some other measure and I've thought of some other measure that I don't feel like Breaks the Rules of the tank rules put in place by myself of course so the tank has now been running a best part of the month and the TDs is reading 135 it's about 100 out of the tap so yeah it's it's gently Rising which is as you'd expect because we're putting minerals into it and they're not coming out yeah the auto topup system is from tap water now I would expect the TDS to go up but it probably would have gone up even more if not for the fact

that we've had floating plants have been removed and as time goes by and all the stem plants and everything get too big for the tank and we've already done our replanting again you're trimming minerals and everything like that you're basically trimming them and pulling them out so the TDS will stabilize at a level I mean it has done in all the other tanks I've ever done and all I've ever done is top them up with tap water now if you're starting off with an incredibly High TDS um you're going to again see it creep up now TDS doesn't necessarily always mean bad we don't know what the total breakdown is of the total dissolve solids do we we're just we're just taking an arbitrary number and just watching it go up and down I've seen plenty of Tanks where people have got high TDS and do really well seems to be a huge amount of emphasis on it and yes I will agree if you're topping up continuously with water and you're not removing anything from the tank it probably will just continue to rise without any water changes a big water change should set it back to where it is at the to or somewhere there in between because you're diluting the water effectively but I don't want to do that on this tank I just want to keep it in

there and not change the water so how can we get around that where's my box of Tricks secret weapon so I have got an internal filter that's stuck down we've got some Crystal Clear which is basically it's like activated carbon it's got some zealite and things like that in it I'll bag that up stick that in there run it for like a few days and it should clear [Music] everything so now I can just place the filter in the side here I think I'll slide it around a

little bit to the back so it's not so in your face and then I can just plug it in seems pretty good there's a fair amount of flow there you can see I mean it's not affecting the fish they'll be absolutely fine it's blowing the uh it's blowing the plants in this corner a little bit but nothing too bad I mean we need a certain amount of you know turnover in the water to be clean it so that's a good amount of carbon in there packed full and a fast turnover now I'm going away for a few days over the weekend with my family for a little trip now hopefully when I come back this is going to be clear fingers crossed and if it is we can remove it we don't need to keep it in there and it's just something I can stick in as and when needed but hopefully once these Tanners are gone it shouldn't come back and if it does it'll be like a very very slow gradual thing well I'm back I'm back for my break with the family it's day 33 so it's been about 4 days since I left voila

hey it's clean it's proper clear looks like a completely different tank and guess what still no water change didn't do it just just plugged that in the little filter before I left and I've come back and it's like this I'm so glad it worked but there's no need now to keep it in I I didn't want to keep it running in there um I I know it's not hurting but eventually it will need cleaning out don't want to have to do that so it was just put as a as a measure to get it clear take it out now and we can see then as well if it does stay clear have I removed all the tanins that were able to come out of that wood or will I still need to put it in another time oh that's awesome though this will now be known as my tanin remover device now everything's locked in so it shouldn't like come out as I take it out I'll be quick though there we go little bit of Gunk but nothing major all the auto top off's gone off cuz obviously I remove removed a volume from the tank so that's topping up interesting to see

where that's sitting how are we doing for water still loads left I mean well halfway down but ages ago I actually filled that up so it's going so well and it's just past lunchtime and I heard the old fertilizer dripping in so that's been working well as well everything's running so smooth even the glass is looking really clear as well I don't know if you can tell but there's like the tiniest little amount on it and if you look there's these little specks and what are they they are baby snails this is why I say to you guys snails are so important they just keep everything great ram horn snails breed fast and if there's enough food for the young they'll all grow up and by food I mean like waste material and algae well there's not a lot of waste material because the amanos have cleared everything on the substrate now but there was this algae on the glass which these guys are feasting on and getting bigger and bigger and that's perfect it'll find its own little equilibrium and we have just the right amount of

snails for background algae oh what a win okay so it might be interesting now that we've like taken that out and taking out the cloudiness to see the TDS see if it's affected anything so my tap water's 100 remember last reading was like 13 something was it yeah I think it's now reading 142 so it's up slightly to be honest I expect that's the dusting in the carbon and things like that going into the water so it hasn't removed moved anything but that's fine I mean that number is way below what would be considered too much I mean people like I say people have said to me they've had a thousand TDS before and perfectly grown plants so that's all good for me and I just want to make it absolutely clear I am not one of those people that's like water changes aren't needed I am very much if a water change is needed then do a water change but I didn't want to do it on this just for the sake of it and I've showed that I didn't need to a lot of people thinking the Merc might have

