# soil based aquarium



## RF_Guy (Sep 13, 2008)

Hi, I decided to do a small experiment and set up a low-tech planted soil as a nutrient rich substrate aquarium (30 gal, Light 65 Watts 6800K).
This tank is one week old and and still work in progress. No fish yet. Some plants didn't take off (vals and some stem plant, no idea what it's name is) Bacopa and Mayaca were the latest additions. I still do not have enough moss to attach it to the driftwood. It is slowly growing in the right corner. I am a newbie in aquarium hobbie and would like to know when I can add cherrie shrimps to my set-up? Also I would appreciate any advice from anyone who has experience with soil based tanks. Currently I am adding some liquid ferteizers (N, P, K, Trace Elements) as I read it will take few weeks until soil will start releasing nutrients. In the future I am planning to add Seachem Excell only or will install CO2 if I can find it cheap. 

Thanks!


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## Mr Fishies (Sep 21, 2007)

Looks sharp - nice layout.

I think you'll like the method once the tank stabilizes. I've built several soil substrate tanks and had very good results with them. Never really needed to fertilize though, except maybe some traces between water changes. The soil always provided nutrient from the get go. You want your plants to develop roots and feed off the nutrients in the soil more than the water, so fertilizing your water may inhibit that "transition" or overload with nutrients and lead to algae. Just a thought.


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## RF_Guy (Sep 13, 2008)

Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. I guess I did not believe in soil method enough to stop pouring liquids  but I will try to to stop any fertilization now and see what happens.


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Wow that looks amazing, but it does look incredibly similar to another tank I saw. 

One of the big lessons I learned about soil-based so far is to be careful when aquascaping. It's very easy to kick up a lot more soil into the water colum than when using commercial "aquarium soil"


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## Mr Fishies (Sep 21, 2007)

Shattered's right. Whenever possible, avoid pulling stems plants when trimming. Top them instead or replanting, or just lift them a bit and cut them off close to the gravel as possible (like a phillishave!). Depending on the plant, the stems either grow back or die off when you do this - most will grow back.

I only pull plants out at the roots when I don't want them at all in that area any more.


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## RF_Guy (Sep 13, 2008)

oh yeah! I saw how messy it can get while planting crypt. it cleared up fairly quickly, but for 15 min I was not able to see anything. Plus there will be lots of nutrients in water comumn for awhile I think.


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## patrice (Dec 31, 2006)

I had a few soil based planted tank and I have learn one thing from that: DON'T!  
I had great results with soil but as some said, you can mess the water with that. Also, the bad thing about soil is that it will leak ammonia in the water which will trigger algae. That's why I said DON'T  . 
However, you can cook the soil for a good 30min to an hours at high heat to turn the ammonia into No3. That way, your soil become #1

By the way, I had a few other tanks with clay based substrat. Results are amazing! I invite any one to give a try to that but do not ever move that soil. The best clay to use is the following: Pink Clay from ArgileTZ

Once again: Nice Tank


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## I_dude (May 9, 2008)

Where does one get pink clay from in Toronto?

Thanks


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

The only place I could find were on the ArgileTZ website and they are located in Longueil QC.

ARGILETZ CANADA
665 BLD JP VINCENT
QC J4G 1R3
LONGUEUIL
[email protected]


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## RF_Guy (Sep 13, 2008)

Can you please give more details on pink clay? Is pink clay very different from Laterite? What nutrients available to the plants does it contain?
Also I am testing for ammonia, but readings are always at Zero. I am pouring in Stability every day though. 
I did some reading in the meantime. Seems that ammonia would leak out of soil for first few weeks only (which might even help cycling the tank without adding any fish to it). Large water changes were recommended during first week until ammonia goes down. I see small signs of green hair algae developed overnight in one area. I will try to add some cherry shrimps to control it.


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## patrice (Dec 31, 2006)

Hi! 
I search a little and only found information in french  . If you can read it, here is a nice article on AquaQuébec. Since this article was posted on the forum, many tried and got great results with that clay.

Here is what it is made of:
- SiO: 50,9%
- Al2O3: 32,4%
- Fe2O3:4,4%
- CaO: 0,32%
- MgO: 0,3%
- Na2O: 0,007%
- K2O: 2,6%
- TiO2:0,007%
- P2O5: 0,2%

The only big problem is the mess it can make when you move the substrate. As for ammonia testing, I had no luck testing it. It does not take much to make a problem and sometime I wonder how good are our ammonia test.


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## Calmer (Mar 9, 2008)

Here it is translated:
http://translate.google.com/transla...articles/entry/29/&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=fr&tl=en


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## patrice (Dec 31, 2006)

ho great! and the translation is not to bad


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## Mr Fishies (Sep 21, 2007)

I think that clay as a component of your substrate is a workable idea, but a pure clay substrate can be very high in iron content which could be it's own batch of problems should the very fine particulates of clay make it into the water column during maintenance.

Assuming the soil used has a lot of organics and is high in ammonia, much of it can be removed by simply airing out soil in a thin layer on plastic for a day or two before set-up. If time permits and that same soil can be soaked and then dried out again a few more times it encourages bacterial activity and serves to further break down organics, remove ammonia and convert a lot of the nutrient in the soil to forms more readily usable by plants and chelation of iron will make it less prone to entering the water column.

Saying don't use soil but use clay is a lot like saying don't use Eco Complete, use Fluorite. It just a different method with different pros and cons. People have success using all kinds of different methods to grow plants and keep fish healthy and happy. Soil (3 different kinds) has worked well for me in 5 different tanks, some have been running continuously for years.


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## I_dude (May 9, 2008)

I'll second you on that Mr.Fishies.
Actually you were the inspiration for me to try a soil based aquarium in the first place.

And while I had problems with ALgae to begin with, once I figured out what I was doing all that dissappeared. I couldn't be happier with it.
I reckon a soil based aquarium is the closest you can get to an almost closed loop system


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

I'll third that opinion. I've got one tank running soil and another running eco-complete. So far I've had more algea issues with the eco-complete than with the soil based tank.


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## RF_Guy (Sep 13, 2008)

Just an update.
I measured ammonia today again, it is around 0.25 ppm. I think Stability really helps by providing beneficial bacteria. Also I read a thread about ADA Amazon soil and many people there recommended the following schedule for a soil based tank:
1st week water changes 50% daily
2nd week water changes 50% every other day
3rd week water changes 50% two times a week
and so on...
They said that it was recommended by Mr.Amano. Seems like a lot of work and a bit too late fo me. On the other hand Diana Walstad in her "Ecology of Planted Aquarium" doesn't mention anything about water changes in initial stages and very infrequently later on. I will stick with Diana for now as I am too lazy  and because this whole experiment was inspired by her book.
I added activated carbon to remove nutrients from water column just in case. Algae is visible in one area only and not spreading for now. I added shrimps yesterday and they seem to be feeling fine.


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Another tip for you to keep in mind, this one I got from Tom Barr's website in the beginners guides; 

"Learn one method and learn it well. "

My take is that wether you are planning on a hi-tech, low-tech, Natural etc... tank, pick a style and stick with it. If not, you'll probably have problems. For example, like you just mentioned. "...it's too late for that now..."


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## sawman88 (Sep 29, 2008)

what kind of soil do you use exactly?


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## RF_Guy (Sep 13, 2008)

Shattered, that is so right... unless you really know what you are doing  
Sawman, I am using pond soil I got from local nursery. It does contain quite a bit of organic like small sticks and roots, I tried to clean it as much as I could. 
The idea was to make this tank low-tech and as cheap as possible.


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