I ve Been Making Planted Tanks WRONG NO Substrate Aquarium

Recently, I built a very, very simplistic aquarium. I absolutely love it. I'm not blasting it with light, things like that. And I'm taking a little bit of a different approach with plants as well recently that's been working really well. So I recently set this tank up as a bit of an experiment, which was just gravel. Now, over the years, I've been doing a ton of work on substrate systems, like the be-all and end-all. And, you know, I just got channeled into one way of thinking. And this was the tank that made me rethink my strategies because the tank was doing really well and then started to sort of dwindle. And I was like, well, it's got a great substrate system that I always use, what's going on? And it's when I thought, they probably should put some fertilizers in a bit more often than once a month when I do a top-up. So I just started doing it regularly. And as a result, it just all took off and looked absolutely amazing. Some of the best health of the plants I've had in a while. And that's when I thought, okay, how important is the substrate system? Not to say it isn't at all, but can I get away with just sand slash gravel on the cusp and just fertilizing regularly? And I don't mean every day. I'm never going to be that kind of guy. I'm talking like once a week instead of say once a month, sometimes longer when I do a top-up with water. So we set a day every Monday fertilizing tanks. And I can honestly say I am massively impressed with, this isn't shocking to most people, but it is to me because I was so stuck in my ways. But this has opened the door to a lot more different style of fish keeping than that for me. So usually I do a big thick layer of substrate. I'm not talking like crazy levels where you've got an inch of compost and things like that. No, I do a little bit of soils or a compost and then cap over the top. Now in this one, I did a very thin sprinkling of it and it's doing very well and it's been being fertilized as well. Did I even need to put that thin sprinkling? Well, evidence is suggesting no, not when you're regularly fertilizing and you've got fish in there as well that are gonna be producing all the micro and macro nutrients or macro nutrients mainly. But yeah, so as long as you're dosing like iron, potassium, magnesium, all those different things, like the plants kind of just use the substrate as an anchor point. And I'm sure the ferts get into all of that as well. So it opens up the possibility that you don't need this big thick substrate. You can do different styles of tanks and not worry about plants just melting back. And every single tank that I started applying this to, the weekly dosing, making sure that all the nutrients are covered, all the plants that were looking drab have literally rebounded and you can see the point where we started adding it. So for me, it's a done deal. It's not yet a done deal whether you should do both substrate and fertilizer. I mean, it makes sense. That would probably be the best, but is it even necessary at all for any kind of substrate? I have some quite a few videos now of other people that have got amazing looking tanks and all they've got on their substrate is a gravelly sand. So that is the way it's kind of looking. Well, the experiment has begun. It has. And also- I was going to say, is that comfortable? You're standing. And also, if you can do a fine dusting of sand, you can make some really cool concepts, maybe like artwork style aquariums that still are planted and just look absolutely insane still. It just opens up the door. The possibilities now are massive. When I say arty, I mean, like, still like a livable place for the fish that's enjoyable and nice. Just more of a clean look, maybe. Yeah, I mean, that latest tank you've done that we were just talking about, it looks great. And it's very simple. It works. Now, in that last tank, in that last tank, I didn't use a single Java fern or Anubias or any sort of epiphytes at all. It's just basically the Vallison area and Dorsage, which looks like Vagison area. Vagison area. So in this tank, we're going to be doing just Java ferns and Anubias. Like crazy. Phew. So I was worried when there were no Java ferns and Anubias going in this tank, I thought I was going to have to take you to A&E. Well, I'm going to make up for it now. Don't you worry. Good. So given that we're not doing like a mega thick substrate full of nutrients, everything like that, now begs the question, do we need to start with the substrate? I think we should just start hardscape first, build it, and then we can sprinkle our sand around it. Saves on sand. So cost goes down. And yeah, that's all I was going to say. Does the substrate help bed in the hardscape? It can do, yeah. But then you do need a good amount of it. That can make it more beneficial, but it does also mean that it can migrate over time as well and become a thicker dusting, you know, than you initially wanted it to. It does make it easier for sure, but then you could just put some foam down. Let's go. I think we'll have that one, and that one, and that one. Oh. That one. Whoa. And that one. And why not that one? Okay. I need that. Get some glue off. Then this bit