been from like bacteria blooms and that and clearly it was just the tannins because it wouldn't have done this otherwise obviously like with my experience now I can see the difference between a bacterial Bloom and the tannins in the water because it wasn't so harsh that it looked completely brown but it was enough for me to see that yeah that's definitely tanning so the right cool we've cleaned up the water TDs is still sitting at a really good number as well still not added any water to the tank and also not cleaned it at all not changed any water so yeah the experiment continues 33 days nothing really done I'd say we had a little trimup session for a few minutes and then spent a few minutes just putting together that filter and putting it in brilliant I have noticed though that some of the limna fil that we replanted has broken off there and also down the bottom there's one that's looks strangely upside down now either I planted it upside down or it's come loose and it's just sort of tried to float up so we'll put that back in and also the stuff from before is hitting

the surface again I think the Wii needs a trim if I'm honest because that's reaching the surface as well so a couple of Trims on those and some replants in this corner I think I'll add a nice little section over there that's like bushier than the rest and sort of tapers off eventually it's going to be green all down here as well but yeah look at this look at the plants down here the helanthium tenum Now is really taking over look at these Runners they're just all in the foreground as well filling all the gaps that's exactly what we want to see I just want it to be a whole complete grassy sort of carpet to be honest that I don't have to maintain it's not like well if you look at the pear weed tank next to it I have to trim that so so often whereas this one I'll never have to trim if I don't want to that is so we are now on day 44 not a lot has happened in a tank since the last Clips I showed you but I've come in this morning and I've noticed something really cool as you can see here just under this Leaf we have got a baby black Molly and you know how these things work

if there's one baby there has has to be more surely there's more now truth be told I did notice a few babies a few days ago now just as I was leaving and I thought oh I'll get that on video tomorrow I came in in the morning and I could not see any of them at all but this has to be from that group because I doubt very much the uh mom's given birth since then and it looks a little bit bigger than the ones I originally saw probably about double the size now in just a few days actually now it's about four or five days so that would make sense now on that day where I did see the babies there was a lot there had to be like 20 to 30 babies I saw there was loads all swimming around in this area and I saw a load over in this area as well like two different groups and then the next day in the morning I could not see any of them so either a lot of them got picked off maybe by their own parents I'm not sure if they do that um it would make sense as to why I don't see a lot of babies in this tank next door as well which I've recently trimmed so it's looking a little bit rough but

yeah I mean it's good that only the strongest or smartist will survive cuz otherwise this tank would just be overrun with black mollies and it could well be that the reason I didn't see any the next day is because the ones that stayed out in the open they got eaten the Smart Ones that stayed right down low like you just saw they can potentially survive there's another one or might even be the same one hopefully there's more than one though I would like a good few where you going little buddy stay down there it's another reason though why carpet imp plants are so good because babies can get right down there like this little baby swel they stay there until they're big enough and then they can come out in the open and not get obliterated by the adults so yeah that's really nice to see because I do want more fish in this tank now and the ones I've got planned I think we're ready to put them in but in fact we wasn't ready because after I made that clip I realized I was late was supposed to be going on holiday so I had to stop everything and leave but now I'm back a week later everything is still good but there's a slight haste of the water and I think that's because when I put the

bristle did I tell you guys I put one bristle in here there he is at the back I put him in when I uh changed out the 8ot you can see in the background there and uh sometimes he goes around and does a little bit of under Rock digging and it kicks up some dust now because we haven't got a filter it takes quite a while for all that dust to settle by the time it has he tends to kick it up again but it's not a problem we're not seeing any of the uh sort of tannins in the water that's the main thing I didn't want but a little bit Haze every now and again from the bristl nose enjoying himself not a problem oh there we go look you can see we still got our baby as well I think that's the same one it might not be there might be several I mean it's more than likely there are several but anyway it's time to add in a feature fish to the tank uh or a schooling fish actually oh I just just walked into the ladder so this tank here is currently a holding tank for a lot of fish that going to be going in 8 foot all of the big fish you can see there they're all going in there soon once we got a bit more growth in there but behind them you can see we have got an absolute ton of Cardinals and there's

