I Made A Self Balancing Ecosystem Aquarium (Substate & Hardscape)

Today we're making an ecosystem tank, which is my favorite thing to do. And the reason for that is because I'm lazy and I don't have to do much work to it. But that's not completely true. It's not fully that I'm lazy. It's what I mean by that is that I get maximum enjoyment out of being able to set something up and then sit back and let it just do its own thing and look after itself. To do that, you kind of have to take away quite a lot of the mechanical aspect because all of that requires maintenance and cleaning and things like that. By taking that away, you're letting the system that you create inside the glass box do all of the work or most of the work, should we say, because if you're going to keep fish or any animal, there's always going to be a little bit of work, but I can get it to a point now where there's not much at all. I'm not trying to do this really to save costs, although that does happen, or to like actually not have to do it because I've got plenty of tanks where I do do lots of work too, and I do enjoy those as well. But the most reward I get is just sitting back after the hard work's done initially and then just watching it completely flourish. There's something like, I guess it's playing God a little bit on a smaller scale, and you just get to just enjoy it do its own thing. And like I say, I've got lots of tanks that do require loads of work, and some people really enjoy that aspect of it as well, especially when you're new in the hobby, you're like constantly looking at your tank, constantly wanting to tinker with it. That's completely normal. But as time goes by and people sort of, other aspects of their lives take over, that will become less and less, and to the point where stuff will start going a bit downhill because it requires like constant cleaning of things. And then that's when people just drop out of the hobby, which really what I don't want to happen, especially when I know you can set something up so that it does pretty much look after itself. I'm talking a few hours, if that, once a month, and you can get a tank looking absolutely brilliant, long-term. So the way I see it, there's a couple of types of tank. There's a self-balancing tank, which is what we're going to create, an ecosystem effective. Everything's an ecosystem in a sense. You've got open and closed ones, but a self-balancing tank is what I like to call it because even if like say you've got a tank that's high tech, real high lighting, you've got CO2, you've got massive filtration in there. If there's a power cut, very quickly, that's probably going to go quite wrong. You might even need heaters in certain tanks, because you've got specific fish. In the self-balancing tanks that I create, if the power goes off for ages, obviously unless you're in the middle of winter, it actually wouldn't matter to the tank at all. And I've had that instance before where I didn't have power for over a week and the fish were absolutely fine, even when the temperature dropped because I'm in a room that's got loads of water, it just tends to be a bit of a higher temperature. So that's the main difference for me is that the tank will run on its own without power. I mean, the light obviously is needed for plants, but they'll survive a little bit without it absolutely fine. So one can work with power and one can't, or will struggle massively. So for this build, I'm going to be breaking down a tank that I already had set up. There's no fish in it or anything. There is a whole load of substrate, sands, gravels, nutrients, all stuff that I like to reuse if possible. Now this isn't essential, because obviously at one point I started myself from scratch and I'm going to show you how to do that as well. But I just can't bring myself to waste any material, especially when I know that I can reuse it again. What I tend to do with old material like this is clump it all together as one big mix. And then it's really good for bulking out certain areas, you know, and just creating height in the aquarium. I don't really treat it as a nutrient layer because it's old, you know, and it might be quite dead in terms of nutrients. There's always going to be some, of course, but I mainly use it to create height. And then you can lay hardscape on top of it and then cap the hole up with the system that I'm going to show you. The way I clean tanks is I use a razor scraper on all the inside surfaces. And then I tend to get like a non-stick pan scouring pad just to go over all the glass. Then it's a quick rinse down, vacuum anything up, and you're pretty much as good as new. Don't spend too much time polishing the glass because it's so much easier to do when there's water in it at the end and it's going to get dirty anyway. Then I remember this tank is going to be filterless, so I remove the whole filter system. So what's the perfect size tank? Well, the answer to that is whatever fits in your room, because this method works with any size. Now, if you're new to the hobby and a little bit worried about jumping in with something massive, then yeah, sure. You can go for like maybe a 45 centimeter, something like that. The beauty of that is if anything is going wrong, you can very quickly take the water down and bring it back up again, dechlorinated, of course. But if you follow the steps that I'm going to be doing here, you shouldn't run into that problem anyway. But also, generally, costs are a lot smaller in smaller tanks when it comes to lighting, the amount of substrate you're going to need, the hardscape, the plants. All of this is cheaper on a smaller scale. So if you're just getting into the hobby, go with something smaller, unless you want to go all in, in which case, you know, I applaud your bravery. Now, in terms of lighting, there's many options you can go for. On this tank, I'm going for a nice expensive option, which is a Chihiros WRGB. I have it available and it seems a shame not to use it, but there are plenty of options out there that give great results. For example, on