is quite alga-fied look, but a wire brush will make short work of that. Oh, that's dusty. Maybe do this outside. And it's not raining. What? It's the first time in like 50 days. Let's celebrate. It rained for 50 days and 50 nights. Isn't that a different type of film? Oh. Josh Hartnett, wasn't it? Something like that. I know what you're referring to. Yeah, it comes off nice and easy. It's just where I've obviously taken it out of the tank and chucked it to the side, and then whatever was on there has just dried, but it won't hurt in the tank because it's effectively dead, but it doesn't look great, does it? Not that you're going to see this wood, because it'll be covered in Java Fern. Java Fern and Anubias. And Anubias. Oh, I'm getting cold. Yeah, let's go back in. Oh, that is cold. Looking at it now, none of this wood is like standy-uppy. Let's get some rocks in. Let's make a, I want to do a Java Fern island. I want like a big, this is a deep tank. There's four foot wide by two foot deep by two foot high. 360 liters, I think it is about. So it's nice and deep, which means we can make an awesome big island composition. How cool would that look? So you're going to island it kind of in the middle, but so the swim rim all the way around, or like off the back, so it kind of like forms. Yeah, I know what you mean. Like that. It'd probably be, we've got enough space in this, with this depth to do, like you say, a full island, really. Yeah. If it was a shallower tank, because most of them come to about there, I would probably do it as like a semi-circle island, but we've got the space, or almost, we'll do an almost full circle. Yeah, almost full circle. We always do full circle. We always go full circle and everything. We've got an absolute ton of Dragonstone, that might be quite cool. I haven't used it for ever. Ever, ever, ever, ever. I'm just trying to think of a color palette. Sand, what sand are you thinking? Yeah, that's the thing. Well, it's this stuff, isn't it? Problem is that it's so similar in color to the, do you know what I mean? To the Dragonstone, is it going to be? Well, why don't you grab a bit of Grabonstone, pop it in the bucket. It's been a long time since I've used this stuff. Yeah, it's interesting. It's actually like, it's not a rock. It's like a clay, like a hard clay, a rocky clay. Do you know what I mean? It might work quite well, right? You want more contrast, do you? Yeah, so you tend to lose the hardscape, or if it's so similar to the substrate, I find. But maybe the wood will make that stand out enough. We might as well use it. It's been a long time. Thing is, I love a pebble, and pebbles are a bit of me. They're a bit of me. I love pebbles. It will annoy some people, but I kind of feel like it's my look. It's my identity now. I identify with a pebble. I want pebbles. I love pebbles. I've gathered you love pebbles and want pebbles, and if you were a pebble, you'd be a pebble. If it was up to me, every tag would be pebbles. And it is up to me. I mean, it is. Do what makes you happy is what people say, isn't it? I think so. I think that is the saying, Socrates. Okay, I'm doing it. Dragonstone. No, no, no. Dragonstone's it. Oh, there's a pebble. Hiding in the Dragonstone. I'm just going to pile up all the pebbles. Like it was meant to be. Yeah, exactly. It's like hinting at me. Pebble, pebble, pebble, pebble. Look at the selection, Stefan, that you just chuck in one of those bad boys for no reason, but it just looks good. Oh! Oh, that's going to look amazing. Oh, it'll look good. Are you just testing this? There's my hammer. This is how that works, isn't it? I think so. Here we go, let's do this. You forgot your pebbles. Oh, yeah. The chosen one, is it? I don't know why I'm focused on it. It does look nice. Does it look nice? So love the pebble. That last bit of glue there, that's my screwdriver, I reckon. That is what screwdrivers are made for. So at this stage, I'm not really thinking about any proper composition or anything like that. I'm just trying to get all of the rocks in place because once you try and put the wood to interlock between it, it's going to move all around anyway. Just getting them all in there. I know some of you might be worried about putting heavy rocks down on the glass. The glass is really thick. It's not going to do anything unless you knock it over, which I suppose is quite possible. Just place it very carefully. Yeah, just place it carefully. As long as you haven't got like a single point of heavy contact, you're pretty much all right. So if there was a bit of gravel underneath each one of those, that could potentially be bad. If you're worried, get some egg crate down, get some foam down, something like that. But I've done this loads of times. What is this? 12 mil thick glass or 10 or 12 mil thick glass. That's not breaking. Famous last words. So one of the best things to do is always pick your biggest piece of hardscape and get that in there first. And then you can sort of build off of that. Now this is a big old piece. It means I can then get the initial structure and I've got another point to come off of everything else. Right, that's it done. Let's get, no, I'm joking. Desperate to get plants in. Yeah. So now we've got