New start. New approach.

One of the best things about not having a lot of tanks in operation at the moment (Wait, let's correct that...the ONLY good thing about not having a lot of tanks in operation at the moment...😆) is that it gives you the opportunity to plan, review, and plot your next moves. 

I'm in such a phase at home, with my house undergoing a substantial remodel and all of my "full-size" tanks in storage for a couple more months. As I've told you previously, it's given me the opportunity to play with a lot of ideas quickly in "nano-sized" aquariums. 

And of course, I've thought s lot about how I'm going to start up my next botanical-style tanks.

Here's an approach I'm trying on one of them. I call it the "transitional" approach.

Okay, we've tackled our "Urban Igapo" idea a bunch of times here, with the technique being described and studied quite a bit. Now, the repetition of wet and dry "seasonal cycles" in the aquarium, although fascinating and the most novel takeaway from this approach, is but one way to apply the idea of evolving a "dry forest floor" into an aquatic habitat.

This is one of the most incredible and fascinating ecological dynamics in Nature, and it's something that we as a hobby have not attempted to model to any extent, until we started messing around with the idea of replicating it around 2017. Again, we're not talking about replicating the 'look" of a flooded forest after it's been flooded...That has been done for years by hobbyists, particularly in biotope design contests. An "aquascaping" thing. 

This is a bit different. 

We're talking about actually replicating and flooding the damn forest floor! Replicating the cycle of inundation. It's a functional approach, requiring understanding, research, and patience to execute. And the aesthetics...They will follow, resembling what you see in Nature. But the primary reason is NOT for aesthetics... 

So, the way this would work is to simply set up the tank like our "standard" approach to creating an "Urban Igapo"- utilizing a sedimented substrate (um, yeah, we make one....) to create a "forest floor." And then, you add leaves, botanicals, and perhaps, some terrestrial grass seeds, and even riparian plants.

You'd set whatever "hardscape" you want- driftwood, etc. in place. Of course, you'd have to water your little forest floor for some period of time, allowing the vegetation to sprout and grow. Based on the many times of played with the "Igapo" idea, this process typically takes around 2-3 months to establish the growth well. 

And then what? Well, you'd flood it!

You could do this all at one time, or over the course of several  days, depending upon your preference. I mean, you've waited a couple of months to add water to your tank...what's another few days? 😆 Now, sure, there's a difference between a 5-gallon tank and a 50- gallon tank, and it takes a lot longer to fill, so it's up to you how you want to approach this!

And what you'd initially end up with is a murky, tinted environment, with little bits of leaves, botanicals, and soil floating about. Sounds like a blast, huh? And when you think about it, this is not all that different, at least procedurally, from the "dry start" approach to a planted tank...except we're not talking about a planted tsmnk here.. I mean, you could do aquatic plants...but it's more of a "wholistic biome" approach...

The interesting thing about this approach is that you will see a tank which "cycles" extremely quickly, in my experience. In fact, Iv'e done many iterations of "Urban Igapo" tanks where there was no detectible "cycle" in the traditional sense. I don't have an explanation for this, except to postulate that the abundance of bacterial and microorganism growth, and other life forms, like fungal growths, etc., powered by the nutrients available to them in the established terrestrial substrate expedites this process dramatically.

That's my theory, of course, and I could be way, way off base, but it is based on my experience and that of others in our community over the past several years. I mean, there is a nitrogen cycle occurring in the dry substrate, so when it's inundated, do the bacteria make the transition, or do they perish, followed by the very rapid colonization by other species, or..?

An underwater biome is created immediately with this approach. Doing this type of "transition" is going to not only create a different sort of underwater biodiversity, it will have the "collateral benefit" of creating a very different aesthetic as well. And yeah, it's an aesthetic that will be dictated by Nature, and will encompass all of those things that we know and love- biofilms, fungal growth, decomposition, etc.

I've done this in aquariums up to 10 gallons so far, with great success, so I'm completely convinced that this process can be "scaled up" easily. The technique is the same. 

Now, one fundamental difference between this approach and the more "traditional" "Urban Igapo" approach is that it's a "one way trip"- start our dry and take it to "wet", without going through repetitive dry cycles. The interesting thing to me about this approach is that you're going to have a very nutrient-rich aquarium habitat, with a big diversity of life from the start. 

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