My Journey Of Keeping Planted Tanks: Rescape of RED EARTH to Mysterious Trail Part 1/2

The status of my main tank..RED EARTH... pathetic hor~~ die die need to rescape... haha all moss overgrown and some browning off due to the current hot weather..

First, special thanks to VSGenesis of AQ for contributing these used GEX soil, although the online review for this soil is not very good, but i am running low on budget and I am setting up low tech tank anyway so gex soil is better than no soil...:)

The soil are very damp as he just decommissioned them, so i spend a whole 2 days just to flush them with water and dry them off naturally under the sun... spend a lot of time shifting them from corridor to inside of the house as it suddenly rain... weird weather...:(

Special tanks to Eric of AQ for selling me these nice Lapis sand as i think my current lapis sand is not sufficient to make a slope... hehe a bucket full of lapis... washed for 2 hours as they are dirty and soak with boiling water to kill off any unwanted bacteria/virus/parasite...

introducing a very GOOD tool for cleaning sand and stuff.... the Sieve... i grab the biggest size i can find and look for the smallest hole available...cheap..less than 3 bucks.. can sieve off dust from sand and soil... highly recommended as it saves me a lot of trouble... btw, you can use your fish net but i find this easier as it has 2 hooks to hook on pail...

Welcome to my PAILRIUM(patent pending)... lol .. all my fish n shrimps are in there...

removed my plants and keep them constantly wet by spraying water

Sucked out the excess water and cleaned the "Red Clay" Soil/pallets.. the white pipe is a gravel cleaner, most hobbyist will know it is very useful tool

This is JBL kugeln balls, right is used for 5 months, left is new... still retain its shape inside my sand...:) not bad...

back pain.... all sand removed... clean glass and stuffs... see my slender and sexy leg reflection? lol... wait till you see the real legs... haha..just joking,i am already taken and i love my wife...:)

after a back breaking cleaning of sand using sieve, i put the "red clay sand(CS)" into a cloth bag for washing machine i bought from DAISO.... why pink colour? BRO, white colour ones out of stock and i can't find black colour ones.. i don't like the colour too but nobody is gonna see it anyway

Why i use this bag? it has a ZIP where i can open and close it properly... hehe you may be asking why i put them in this bag?? stay tuned boys and girls..

Pink CS pillow... anyone wanted to lie down on it?? hehe

Ok, here is the CS and a bag of CR i bought from seaview...

tah dah !!! slope in making... i am using them as a foundation for slope, for aeration of soil, for BB to grow and strive.... hehe 3 benefits in this trick...:)

left is a new DW from OTF, very NICE, right is the old DW from RED EARTH tank... hehe i reused the stuff as not to waste anything...:) Agak agak place the DW... hehe i only use my imagination and agak agak... agak agak means trial and error

As the Gex soil is old, i used UP Initial Fertilizer sticks as base for nutrient...:)

Here are the size of the fert in case you guys never use it before... 1 bag is enough for 2 feet tank.. so i just pour them everywhere. The black colour stuff is a divider to prevent sand and soil to be mixed together and to create a boundary feel.

initial stage of pouring the sand and soil... try to create a slope and slightly slanted trail alike feel

hehe, nice?

Added plants, rocks, needle fern, use back some of the plants from my RED EARTH tank...:)

In case you are wondering, the ammonia for first day is 2, quite high as i thought the GEX soil is already depleted of nutrients... but after 1 day, the ammonia dropped to 0...haha my old BB in the soil and filter wool is very very powerful....:)