that side. We can bring up this piece, see, on this side. And that's going to give us our height to the left and right for the island. There we go. A bit more, I reckon, as well, we can do. There we go. Then an item like this one, look, two kind of upright prongs can go in that back section and give us the height there that's needed. Or maybe not needed. I mean, it depends what you want to go for, but see that? See how we're, I'm actually just using the wood to its own advantage to create all of this. The wood's kind of telling me where it should go. That was going off to the right. That was coming up to the left. This is straight. And now we've got areas in the foreground for some of our smaller pieces as well. None of this is going to look like this once I've got it covered in plants, of course. Oh, look at that. See, it's just starting to work now. This one might work well here. It might not. Certainly got some explosiveness to it, isn't it? It is a little bit like a deck of cards waiting to collapse, but creates tension, both in the scape and the video and us. There we go. A big spiky mess. So the whole point of this tank is like, I'm trying to make something that you guys, hopefully by the end will think, that was easy. I can definitely do that. One of the main key factors here though, remember, is look at the size of the hardscape versus the tank. If I did the same thing with much smaller wood and in the middle, it wouldn't have anything like the same effects. So oversize your hardscape. It's just a great way of getting things to easily look good. Even if you've got just a smidge of talent like me. What did that take? Five minutes? You can spend more time on it if you want. And if you're at home and you're enjoying the process, definitely do that. But I've often found I've spent so long on hardscape before and then I cover it all up anyway. So what's the point? I'm always amazed that when you're putting hardscape in, you always end up like putting in probably twice as much as what I would do. Oh yeah, oh yeah. But then it always works. I wouldn't say it always works. Well, most of the time, yeah. But then I would have probably stopped at two. Maybe like that one and maybe like three or four. This can definitely still work with what you're saying though. For instance, if you go for that big one coming in from the side, yeah, and maybe another one there and a ton of negative space for plants to grow into, definitely can still work. If you want instant impact, it's a look good straight away without having the plants fully grown in, then the more hardscape you do and the better cooler it looks from the outset, the better it's probably gonna be long-term as well. I've found it's just a bit of a cheat code. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the thing about scale is a really good point because when you picked up that massive one initially, I would have just thought that was too big for it, but it's not. It's rarely you can find hardscape too big for your tank. If you can't- And there it is. There's the MD motto. So the job now is to go around and glue all those bits of wood to a piece of rock. I'm also probably gonna stick one in the middle as well just to lock everything down and look cool. Why not? I'm gonna use tissue paper. That's not tissue paper. What's that? Paper towel, kitchen wipe sort of stuff, and liquid super glue. Now this makes it go like a solid ball. I'm gonna ram it into gaps, drizzle this all over it, two contact points, and it'll be solid. If it was smaller hardscape, I would just use super glue gel and that would be enough. But this is a lot of wood, very big. If we don't lock it down properly, it's gonna float when we fill it all up. So take our time with it. Lots of contact points and it should be good. It should be good. So like this section here, for instance, is a big gap like that. So push the paper right in so it's touching the rock and the wood. Nice and firm in there. In fact, I can bulk that out a little bit more just to make sure that it's all tight together. And then take the super glue and just pour it on. I've managed to cut off most of the top of this so I can't get right in. Now I nearly can. There you go. Just cover it in it. It'll soak it all up anyway. And then what'll happen is it'll react together. You get a puff of smoky stuff. Don't breathe that in. It's a bit of an irritant. And then that makes sure that that rock is locked to that wood. And then we can lock that bit of wood to that bit of wood to that rock and so on and so forth until it's all pinned down. There you go. Look, you can see all the smoke all coming up here. Look, don't breathe that in. The main structure locked in. We've got our glue points. We've got our rock sitting on the top. I can tap all of that now and none of it moves anywhere. So yeah, that's the main shape. Now we can expand upon this and bring branches out and creeping over and everything. So it kind of looks a little bit more dynamic. There he is, scrubbing his wood again. Now we can start to take other pieces, look, which we'll be able to attach to that main section. That lends itself very well there. See how it all looks similar and follows in from that midpoint? I like that. That