Aqua Soils

[Art]

There is almost no aqua soil in my country, so I was using mainly gravel plus root tabs and liquid ferts, is this enough as I am reseting my tanks after neglecting them for months and want to do it the right way this time (hopefully)?

This is the inert substrate way. Provided the gravel you're using isn't too big, it should work like any other inert substrate.

 

[Unexpected]

There is almost no aqua soil in my country, so I was using mainly gravel plus root tabs and liquid ferts, is this enough as I am reseting my tanks after neglecting them for months and want to do it the right way this time (hopefully)?

I would go with smaller grain size over the larger gravel sizes, but yes it's fine to use.

 

[Unexpected]

very messy

I would like to avoid this if possible.

Landen so far is holding up really well 3 months in.

I really like Landen for this reason. I believe @GreggZ and @Burr740 have used it going on 4 or 5 years. That's pretty impressive and a big plus.

 

[Freshflora]

I would go with smaller grain size over the larger gravel sizes, but yes it's fine to use.

You want to avoid anything below 1mm for planting purposes per 2hr aquarist and my own experiences, below that and you will have compaction issues and the substrate can be too light to plant in and become messy. 1-5mm is generally the sweet spot range. FWIW that also happens to be the range of grain sizes for Landen aquasoil.

@ayman.roshdy I highly recommend you read through both of Burr’s journals on plantedtank if you haven’t already. IMO they are required reads for any high tech freshwater planted tank hobbyist, but especially so for those with inert substrates.

For anyone doubting if they can have good planted tanks with inert subs, just take a look at Marian Sterian, Joe Harvey and Gregg’s inert substrate tanks. An example of one of Marian’s tanks with inert substrate similar to what Gregg and Joe/burr used:

 

[Art]

No doubting it. Do they enrich the inert substrate with root tabs?

 

[Freshflora]

No doubting it. Do they enrich the inert substrate with root tabs?

I believe @GreggZ does not. Joe at least used to before he switched to aquasoil, he would sparingly use some osmocote. Marian usually does, he uses his brand’s root tabs which unfortunately don’t have a detailed ingredient breakdown.

 

[Unexpected]

Any know which gravel the NBAT people use?

The English version voor site

The English version voor site

online.fliphtml5.com

 

[SingAlongWithTsing]

Black diamond blasting sand 20/40 grit, I imagine you can get similar results with just sand

Tsing's 125 -> 180

www.plantedtank.net

saf-t-sorb + vermiculite (dont ever use vermiculite unless you like glitter bombing your tank after every rescape)

Tsing's 125 -> 180

180 Gallon WIP https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/tsings-125-180.1121050/post-11481711 Safe-t-sorb and Vermiculite Set Up Tsing's 125 Hybrid - IAPLC 2020 - Rank 840 Soil Set Up Tsing's 125 Hybrid - IAPLC 2020 - Rank 840 IAPLC 2024 Details IAPLC 2020 Details IAPLC 2019 IAPLC 2018...

www.plantedtank.net

saf-t-sorb + vermiculite (dont ever use vermiculite unless you like glitter bombing your tank after every rescape)

Tsing's 125 -> 180

180 Gallon WIP https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/tsings-125-180.1121050/post-11481711 Safe-t-sorb and Vermiculite Set Up Tsing's 125 Hybrid - IAPLC 2020 - Rank 840 Soil Set Up Tsing's 125 Hybrid - IAPLC 2020 - Rank 840 IAPLC 2024 Details IAPLC 2020 Details IAPLC 2019 IAPLC 2018...

www.plantedtank.net

and yeah saf-t-sorb is kinda light plus spacing between the grains isnt all that great for thinner stem plants or plants with small roots. if you decide to go with saf-t-sorb let the plants grow in a bit before moving fish in

 

[Unexpected]

Black diamond blasting sand 20/40 grit, I imagine you can get similar results with just sand

Tsing's 125 -> 180

www.plantedtank.net

saf-t-sorb + vermiculite (dont ever use vermiculite unless you like glitter bombing your tank after every rescape)

Tsing's 125 -> 180

180 Gallon WIP https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/tsings-125-180.1121050/post-11481711 Safe-t-sorb and Vermiculite Set Up Tsing's 125 Hybrid - IAPLC 2020 - Rank 840 Soil Set Up Tsing's 125 Hybrid - IAPLC 2020 - Rank 840 IAPLC 2024 Details IAPLC 2020 Details IAPLC 2019 IAPLC 2018...

www.plantedtank.net

saf-t-sorb + vermiculite (dont ever use vermiculite unless you like glitter bombing your tank after every rescape)

Tsing's 125 -> 180

180 Gallon WIP https://www.plantedtank.net/threads/tsings-125-180.1121050/post-11481711 Safe-t-sorb and Vermiculite Set Up Tsing's 125 Hybrid - IAPLC 2020 - Rank 840 Soil Set Up Tsing's 125 Hybrid - IAPLC 2020 - Rank 840 IAPLC 2024 Details IAPLC 2020 Details IAPLC 2019 IAPLC 2018...

www.plantedtank.net

and yeah saf-t-sorb is kinda light plus spacing between the grains isnt all that great for thinner stem plants or plants with small roots. if you decide to go with saf-t-sorb let the plants grow in a bit before moving fish in

Thank you for posting this. I’m currently running pool filter sand but I let the wife pick the color which I don’t like. After doing some reading, I want to move to a 1mm-2mm particle size. It would be a fish in swap, and very much want to avoid large dust and ammonia periods and hopefully find something that lasts the life of the tank.

