# soil coming up when pulling plants



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

Anyone have tops on removing plants when you have a dirt tank capped by either sand or gravel?

I am starting to get lots of dirt and stuff on the top now and it bugs me. Siphoning only removes some bits.


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## TorontoPlantMan (Aug 16, 2013)

There is really no solution to that. I have a dirted tank as well and that happens almost every time I re-plant and every time pull up plants. That's one of the downside's to having a dirt tank, You have to set you aquascape how you want it and ultimately leave it that way.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

unfortunately I have to remove some vals and crypts once in a while


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

I've experienced this as well. Even worse, every time I do this, the muddy water causes a green water bloom.

It could be due to too thick of a soil layer. In my 20-gallon tank, I have a much thinner layer of soil, and I did not experience any significant turbidity when I pulled up my stauros and wisteria. However, I haven't tested this with the big bush of crypt.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I had one plant that had really long roots and came out covered in clay which there is a very thin layer of at the very bottom of the tank.

Sometimes I wonder about doing a dirt only tank, no cap but I believe that once you finally got the water clear, there wouldn't be much actual dirt left, just some chunks of wood that is in most potting soil. But this just might work for a low flow tank, but not sure if worth the work.


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## Mlevi (Jan 28, 2012)

pyrrolin said:


> Sometimes I wonder about doing a dirt only tank, no cap but I believe that once you finally got the water clear, there wouldn't be much actual dirt left, just some chunks of wood that is in most potting soil. But this just might work for a low flow tank, but not sure if worth the work.


Every time there was a little movement, dirt would rise like crazy. Also, it would release nutrients way too intensely for a long while after set up. It would look kinda nasty too. Visualize when you wet your dirt before capping it.

I'm thinking dirt capped by some sort of baked clay soil would be much better, but I don't have personal experience with it. It would be less expensive than the entire substrate being baked clay.

From the tanks I currently have, dirt capped by gravel is the least annoying when pulling up plants. Pulls up very little soil, which gets siphoned. I also have dirt capped with pea gravel, which is somewhat of a pain because the pea gravel size is too big to compact properly, but it doesn't show the dirt as much when plants pulled out. I also have dirt capped by play sand, which gets messy when pulling plants up. The soil is lighter than the play sand, so when it settles back, the sand is at the bottom, and the dirt on top in the area where plant pulled from. I siphon it up, but that reduces the life of the substrate due to the quantity of dirt pulled up. If one has the luxury of scaping once only, then play sand cap is the most esthetically pleasing, in my opinion. Then again, you have to be careful not to let gases build up in the substrate, as sand caps are very compact.

Al.


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## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

I find playsand to be a bad choice as a cap for dirt, its too fine, a more coarse sand can work


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