works very well. This one might not so much. It's a different tone. We can see what we can do with it. Maybe something like this. Good option to bring it out like that. Sort of brings it together a bit more. Maybe I can look for another piece that's similar to that one because it's quite thin compared to the rest. But sometimes it's not a problem, you know? There is some thin bits, but it is mostly chunky. Yeah. So it does look a little bit odd. Let's see what else we've got chunky-wise up here. Oh, that's chunky. That's very chunky. Maybe not here. It's not like we haven't got loads to choose from. There's got to be something in this pile. These are mega chunks, though. These are like huge pieces. I have got more manzanita. It's not quite as thick, but that's quite big. No. That's too big. Yeah, so this is kind of where I just shoved all the biggest pieces right on the top, never to be used again. There's a bit over there. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's manzanita, yeah. So I've got that, but that's not aged. No. So it might look a bit funny. It will age, but over here we've got more. Yeah, so down here, I've got some bits and bobs. I have to sort of build it out a bit. Oh, it's blue acara day today. Yeah, oh, yes. Is it? It is. Oh, my hoodie's got the angelfish on. This is a subtle merch plug. Subtle. So subtle. If you want to get yourself some merch, then you can click mdfishtanks.com. We've got loads of different fish available. Just help support the channel. If you want to, watching is enough, but if you want some nice merch as well, then you can get that. Yay. Back to cleaning. Back to the real work. This has got proper old bits of, I think that's algae, not even moss. Get that off. I can't remember when that was in that tank. See if we can create something with these shapes. It's quite a straight piece there. It's very difficult to get that to behave how we want, but maybe if we come this way with it. It looks like stick man. It's not really working, that one, is it? It looks all right from here. Yeah, if you go straight on, it's like perfectly straight. Yeah, it's nice how it's wrapping around that bigger rock. Look, it's meant to be there. We can bring one out a little bit as well. I think this bit will work well. Gives it something over there. Kind of almost want it trailing down like the other side, but maybe it's good if it's not perfect. Oh, I see, stick man. Well, also this one did as well. Oh yeah, he does. They all look like stick man. I mean, it's a pile of sticks. Stick man is a child's thing, isn't it? That me and Steph obviously... Are really into. Yeah. And then maybe we can just bring one up somewhere as well. Yeah, the asymmetry of the bigger one versus the smaller spindly bits, I think works quite well. Just trying to bring it out a little bit of width, but yeah, it does work quite well, doesn't it? Let's not overcomplicate things. We're not going to see any of it anyway. More glue? Yeah, for these littler bits. Okay, smaller bits. For these smaller bits of wood, you can just use super glue gel. Just a little couple of dab points and that'll just lock it to the bits that are already locked down. So for these like littler pieces that just find a little point like that of contact, and that is enough. Then I spray it with this reactor and it goes hard straight away. Quite a little complicated section here, but I can lock that in at the back. All these points are really good for us to be able to push Java ferns into, just to lock them in. And then we don't have to attach them to any of the wood properly with glue or anything, or on rocks. We will do a bit of that, but if you can find a little gap to put stuff in, ideal. Right, I'm really happy with how that has turned out. We've got like big impact. It's going to work well. Once you get the hardscape looking good, and if it looks good without plants, it's going to look good with plants. But I do want tons of sort of heavily detailed goodness in the foreground as well. Yeah. So you're going to add the pebbly detail goodness now? Yeah. Pre... Pre-sand. Pre-sand, I like to call it. And why? Not necessarily, to be fair. I just want to know how many I've got first. You want to count your pebbles? Yeah. Count your pebbles, buster. Pinkies. Got quite a lot of pinkies. There is some pink hues in one of the larger stones, so maybe that's a possibility. Yeah, pebble world. Oh. Oh, gosh. Yeah, we've got that. That's a good pebble. Pebbles. There's definitely some in there. Yeah, definitely. And your hammer. Oh, yeah. Need to get that out. My cup overflows with... I've still stolen some from some other set of us. But it's going to be worth it. I think you had a good point, actually, Stefan. I think I'm going to put some... some sand in down first. There it is. It does leave a big dead zone underneath. Actually, a point I need to make is this whole area in the middle is completely open. It will be a place for just crud to go if we don't sort of fill that in, at least a decent amount. So I've got a load of gravel that I can pour into the gaps. It will just flood the middle island so that it's, like, up level. And then when you're wafted and you try to get any crud out, you can. But it's not