the original ecosystem aquarium that's been running for over a year, I use these pendant lights, which are like medium budget, I'd say. Not crazy break the bank, but I have got two of them and they work really well. But there's also the DIY method that you can see here, which is an LED floodlight that you would stick on the side of your garage or something to light the driveway. I just attached some wood to the stand from the back and then hooked on the light. And as you can see, it's growing the plants amazingly well. We're getting a carpet of Glosso Stigma growing and all the stems are growing crazy as well. So really the point is every single light will work. Some will grow faster than others, but to be honest, the methods I'm gonna show you, even the cheapest lighting will work. So next up is the substrate system. Now this is one of the most important things in an ecosystem aquarium. It's essentially the foundation of the whole build. If we get this bit right, it should be easy all the way through. So what we're trying to do in this bottom section here is provide enough nutrients to our root systems. So the whole idea of this, remember, is that the aquarium runs itself. Minimal maintenance. This is where it all begins. Think of it like soil in your garden. Get it right and everything else becomes easier. The plant roots are gonna anchor properly and the nutrients are gonna release slowly and then the beneficial bacteria can find a home. Instead of running just a single type of substrate that you might've seen in other people's aquarium builds, we're gonna use a multi-layer system. Each layer serves a purpose, being nutrients, structure, and stability. So when they're combined, you get a substrate that feeds plants, hosts beneficial bacteria, and keeps the water stable over time. All of this is without needing regular intervention as well. Just like any tank, there's gonna be a little bit of tinker time and the odd bit of glass scraping, something like that. There's not gonna be hours and hours of your time every day, every weekend, nothing like that at all. So I'm doing this one a bit different to the last time I did a self-balancing ecosystem tank because previously I used about as much substrate as you see me chucking in here for the whole thing. Whereas in here, I'm using this all for the background area just to generate height. Now, obviously I've got some aqua soil, I've got sand, I've got old bits of soil and dirt and everything all in this mix, but it doesn't matter. It's been running for a long time. Assume it's inert. It could be anything. It could be pea gravel, it could be chippings, whatever you need just to build that height. The bit that goes on top of this is the important nutrient layer. So I'm not worried what this is at all. You could use bricks if you wanted. I have seen people actually use bricks, so you can do that. So there we go. You can see how much height I've got there. And if you want to go for more swim room, then just keep it lower. I'm going for smaller fish, which means that I can have a bit more hardscape in a tank. So this is what I've chose. And it's going to be even higher than this still because obviously we've got the nutrient layer and the sand capping to go on top of this. But for now, it's hardscape time. Now, fortunately over the years, I've collected a lot of hardscape. So, you know, I've got a massive selection almost as if I'm in a shop. But this may not be the case for you. So a really good trick is when you're in the shop, lay out the size of your aquarium and just build something whilst you're there. If you've got to do it on the floor, do it on the floor. And then when you get back, you know you have the right amount for the size of tank you've got. But there is no point in me doing that. So I might as well build it in the tank straight away. But we're going to put the hardscape in now. And I haven't got a plan at all. I'm just going to make it up as I go along. I want lots of criss-crossy sections creating channels, but that's it. I'm just going to like make it up as I go along. That's how I do all of it and let it sort of evolve itself. That's how I let my tanks sort of come to fruition is just all this piece of wood will look nice in this angle and whatnot. Sometimes if you go for a simpler hardscape, just a couple of pieces of wooden rocks, you know, you do have to work with that. But now I'm just going to get stuff in and let it evolve itself. So you can see there, I've placed three of my longest pieces and I'm trying to create channels. There's like a channel down here. There's another one going down here. We've got a nice dark overhang as well. What's going to be cool I think is to create more height up here, maybe even longer one going right far in the background there. It's just kind of like something sweeping in. So for that, I need even more material. Now this piece could be ridiculous, but I'm just going to put it in and give it a go. As you never know. It's got potential. It's just too big though. Just wondering if I swap it around to the other side, see what that looks like. I'm going to light them forward. That's just too big. Sometimes you've got to, you know, draw a line on these things and that isn't working. I do, however, have lots of other nice pieces that could work. So this one, something like that. It's a different color at the moment. Don't worry about that. Loads of gaps behind it for plants. I don't know. This is going to take some fiddling around with. It's not something when you're doing as complicated as this as just chucking in a few bits where it just works straight away. So I'm just going to take my time with it and just build it up slowly. Basically I need more height. So I stuck that piece over there and that kind of makes it flow down that side. I'm looking for a perspective trick going across there. Hopefully I've got the right bits that can get it. If I haven't, I'll just make it work. Absolutely loving that. In the last part of the time-lapse there, you might've seen there was a couple of bits going that way