# John Innes Number 3



## dan4x4 (2 Mar 2016)

Hi,

So today I have been and looked for miracle grow organic compost, couldn't find it anywhere. I could find John Innes number 3 and according to aquarium wiki its ok to use it.

Ive read a few posts which has raised some questions..
1. According to a post on here the compost Im planning on using will increase water hardness, does anyone know how much by roughly? I live in a soft water area 18mg/l according to my water suppliers website.
I had bought bone meal to mix with the compost but not sure if I should? I would like to keep neons in the tank. Maybe at some point invest in a loach as I have snail over population. which will undoubtably get worse once I stop using Glut.

2. Im planning to change over tomorrow. Ive read to soak the soil 12 hours in advance, will the water be ok from the tap or will I have to add prime in? The water has chlorine in it, which you can taste faintly, not chloramine.

3. Do I need to add clay or red clay at all?

Maybe I should add that I'm looking to have this tank as a low tech/low cost aquarium. Healthy fish and plants is my goal.

All feedback welcome, thanks
Dan


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## Jamie McGrath (2 Mar 2016)

I read this artical on another forum. It is a good step by step guide of how to do it. The guy dose recomend using clay!

http://www.tropicalfishforums.co.uk/index.php?topic=34731.0


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## Jamie McGrath (2 Mar 2016)

What I would like to know is how to you add the clay to the soil. The only clay ive every handled is in art class at school and I dont think it will be the same type. Dose the clay come squidgy or solid? if its squidgy do you just put in small lumps and if solid do you ground it up? I can find any descriptions or any vids on U tube.


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## Andy Thurston (2 Mar 2016)

Jamie McGrath said:


> What I would like to know is how to you add the clay to the soil. The only clay ive every handled is in art class at school and I dont think it will be the same type. Dose the clay come squidgy or solid? if its squidgy do you just put in small lumps and if solid do you ground it up? I can find any descriptions or any vids on U tube.


clay can be bought in powder form which you can mix with the ji3 before you wet it. I just used straight ji3



dan4x4 said:


> 1. According to a post on here the compost Im planning on using will increase water hardness, does anyone know how much by roughly? I live in a soft water area 18mg/l according to my water suppliers website.


it will raise kh but with a 50% weekly water change it wont be a problem


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## PARAGUAY (2 Mar 2016)

The Tutorial by Troi covers this in detail and further info by Plantbrain and others following on are well worth a read


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## dan4x4 (3 Mar 2016)

Well I'm about to start, Im going to get a plastic storage box to put the fish and plants in while I do the change over, this way I can utilise the water that is already in the aquarium. 

Im going to have a bucket for all the gravel and tropica aquarium soil that is already in there.

Ive got a bucket to wash new gravel in

Finally I'm going to do the mixing of the dirt in the tank itself once its clean.

I understand that bone meal has iron in it so I'm going to add some bone meal to the soil rather than clay - see what happens!

I can also see a run to the LFS later on today, to get me some additional plants, if things work out then Ill also be going to get some more fish in a few days time!


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## dw1305 (3 Mar 2016)

Hi all, 





dan4x4 said:


> I could find John Innes number 3


"JI NO3" means that it has three times as much nutrients as "JI NO.1". You only need a very small volume (or very thin layer) of JI NO3 because it will add a huge amount of nutrients to your tank including ammonia. 





dan4x4 said:


> I had bought bone meal to mix with the compost but not sure if I should? I would like to keep neons in the tank.


JI mixes have limestone (CaCO3) added, and bone-meal is calcium "phosphate" (Ca5(PO4)3(OH)), so this will raise both dGH and dKH. For soft water fish, like Neon Tetra, you don't want to much of either hardness.





dan4x4 said:


> Do I need to add clay or red clay at all?


 You need some relatively inert material like clay or sand, clay will have a high CEC, which may be beneficial.

cheers Darrel


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## dan4x4 (3 Mar 2016)

Well, its done!


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## dan4x4 (3 Mar 2016)

only took 6 hours haha


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## dan4x4 (28 Apr 2016)

heres an update


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## dan4x4 (28 Apr 2016)

no plants added, just under 2 months growth, I'm really pleased with the results. Im still deciding on a red plant to go in at the back left, I'm thinking a red tiger lotus


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## dan4x4 (2 May 2016)

with regards to the soft water, i have a load of coral looking rock kind of stuff in garage, I smashed in into stones and stuck it in the filter.


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