dennisfermin

I love the simplicity and cost efect. sound of the soil subtrate method. I did test my first soil sample and unfortunately it did cause the ph to drop and as well as the buffering capacity. I was just wondering if this is common or are there many soils that will not effect the ph? My soil did contain peat which I have heard does effect the ph, but I've heard it's also good for plants, any thoughts on the matter? Thank you for you help!
Dennis

rs79

Diana said:
>so that you don't set up massive decomposition and anaerobic conditions in the substrate

Well... it's not all bad. For about 15 years now Jim Robinson and I have been putting manure, washers, steel wool, what have you under 5" of fine beach sand. They rust, but under anaerobic conditions the iron reduces to a form usable by plants. We've actually dug up pants whose roots all went for and wrapped around a washer, like a hungry beast going "Mmmmmm... iron".

As long as it's *locked in* by enough fine beach sand (1/5" of #2 silica wont cut it) then an extremely rich substrate does seem to work, and last about 10 years before healthy bunch of plants use most if not all of it up.

Besides, I don't know if you've noticed or not but if you pull up rooted water plants in the wild there is often a strong h2s smell indicating anaerobic conditions. It seems to be pretty natural.

Here's a pic of one of my tanks with this:

Tiapan

wow thats a lot of Crypts and they look great

t3chn0b0y

The whole thought of using a miracle grow product to house my fish in is a bit disturbing.
Has any one here really looked at the contents of some of their products. I wouldn't even
raise my vegtables in them. large traces of lead,mercury and arsenic.. for example
mircle grow seed starter soil contains 16.3 ppm arsenic.. I get left wondering if they get
their soils from nuclear waste sites and distribute it around the world to scatter it around,
instead of being charged for waste dumps, they make a "killing" in everyone's yards..and the
levels of mercury is staggering also.. http://agr.wa.gov/PestFert/Fertilize...asp?pname=2625

dawntwister

I used organic top soil. I my plants love it. It only cost $1 at Home Depot.

PlantMauller

I used a $1.96 bag of topsoil from Walmart. Works great:
http://aquaticamatuer.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/day-10/

Bob1

Wow, I am glad I found this site! I have a 90G tank and I am interested in setting up a natural planted tank. I am interested in mid to highlight plants. How much light would you recommend and where would you recommend I purchase it? Thanks in advance!

dawntwister

For lighting I just have 2 flouresant bulbs screwed into wall-mart tank top and light from a south window. Most of my plants hygrophila, java fern and sags. There are all growing.

Diana prefers a mix of sunlight and fluorescent lighting--one to two watts per gallon if the tank does not receive sunlight, less if the tank receives sunlight.

You can build an array of mirrors to concentrate sunlight if you need more than a window. Just cut a mirror into 1" x 1" tiles and siliocne glue one edge to a piece of wood. Use woodscrews on the back, two of them to adjust each tile in two axes. Info found.

Bob1

I have a coralife 130W fixture and I have an Eastern exposure I get a few hours of sunlight in Spring and Summer not to much in Autumn and none in the Winter beinng in Mn.

dawntwister

According to rs79 anaerobic conditions the iron reduces to a form usable by plants. As long as it's *locked in* by enough fine beach sand. Thus sometimes pulling up plants you also pull up some nasty stuff than can kill fish. Info found at other thread. Just wanted to make those whom use sand beware of problems others have had when transplanting plants.