and this way. And as soon as I moved them out the way, it just felt more like we've got this sort of step down level. Perspective was better. And it's just more planting room as well and less shadows. So I'm going to go with this. Bit of a labyrinth, but once we plant it all up, get mosses on things and yeah, it's going to look so good. Now I've got way too far ahead of myself there with the wood and haven't really left much space for rocks, but that's okay. I'm happy to go for more of a wood heavyscape here. Let's get some rocks in. It's going to act as anchor points to hold all that wood down as well. And I'll even place some on the higher levels too. Obviously we need all of this to lock down and stay locked down. Now I've got a ton of rocks down here. This is dragon stone. Then I've got all sorts of Siryu stone and things in this section. But the ones I want to use are my favorite ones, which are these. Just sort of rounded pebbles. I just think they give such a natural look. Also they're easily accessible. You can get them from like builder's merchants and places like that. Just make sure there isn't any limestone. I know there isn't in these, but make sure you haven't got anything that sort of breaks down the water column because that can increase water hardness quite significantly. And just like with placing the wood, it's a case of finding little areas you think will make it look good. I mean, I like that there, the way it follows the curve of the wood. Also it gives me glue points as well. So good little touch there. Just off center as well, which is nice. Maybe another one tucked in here somewhere. The shape of this will look better though if it is more coming out an angle, following the wood. Just kind of looks a bit more natural. I can go right in the center if I want, but how's that look? Yeah, that works. And it's just a case now of carrying on and just keep doing it till you think it looks good. If you don't like it, change it. Just have fun with it. Enjoy the process. So yeah, that's looking a little bit weird at the moment. Just some random round things dotted about, especially that one there. That one is basically to be able to glue all the wood to that rock. I've also got one right in the back area there as well. But you won't see that once we put plants on it. And like I say, this is kind of odd looking, but trust the process. Once we put on our next substrate layer and everything, we build it up the height. So the bottom parts of the rocks are hidden. So it looks like they're actually in the water. And then we put our sort of scatter gravel and detail stones all around it. Trust me, it's going to look absolutely awesome. But now I need to get gluing. I'm going to take my time with this and make sure everything is completely locked down. So it's been 24 hours. I've glued everything down and it is all solid. It's all technically one big thing. And that is slightly worrying me because if it does want to float, it'll all try and float as one. And at that point, it all tries to break off of each rock as the wood tries to float. Because we've only got a few of those small contact points, but now it's all tacked in place. I'm going to go for a bit more of a heavy duty option with the gluing. So the trick now, for instance, is take some paper towel and just cram it into this whole section. It's going to look ugly to start with. We cram it in that whole section and then you just cover it in a super glue liquid. And the bond between this, the rock, and that is way, way stronger. And you can build up certain areas. You know, like this bit of the back here has got room for more. So the more you can do, safer you're going to be when you do the fill up. Sometimes I've done this for a long time and it's still been a problem. But this wood, although dry, has been in water not that long ago. So hopefully we're all right. Now, before we put the glue on though, I've just scraped this wood loads and got off a load of wood shavings that we can put on the glue to hide it. So yeah, we can now coat it. You know, and the paper towel sucks up all the glue as well. Be generous with the glue. The reaction can be quite fast. Then we can just sprinkle our wood on it all. There we go, look, it's all sort of smoking. And if you miss any spots with the glue, look, you can just put a bit more on. And there we go. You wouldn't even know it was there. And I've gone round and covered up any that I thought were even more of an eyesore. There were some up here as well where I might not want to put plants. So yeah, any that are still on show, I can cover up with anubias and stuff, but there was some areas down here, you know, that was right in the foreground. I might not want plants. I probably will. This is me. But yeah, now we're at a stage where we need to add our final layer of nutrients. And for that, we're going to be mixing our pond soil with a gravel. So this is the gravel I've got. You can use anything you want. If you look for scale, it needs to be sort of pea gravel size. I find that works really well. Any smaller and it can like compact over time, whereas this allows it to mix with the soil, but you can still have water traverse through it. Now that's not happening like really fast. It's just a steady flow and it stops you getting like stagnant areas, which can lead to gas getting trapped. We want the gas to be able to move through the system because the organic matter that is in this pond soil, it's going to break down and create CO2. It's going to be background levels. It's not going to be like injected CO2, but every little helps, right? And if the gas can't release, it will turn into like a sulfurous smell. And it's, yeah, it's not nice. It turns into basically a bog. So that's why it's important to mix it with this. Now, what I found works well is about a 50-50 mix, which is, you know, roughly about that. Don't have to be exact. Just pour it all in to a bucket and then just mix everything together thoroughly. Any clumps, just try and break them up. And there we go, look, nicely mixed. We can put it