decorative, so I don't really care what it looks like. Oh. You're not going to see it? No, no. That was like a... Oh. I've got this, like, really whitish sand here, which is kind of... I feel like it's a bit too bright for the foreground. It's just going to be blinding. It's not really the kind of look I want to go for, but in the gaps, absolutely fine. So look, there's, like, a section here. You see that in there, Stef? I can see. I'm just going to pour it. I think you just... Just pour that. Yeah. Let it pool and then push. Could have done this beforehand, of course, couldn't I? But hindsight is 20-20. Don't know what that means. How's it looking? We're getting there. There's just this little patch here. Oh, there we go. It's working. What's this waterfall? Sand waterfall, see? Everyone's always saying, make a sand waterfall. There you go. It's about as much of a sand waterfall as I'm going to make. Oh, it's beautiful. Should do it more often. No, I shouldn't. I hate it. It's actually not as complicated as I thought. Look, in this middle section, I just pour it. Just finds its way. Just finds its way down into little gaps. And then when it starts spewing out the sides here, we know we're all full up everywhere. This is a very backward way of doing it, of course, but, you know, it is what it is, what it is. It just shows there's a different way of doing things. The right way and the wrong way. Well, it still works. That's true. Then I'm just going to use a darker sort of tanned colour on the top that will go, you know, with the actual stuff we're going to use for decoration. It won't stand out quite as bad then. So what I'll do now is just pour a little bit around the base of each one to stop any of that white just spewing out at a later day. I feel like this is a good way of doing it. What, after? Well, because if you filled that with loads of, with sandy gravelly stuff and then stuffed your wood in there. Yeah. It would just go everywhere. You've got it all fixed and you're just filling the gaps. Yeah, I suppose. It does mean you're filling up quite a lot, but, I mean, gravel bag, I'm probably going to be using a total of one bag here. So one big bag. Yeah. It's a big tank, so. Yeah, I suppose it's not a bad way of doing it. There's multiple ways, isn't there? There's multiple ways to peel an egg. So now for the decorative sand. And what I'm going to do is just push it all up against it. And then as we spray water near it, it'll flatten itself out. Which is a great technique. Looks quite cool, doesn't it, on camera? It looks great, but it is actually a really good technique. I was wowed when you first showed me that back in 83. And this sand is looking quite dark at the moment, but once, remember, we've got the lights turned right down because of the white background. If I turn the lights up to what they're going to be at, you wouldn't be able to even see what we're filming. And the water's in, it dulls everything, and yeah, we'll have it all looking good. Don't you worry. This is, although I did want more of a sort of flex and colored sand, I don't like pure white. Just don't like it. Or even like a pure sand in general. I like to have flex in it. So now we can take this bad boy, pressurize it, maximum pressure. Probably use it to get the hose, but I can't because it's one, reel it all. And then we can just spray the sand down and it'll just settle nice and Michael Flatley, or however it wants to be called. Michael Flatley. Is he the guy from Strictly Come Dancing? No, well, maybe he's been on that, but isn't he a- Swan Lake. What's that? Isn't Michael Flatley the Irish? Yeah, it's Swan Lake, isn't it? I don't know. I thought that was ballet. Oh. I've never seen it, have you? No, it was Lord of the Dance, not Swan Lake. What, you looked it up? You had to, because it was bothering me. It was the Irish dancing. Yeah, Irish dancing. Working well, isn't it? Yes, I definitely should have got the hose though. You know what my patience is like. How thick a layer are you going on the sand? I literally kind of want it just like the tiniest amount at the front. It's going to sort of want to migrate, which means that right now, I only actually want to do a couple of little touches in each, I've got a handful in here, a handful here, another handful. Just so there's a real thin layer covering the glass, basically. Yeah, like it, so it's kind of like a bit artier. Oh, I see. It also means that no crud will get stuck in it, and you should be like a real clean, sort of easy-maintaining tank. God, I washed those three buckets of substrate. Yeah, you washed a freehold bucket. We will use it though, won't we, from that? I've used probably about a quarter of a bucket. Oh, my bad. I insist that you use more. Okay. Now we can place in, on the top look, all of our extra pebbles and things, get them looking nice and natural. Again, just like before, not overthinking it, just trying to place them down in a way that sort of suits the way things are going. So we've kind of got like an explosion outward, so. Radiating out from the center. Yeah, so if I just do the same with the rocks, with the odd controversial one, like, I love that. I love when you just stick a bright red one. It works really