 

[Grobro]

Is there an economical Aqua Soil out there I might be missing? If I went with Landen, I’m still looking at about 500 bucks. This is a tough sell to my wife, whom I promised we wouldn’t ever switch substrates again .

Consider using less soil overall...Bags of crushed pumice or some kind of crushed stone in media bags to build up height - using something more large grained as your base layer. Then lay down a layer of a gravel type of substrate with root tabs thrown on. Then put bags of aquasoil on top of that. If you do it right, the gravel wont come to the top. I did exactly this method in my first IAPLC tank in the photo here. It worked well. I ended up putting black sand on top strictly for aesthetic purposes. I wanted jet black graphic looking black and green aesthetic.

The early photos probably look a bit crazy, I was playing around with ideas at that stage.

The base layer I use is old ADA Powersand, the large nutrient enriched pumice. However, I reuse it by putting it in media bags. I don't need the nutrients I just want the larger grain/gravel size to build height.

I think Aquasoil is great as a thick top layer but I don't think it is necessary all the way through. If you think about layers of soil and sediment, this method kind of follows nature, but in my case I did it for structure and height.

 

[Unexpected]

Consider using less soil overall...Bags of crushed pumice or some kind of crushed stone in media bags to build up height - using something more large grained as your base layer. Then lay down a layer of a gravel type of substrate with root tabs thrown on. Then put bags of aquasoil on top of that. If you do it right, the gravel wont come to the top. I did exactly this method in my first IAPLC tank in the photo here. It worked well. I ended up putting black sand on top strictly for aesthetic purposes. I wanted jet black graphic looking black and green aesthetic.

The early photos probably look a bit crazy, I was playing around with ideas at that stage.

The base layer I use is old ADA Powersand, the large nutrient enriched pumice. However, I reuse it by putting it in media bags. I don't need the nutrients I just want the larger grain/gravel size to build height.

I think Aquasoil is great as a thick top layer but I don't think it is necessary all the way through. If you think about layers of soil and sediment, this method kind of follows nature, but in my case I did it for structure and height.

thank you. Stunning tank you have there.

 

[Art]

I've tried using an underlayer of cheaper material capped with a decent amount of AquaSoil. It's certainly possible but the trip is to make sure to use media bags or some sort of container. Otherwise, every time you uproot plants, it creates a mess. I've used lava rock and pumice stone in the past.

 

[Grobro]

thank you. Stunning tank you have there.

Thanks. Aquasoil can be a mess to dig out when you go to reset the tank so using media bags at the base layer really helps. If you go the method of middle layer being gravel I wouldn't use bags there, you want it to spread evenly and within the crevices of the layout like soil does. But definitely use bags for the base. The largest bags you can find that way you can spread them thinner. If you go with small media bags they end up like fluffed pillows and cover way less area. Plus you end up with a ton of bags versus just a couple.

 

[*Ci*]

I had lava filled media bags under the ADA Aquasoil in my tank’s first iteration and found it really hard to move plants around once their roots grew into the mesh. They had to be ripped out.
Then when I removed the bags during a complete rescape, I found them full of old, rotting roots. Is there some way around this or do you just ignore and carry on?

 

[Hanuman]

I had lava filled media bags under the ADA Aquasoil in my tank’s first iteration and found it really hard to move plants around once their roots grew into the mesh. They had to be ripped out.
Then when I removed the bags during a complete rescape, I found them full of old, rotting roots. Is there some way around this or do you just ignore and carry on?

You want these bags to be as deep as possible to mnimize what you experienced. No matter the case though, roots will end up going all the way down anyway so you can’t really prevent this. It also depends what type of plants are basically on top of those bags and how old your scape is. Some plants like echinodorus or cryps for example will send roots all over the place.
There is another way to build height though. You can use drainage cells then fill with fravel/pumice/lava rock followed by your prefered substrate.

 

[GreggZ]

I believe @GreggZ does not. Joe at least used to before he switched to aquasoil, he would sparingly use some osmocote. Marian usually does, he uses his brand’s root tabs which unfortunately don’t have a detailed ingredient breakdown.

I never enriched the substrate with inert soil. And joe adds only VERY small amounts. A few osmocote balls under a few plants, but never a full cap full.

Here's my tank with inert. Honestly you can have a great tank with either. The same important things still matter. Get those right and the substrate makes little difference.

With a large tank, I would likely go with BDBS . It's just so cheap and is very easy to plant in and work with.