some Neons in with them as well I just kept them together because it just felt right now I need to catch all these out which is going to be quite difficult there's a lot of plants in there there's a lot of floating plants i' got to get those out first or there is no chance I mean the whole surface is taken up with many water lettuce and red root floaters but they will not be wasted I will bag them up and take them to the shop so you guys can buy them if you're near made of head Aquatics taunted they do for a really good price as well and nice big bags there we go loads cleared off the surface we can see properly now there is a lot of cardinals they're going to look great in that tank that is of course the tank they were originally in with the uh red devil angel fish that you can see here but they're going to be going in the 8 foot with the other angels we got in here as well and I'm going to be using all of this valson area for another tank coming soon which involves the Congo puffers that many of you would have seen in a previous video where I went back to maina head Aquatics Martin is saving them for me and I can't wait to build that but for now I've got to get out all these Cardinals it's not going to be easy but I'll try my best well it actually went a lot smoother

than I thought there are a couple back left back there it's about four or five I reckon but they're very difficult to catch I'm just going to wait till they relaxed a bit more they seem to be the more intelligent of the group and every time I put the net in there they just hide so I'm going to wait till they all relaxed maybe put some food in I'll get them in a later day I used the double net method so I took one net from one side herded them into one area then use two Nets to scoop them all up I didn't get it in one go don't get me wrong it took about five or six Scoops got a good collection there though let's get them in there let's get them back in the tank they're originally in chunks is very interested what on Earth is going on here don't worry buddy it's not concerning you right then let's get these bad boys in Now with uh with Neons you do tend to get a few that pretend to be sleepy for a minute it's kind of like a shock thing oh that looks good I knew they'd look good in this tank something about them popping against mostly green they're all behaving very nicely yes we're all good do you know what I mean though sometimes you get some of the neon they'll float to the bottom and

just pretend that they're unconscious and then like in two seconds they're fine I've had that before a little bit of crud in the water there but that'll settle down most of them currently in that corner they go on the back oh yeah look at the lgia pus as it all grows closer to the light now we're getting more and more red it's compact it's really nicely compact actually more than I would expect but I guess it's cuz it's got enough lighting you tend to get leggy plants when you haven't got a higher lighting because the plants reach for the light but that's staying really nicely Compact and you can see the rotala h r is now getting red tips to it so the closer that grows to the light now the better it's going going to get and that goes all around the way around the back so the idea was that this whole tank would have like mostly green everywhere and then there's just nice red section at the back there and it's not going to be long before we're seeing that even better so it has now been 5 months since the setup and I'm sure you're wondering did it work how's it all going well I am very pleased to be able to tell you that the whole tank has

just got better and better and better as the time has gone by the immersed plants at the top the Monera and the devil's IV has just grown more and more and it's now a complete jungle right on top of the tank and I really do love how it makes a tank look having plants coming out the top it just brings extra height and just gives a massively better overall impression all of the fish are really really happy in here now we've got Cardinals a few Neon Tetra of course and we've got the two mollies and there is a baby Molly dotted around as well I was tempted to put in a feature fish but the whole balance is just there everyone's doing great and I didn't feel the need every single plant is doing fantastic it's probably one of the most successful planted tanks that I've ever done in terms of health of everything and I have not done a single bit of Maintenance in this tank now for several months it just hasn't been needed and the whole thing just looks fantastic I'm so pleased with the outcome so how have we managed to get this tank to work then well it's a combination of everything

involved from the substrate system to the cleanup crew and you as well Mr bristle knows the immersed plants the floating plants which are constantly having to be pulled out because they just cover the whole surface otherwise but we want that we want them growing so fast that you have to routinely take them out to be fair that is the only maintenance I've been doing just taking out some floating plants from the top and then giving them to the shop to swap for fish and not to forget the autod dosing system which has been brilliant because I've never seen my plants this vibrant which I think probably goes to show I need to start dosing more in my other aquariums as well not that they're bad it's just that this is top top tier the halaman tenum has pretty much spread everywhere not to a full carpet yet but I think given another 5 months it definitely would be and I am going to keep this tank running it'll be nice to have one aquarium where I just completely leave it and let it do its own thing anyway I hope that you've enjoyed this one guys and it's giving you some inspiration as always I'm going to leave you now with some great shots of the tank [Music]

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