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Soil Substrate or Dirted Tank - A How to Guide

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I never thought i would buy panties to put in my tank.. 😳 The girl in the shop laughed when i explained why i wanted them and said "They all say that" :shy:
 
After being inspired by this great guide, I aim to set up my new tank in the same manner. I went out today and purchased some aquatic compost, and some Irish moss peat. I notice that the aquatic compost I have says that it's based on garden peat, clay and sand. The Westland aquatic compost in this guide seems to be loam based. With that in mind do you think that I should mix my aquatic compost 50/50 with the Irish moss peat. By the way the water in my area has a very high GH and KH. Here's a couple of photos of what i have bought.
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With peat already in the soil,I might mix 70% aquatic soil and 30% peat or 80% soil,20% peat.
50/50 mix I think will turn tank deep tannin stained color and large water changes with hard alkaline water, might create large change in water chemistry with each change albeit temporary.May or may not affect Fauna over long period.
I used plain top soil and peat /cat litter mix in my last dirted affair.at 70% topsoil,20% peat.and 10% cat litter.
 
Thanks. I thought that might be the solution.


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This is a great post, thank you

Can you please help me with a couple of points I'm not clear on?

1. Once the substrate is immersed, is it recommended to do one or two water changes (like with the DSM) or should the substrate be left alone to mineralize? If so, when should these water changes be made?

2. Assuming there's wood in the tank (for aquascape purposes), how is mold on the wood dealt with? I have personal experience with this and it was very unpleasant. If we take out the wood to clean it, won't that disturb the substrate and screw up the aquascape?

3. To continue from the above, would 2-3 water changes immediately after immersion help minimize mold risk, or would that water down the soil and deplete it of nutrients?

4. Would you recommend the use of commercially available bacteria solutions or cycled filter media, in order to shorten the tank cycling time? Or maybe that would screw with the mineralization process?

Thank you
Costa
 
Hi
1. The info you need is under the heading - Water Changes - in the tutorial.
2. Mouldy wood often occurs until the scape reaches biological maturity, it will eventually disappear. In the meantime, once the tank has cycled and it's safe to introduce critters, Amano shrimp will eat it.
3. No, I very much doubt it.
4. It wouldn't hurt... but I just plant heavily from the outset. The bacteria on the plants will be sufficient. Look under - Rate of mineralisation - in the tutorial.
 
I'm inspired too
Now this may be a silly question how do you measure the peat and the soil ?
Obviously the aquatic soil is dense compared to peat

1. So is it best to wet them both and do equal quantities by volume ?

2. So the aim is to put down a base layer 1" thick of the soil peat mix ? Wet or dry ?



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It's not an exact science, usually I just dump approximately 1:1 in to an old washing up bowl straight from the bag and mix.
If the bag is new or been kept sealed there is usually enough moisture already; you just need enough so it holds its shape. It's easier to sculpt and cap that way.
1 - 2" is fine.
 
Hi ,

I'm in the process of changing my substrate to Seachem black sand (from Seachem flourite) and wanted to create a hill as you did in your example.

Can I ask if it's a bag of gravel that you used for that? Can I also ask what the bag is made of? Is it some sort of stocking?

Thanks and regards

Will
 
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