well, actually, because it complements the wood. And the palettes, it's the right colour palette, isn't it? Nature's palette. Nature's palette is unfallible. There's an artist called Cornelia Parker. Yeah. Who I haven't just looked at. Yeah, I was going to say, you've literally just looked this up to look intelligent. But I remembered, I remembered what the thing was. I just couldn't remember her name. And she did, she did this really cool art exhibition where she like, blew up a shed, but then like hung all the pieces. Actually blew it up? I think she did. You mean like, it was the look of blown up? I think she did blow it up and then like, piece of, I don't know her process. It looked, well, that's exactly what this looks like. It looks like a blown up shed. I want to blow up my shed. So you're going for quite a few. Oh yeah. It's not like you. Got this stuff here. I mean, that's going to work absolutely perfectly. It's all pretty much rounded pebbles and stones and everything. Good size as well. Yeah. And that can literally tie everything in because we've got full gradation. Yeah. Gradation? Gradation. Needs washing though. Oh, it's good colours. It's exactly the right palette. I was a bit worried then because it looked like it was kind of like grey-like. It's quite light. Oh. Oh yeah. Look at this little nugget. That looks so different from... Necklace. Lovely. This is going to fill in the blanks really nicely. Oh, I'm loving it. I'm already loving it. It's exactly what I was after. It's going to look so good in the gaps and things. So it's all cohesive. Think too much about it. Get them in. Badda bing, badda bong. What film's that from? We referenced it the other day. No, it's Big Badda Boom. Big Badda... Oh yeah. Big Badda Boom, fifth element. That has really pulled it all together, hasn't it? Yeah. Again, this isn't like your typical clean look. I don't particularly like that. I think it just creates work for yourself because everything, every little bit of grind and dirt really stands out. Whereas this style, a little bit of poop or whatever, not only will it get swept up, but it doesn't instantly make the sand look a mess when it's just a tiny amount. Oh. We must be nearing plant stage now. We definitely are. I think, no, we are at plant stage. Plant stage. It's because I tried to say plant how you say plant, which is plan. Plant. Yeah, I say plant. You say grass. And you say grass. And I say bath. Yeah, different accents, even though we're both. Even though we're both. So I'm in a fortunate enough position where I can go around the studio and just pick out tons and tons of Java ferns that I've been growing over the years. I never really tend to throw them away. I just put them in different places. So I've got tons to choose from. I'm going to collect loads of them all up and just make this a massive explosion of Java ferns. I've got some Booses. I've got Anubias. You know, all those different epiphytes that can go pretty much anywhere in that explosion. Now, obviously this is a very large tank and it's going to take a lot of plants to fill up the Central Island, but this is scalable and this design can be done at any size tank, can't it really? So if you've got a smaller budget, just get a smaller tank and less plants. Eventually though, they're all going to grow. So at that point you can buy a new tank and you'll have a good excuse to. And then get more tanks and more tanks. And then get a studio. And then before you know it. To start with, I'm just placing everything kind of randomly, but building up the middle sections. And then I build it out from there to make it sort of taper off. That usually gives the best effect and keeping Anubias quite low where the rocks meet the wood is another really good way of tying it all together naturally. That is a fantastic start. I'm loving the simplicity of it. It's going to look so good. The good thing about doing this how we have done it is that nothing's planted. So I can fill the tank up now. And if I can see any areas that need a bit of extra or a bit of volume in some points or whatever, then we can just add it at a later date. Now all of this in the middle section is going to stand up a lot more. So we are going to get more height there anyway. I think we just fill it up and have a look. Let's do it. So when you're filling up your tank, just do it nice and slowly, at least to start with. And then it's just going to stop all the dust particles and everything getting kicked into the water column. It doesn't matter too much if they do. You know, you can always do another water change or just allow the filter a little bit of time and it'll pick up the smaller particles anyway. We're all filled up. We're looking really, really fresh. One of the cleanest fill ups I've ever had. It makes sense, doesn't it? Because the sound was completely clean. There's no substrate underneath it. Nothing to disturb when moving things around. Perfect. But there's obviously no filter. So the filter that we're using is a Oase Biomaster 850, I think it is. Yeah, the tall one, basically. The first generation. It's got a pre-filter built in, which is nice. That's the thing that you clean, like, when the flow drops and then everything runs smooth