in the areas where we want plants, which is everywhere. And now we can add all of our nutrients in exactly where we want all of our plants to go. I'm just going in every single channel. Put about an inch or so. I'm going to have to mix up a bit more, but that's fine. Get it dumped in to start with, and then you can just spread it around afterwards. And that's all flattened down and looking tidy. And now we can cap the whole lot of our decorative sand. Now you can use anything you want. I'm going to go for this one, not too fine. See the grain sizes there. If it's too fine, it gets completely solid and compact. And again, you don't get great gas exchange. But with it like this, the fish can move it around. The plant roots can get in nice and easy. The plant roots themselves create sort of structure or lack of structure and oxygenate and everything like that as well. So I've always found a medium sort of grain sand works best. But you can even use stuff like this, which is like finer gravel, coarse sand as well. If you do, just use a little bit of thicker layer, I would say. But this stuff was actually from a builder's merchant to keep costs down. And in recent times, I've just put it straight in like you would a sand bought from the aquarium shop, which doesn't really need cleaning. This definitely needs cleaning. Well, I'm gonna try and do this one handed, but look, watch this. Get some water in it. It's fine to start with. Once I've swirled it around though, you do not want that lot in your aquarium when you fill it up the first time. So I'm gonna clean the whole bag to make sure I've got plenty of sand. What I like about the builder's sand is you've got all those flecks in it. It just makes it look really natural. And no, don't worry. I'm not gonna do the whole thing in the sink. I'm gonna take it all out in a bucket outside, spray and fill it up with a hose and then just pour it all out. Yeah, so this is gonna take quite a few washes, which means it's more labor intensive, but it is cheaper. So it just depends what you wanna do. If you get it from the fish shop, you barely need to rinse it. The filter picks up any crud anyway, but you know, doing a big tank, sometimes you've got to save money. There we go. I've just done seven wash cycles. It's pretty much there. You're basically trying to get rid of any sort of clay and silt in it. Fine sand will be fine. It'll just settle. But yeah, that's quite the wash it's had. And now it's just a case of covering any areas that have got the exposed pond soil showing. I'm just building up a thickness over everything. And then you can just sort of tamper it down to the desired thickness, which I'm going with about an inch because that still is gonna allow the gas exchange, but also the roots to be able to sit nicely in the right area as well. The good thing about the pond soil is that if it does get a little bit in the water column, it's not so nutrient dense, it's gonna cause a massive outbreak of algae or anything like that. If anything, it'll add fertilization to the water. It's nowhere near as strong as your proper sort of compost that you'd use for plants in your garden and that. So that is all the capping on, at least an inch. The back areas went up a little bit higher, but now the best thing to do is spray everything down, cleans up the hardscape, and also make sure the sand is sort of locked flat. And the fact that the water's coming off mostly clear, I mean, there's a tiny little bit there, but that will not be the case once we fill this right up now. And in fact, I'll probably drain that bit of water I've just put in there, but it's a really good sign that that's not just completely solid, milky white. It means we cleaned it enough and this is gonna look so good. Right, that is brilliant. Now it's time to add in some detail to that sand. Not too much, I actually like how it looks, but let's just get some scatter gravels and little bits and bobs dotted around, really bring it to life. And I've got some nice Rio Xingu here. Look at this. Look at that. Look at how well it complements the sand because of all the little color variations kind of matching it for scale as like it scales up to it. Oh, just love it. Gonna be completely random with it. Just pile it in anywhere. See cracks and crevices, keeping it all a bit open in the foreground. I want quite a clean look in the foreground. Almost like a front beach. It always looks really good. The good thing is I'm gonna be planting in this area and this area as well. So they're gonna try and creep over time, which is a really nice look when it sort of gradually fades into the foreground. And remember, never be too careful when you're doing this. It's supposed to look kind of random. So the more you think about it, the less random it's gonna look. You know, a nice little pile here trailing out. The bit in the shadow area looks a bit bland to me. So I'm gonna fill that section almost like the water's just pushed it all up to it. I'm overthinking it, aren't I? Literally told you not to do that. That's better. Faster. There we go. That's the finished look to the hardscape. Really pleased with that. Now it's quite complex for what I'm used to going for, but I wanted to show you guys a little bit more of my skills as well and show you that it isn't actually as difficult as it can look. If I was to show you that right now, you'd be like, oh, I'm not attempting that. But hopefully, seeing the process, you're thinking, I can have a go at that. And the good news is I'm now expecting the arrival of the plants for this. So in next video, we're gonna get planting, we're gonna get filling up, we're gonna get problems. And I'm gonna sort of step you through the process, step, walk, walk you through the process and how to combat certain things on initial startup. Because it's always the case with every single aquarium. Very, very rarely, like 1% of the time, you get one that's just perfect from the outset. So there's light adjustments, there's all sorts of things. So I look forward to showing you that on the next episode.