Anyone do a low tech soil tank?

[charlie]

As the title say`s , is there anyone here that keeps a low tech soil substrate planted tank,if you would share your experience & tips  i would be grateful.
I have done a fair bit of reading on it , both from Diana Walstad & Tom Barr`s version, but it does not hurt to have local feedback on it.
Thanks

[jetstream]

Soil is my all time favour  no matter it's a low tech, high tech, cheap soil or the $ kiln fired soil setup! I do have 2 tanks using soil now, One was using regular potting soil in clay pots, one is using kiln fired dirt. This past weekend, I just re-done 1/2 of the tank by replaced the clay pots with other containers because the clay pots were too tall and occupied too much tank space. The following is the picture that I took of the container/setup right after water change.



The two caves next to the container is my pleco apartment.


The container is a veg. salad box from Loblaws/Superstore. I found the size is perfect! It provides lots of surface area and enough depth for both soil and gravel/sand substrate. If you changed your mind or need to replace the soil, just take the container up and replace whatever you want to do. It's simple and easy.
I poked few holes close to the bottom to let the water get out when I saturated the soil with water. From my experience, it's much easier heat up a screwdriver and melts the plastic. The BPA plastic will crack if you punch it too hard. You can also get a cheap plastic container from dollar store.  My previous setup lasted more than 6 months. The reasons that I changed  the setup were, I was too smart and lazy put in way too much trace element  in the soil. I killed my favour Red flame sword and stunned the Special Red sword!  But you will be surprised if you saw the  Blyxa Japonica. Another reason that I made the change is: I want to create some space at front, so that I can take pictures of my fancy plecos later on. 

When it's time to replace the soil, you can use a hose siphon the substrate on top and keep it for next use! Give it a try and sure you will be surprised by the result!   


Happy plants keeping!

Cheers,

[HappyGuppy]

I know this is an old thread, but I've been away from ovas for a very long time, and I want to reply to this anyways.

I actually have a great deal of experience with soil tanks.  If interested I can share a lot about this subject.  Here, in a brief nutshell, are my tips.

Be sure to have at least an inch of sand to cap the soil substrate, otherwise your tank will be a huge mess.  When planting really think things through where you want things to be... you don't want a heavy shifting of plants around.  Plucking a plant will make a plume of cloudy water - ok if you are just doing a couple at a time.  I had one 30g soil tank, no tech.  It was great for amazing plants.

In the end I transitioned to pots.  I used the red clay pots (plugged bottom hole), ceramic pots, coconuts (great to attach moss to shell, though boil the shell a few times to leach tannins), and I've even used plastic food containers.  IMHO pots are the best way to go with soil substrates (capped with sand).  Easy to move things around, pull pots out and do your gardening outside of the tank to avoid plumes in the water column.  One tank I had gravel, and shallow plastic pots (trimmed yogurt containers) that I capped with the same gravel & piled the gravel around to make the pots invisible.  Honestly that is IMHO the best way to do it, and what I would recommend to just about anyone.

The soil tanks, with good lights, made my best plants ever with hardly any algae, unlike when I used to dose tanks with fertilizers.  Cheap.  Easy.  Amazing results.