again. And it's also got a built-in heater, but we don't need that for this one. But yeah, it's a solid unit. They cost quite a bit, but you do get good quality with it, really. They never seem to go wrong. Not for me, anyway. I'm sure a million people are now going to say, my Biomaster, but yeah. I did flood the studio with it about four minutes ago. You did just flood the studio with it. Steph forgot that you have to close off this valve to stop the water coming in before you open this one. I bypassed the security measure. I was like, flood, flood. What do I do? It's siphoning, it's siphoning. Another thing that we haven't really mentioned is the light on this one. So this is a Chihiros WRGB thingy. I don't know, Chihiros WRGB, I guess. One of my favourite lights, that. They're really good lights. They're incredibly powerful. And for a setup like this, where we're not using CO2, we haven't got loads of active substrate, tonnes of plants growing, you do not need a lot of light. In fact, it's going to be detrimental. Your aquarium's probably going to look a mess. I think I've got this set to like 10% power. More than enough. These plants will easily grow at this and grow well. Now, the good thing is the filter for this tank is currently running in here and it's been running for like a year and a half, effectively. So it's all fully cycled and everything, which means we can switch it straight across and we can put fish straight in. Yeah! And the fish we're going to be putting in are these awesome Candy Cane Tetra. I think that's what they're called in the US. Also, Bentosy, I think. Bentosy Tetra. And also, right next door, we've got barbs as well. We've got Odessa barbs, we've got rosy barbs, we've got Chinese green barbs. Now, these two fish are going to go really well together. First of all, they're all basically the same size. The Tetra will kind of school in cool little areas. And then, but the barbs will be sort of like channel swimmers. So you'll get movement sort of everywhere and they just look great as well. I really want to give them their own space. These can come out. Obviously, we're going to keep the Plecos. Oh, there's a really nice Pleco just there, Steph. Yeah, sorry. The Plecos are staying in because it's going to be a dedicated tank and I'm going to switch it around a little bit more so that we can potentially see them a lot more because we very rarely see them. Unless the lights go out and you come in in the middle of the night. Never see them. I mean, we know they're there. Of course, I can see the Zebra Pleco right there. What was the one we saw earlier as well that looked amazing? The Phantom. Oh, the Queen Arabesque. Queen Arabesque looks so good. And the Flash Pleco as well. And there's a Snowball as well. And the Snowball, yeah. They're going to have to take our word for it, though. They are, yeah. I can see one from here, but can't see it on camera. Okay, there's a Findot. And there's a Snowball. Yeah, there's a Snowball. That's a Findot that's up in the top bit. Oh, and there's a Queen Arabesque. Oh, where? Oh, yeah, yeah. There it is. Kind of. That's about as much Pleco as you get to see in a week. Come here, come here, come here, come here, come here. Steadily. I know this isn't part of this video, but I really want everyone to see the Longfin Pleco. Oh, yeah. It's currently on that log. Have you got it? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I want it to come around. Oh, my goodness. He's like a dragon. He is like a... Don't you bite me, Chunks. Drew... Oh, yeah, drew blood on you. Chunks actually drew blood on me the other day. I was in here. I didn't know he had teeth. He didn't catch you there. I just put my little finger in and he just caught me. Getting some serious size on these electric blues at the moment as well. This one seems to be growing really fast. The other two are sort of staying the same. Yeah, look, he's huge. Well, obviously Chunks is huge. Anyway, we're distracted. Hey, hello. So it's a nice and simple job switching over the filter inlet and outlet. You have to be sure to shut off the inlet and outlet tube, and then you can drain anything left in the tube once it's taken out of the water, and then flip it straight across and put it straight back on again. Don't do what I did and just try and take everything off at once without turning anything off. That will cause flooding. I'm going to try and do the trick with the fish, though, where I feed the front and then just do one nice big scoop with the net and hopefully catch as many as I can. It's more than likely that I'm going to have to break tanks down a little bit to catch them, but it's well worth it. Like I say, we're switching things out shortly anyway. That keeps things nice and calm, and it means that when we transfer them over, they should be fully coloured up still and looking beautiful. So I'm putting the bentos in first. All the temperatures are matching, so it's all good. They can get settled wherever they want. It's a good number. I like that because they're a good size, aren't they? Oh, they look so good in there. They're a really good size for this tank. Get food for them as well. Nice school in it, and they will definitely school. Oh, hang on. I didn't tip it all the way up. Still got three more. A bit of crud gone in as well. That's all right. And they'll colour up a bit more, won't they? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, definitely going to stress them out what we've just done, but it shouldn't be long. And I don't want to keep all of these fish in a pot for too long, so in go the barbs as well, plus we've got four of the corys. I probably will get more. And we've got these plecos as well, bristlenose. It's a honeycomb, or it looks like a bumblebee. Then we've got this one that's the... Longfin. Yeah, longfin. Not quite as big as the other one, but still quite young, actually, in comparison. 200. Oh, there we go. Look at that. Yes. Beauty. So there's plenty of biofilm on all of the surfaces here. You can see rock's still got algae on. They've come from other setups, so there's plenty of food for the plecos. There's only two in there at the moment. I will put more in eventually, over the next week or two, as the tank starts to mature a bit more in. Because we've used so much plants and hardscape from other setups, there's plenty of actual food at the moment, but I'll also just put some tabs in as well for them when we feed the fish. So they're all the algae wafers. Yeah, the algae wafers will go in, and they'll also munch on any other food as well that's left around. Yeah, gonna love that. They're coming all the way around. They're going around like a merry-go-round. Oh, wow. It's because we left enough space behind the whole tank for them to be able to do circles. That's so good. They're gonna love this. It's like a giant long train. So look, even now, the barbs are staying together, and the tetra are also staying together. They're all together. They're all just hanging out. Friends. What's quite cool as well, is when we got those bentosies, they were absolutely tiny, and I actually didn't realize they got as big as this. Maybe I've got a special version of them, because they look massive to me. I expect them to get the same size as like, I don't know, phantom tetra, because they look kind of similar, but I feel like they're bigger than any phantom tetra I've ever had. Must be something in the water. Really, really fine specimens. So it's only been like half an hour, and the fish are already behaving amazingly well, and they have completely colored up as well. Way more vibrant than when I first put them in. With a mature filter, all the water matching temperature, and literally going across the studio, I'm not surprised by that at all. When you get your fish back from the fish shop, sometimes it can take quite a while, and you might not see them color up properly for, you know, until the next day. But when you can just move them from one tank to another like this, they seem to settle in really, really fast. Now, although the filter is mature, I'll still be testing the water tomorrow and the next day for a good week or so, just to make sure that everything's okay. Because the filter was running on the tank next door, which had very low stocking levels, which means some of the bacteria would have died off. But the amount of plants and that we've got in this tank, it should absorb any additional ammonia and things like that. And the beneficial bacteria will colonize very quickly in the filter as well. But we don't want to take any chances. So I'll be making sure to test it because you can't leave these things to chance. And some people might be worried about the cories being on a gravel substrate, where it's mainly sand, but there are bits of gravel as well. But don't worry, it's not an issue at all. Look, all of the gravel is like rounded gravel, and it's not going to hurt their barbells. You know, if you think in a river where they're actually from, there'll be certain areas that have gravel, certain areas that have sand. So they can go wherever they want, really. So there we have it. A really simple way you can make a beautiful looking tank. Minimal maintenance. Keep that lighting level low and you won't get a ton of algae either. And it's a good way of showing how hardscape and the plants in general can influence the behavior of the fish. Because we've already seen them swimming around in circles. And I was just sat back watching them and they were doing it even more when I was further away from the tank. Now, obviously we've got no nutrients under the substrate system. And this isn't a problem at all because none of the plants are in the sand or gravel. But what I will be doing is adding fertilizer to the water weekly. That ensures that the plants are getting absolutely everything they need. Just make sure you've got something with iron and potassium and it's normally got all the other stuff in as well. And you're golden. None of the plants are high demanding, which means you don't have to put loads and loads of fertilizers in. And you'll probably find a sweet spot as well. You might not even need as much as recommended. At the end of the day, we haven't got loads of fast growing stems or floating plants and things like that. So keeping things on the lean side might be beneficial. So yeah, hopefully you've enjoyed this one. It's given you some inspiration and I'll see you on the next one.